Bill Dries
Reporter
Bill Dries covers city and county government and politics. He is a native Memphian and has been a reporter for almost 50 years covering a wide variety of stories from the 1977 death of Elvis Presley and the 1978 police and fire strikes to numerous political campaigns, every county mayor and every Memphis Mayor starting with Wyeth Chandler.
There are 3895 articles by Bill Dries :
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December 2018
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City of Memphis Memphis City Council members have rejected gas, water and electric rate hikes proposed by Memphis Light, Gas and Water Division. On three separate 3-7 votes Tuesday, the council voted down the rate hikes to take effect in 2019 and again in 2021 across all three divisions of the publicly owned utility. -
City of Memphis Graceland says it’s willing to delay arena plans to get money for other attractions
There are plans to make two more Hallmark movies in Memphis next year, according to the managing partner of Graceland Holdings LLC. -
City of Memphis City Council rejects Logan, punts filling vacancies to new year
Memphis City Council members put off filling three empty seats on the council Tuesday at their last meeting of the year. -
City of Memphis Bond bid for council seat sidelined by diagnosis
Theryn Bond got some bad news in her quest to get the appointment to the open City Council District 6 seat. -
City of Memphis City Council’s 3 empty seats take center stage
The Memphis City Council has three empty council seats to fill Tuesday. And if the 10 council members can’t break the gridlock that has delayed the appointment to the first of those vacancies, there will be more calls for special elections to fill all three. -
City of Memphis Change is constant in newly published Overton Park history
Brooks Lamb was making final edits on his book about Overton Park when he found out the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art was planning a move out of the park to Downtown Memphis. -
City of Memphis Candlelight vigil to mark one year since removal of Confederate monuments
A candlelight vigil Thursday in Health Sciences Park will mark the one-year anniversary of the removal of Confederate monuments there and from Memphis Park. -
City of Memphis TDZ expansion approved for second convention center hotel
The Tennessee Building Commission's executive committee has approved an expansion of the Downtown Tourism Development Zone for a second convention center hotel in Memphis. -
City of Memphis Parks Partnership keeps River Garden active in first month
The River Garden at Mississippi River Park has a few unexpected additions. Since the park at the Wolf River Harbor was revamped as a more active setting about a month ago, a hawk and a bobcat have taken up residence. -
City of Memphis Burson campaign photos show new political reality
Charles Burson began with the certainty that he was taking pictures of what would be Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign march to the presidency. That belief and his political experience influenced how and where the Memphis attorney and former Tennessee attorney general framed what he shot. -
City of Memphis City Council fields narrow for appointments
Ten citizens have applied for one of the two latest vacancies on the Memphis City Council, and 16 have applied for the other. -
City of Memphis NAACP concerned about ‘attempt to racially gerrymander’ council
The Memphis Branch of the NAACP says the Memphis City Council should have consistent rules for filling vacancies on the body and suggests a special election if the council remains at an impasse in filling the three open seats at its Tuesday meeting. -
City of Memphis Nonprofits see conflicting dynamics in city’s need
For the last 20 years, First Baptist Church on Broad has celebrated Thanksgiving with a dinner at the church that includes the homeless. A group of men from the church deliver hot Thanksgiving meals to around 1,000 more people that day as well. -
City of Memphis Council contenders: Who’s in the mix for three open city council seats
All three open positions on the Memphis City Council are in play starting Thursday at noon, the deadline for those interested in the District 6 seat and the Super District 8 Position 2 seat to file their applications with the council office. -
Education Ray named interim Shelby County Schools superintendent
Joris Ray, Shelby County Schools' chief of academic operations and school support, is the school system’s interim superintendent starting with the departure of SCS superintendent Dorsey Hopson next month. -
City of Memphis Lamar to lead new city solid waste division
A former joint staff doctrine planner at the Pentagon and Williams Sonoma executive will run the city’s newly formed Solid Waste Division and carry out Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland’s bid to improve the city’s garbage pickup services. -
State Government Memphis attorney named chief deputy of Tennessee attorney general’s office
Jonathan Skrmetti, a partner at the Butler Snow LLP law firm and former federal prosecutor in the Memphis office of the U.S. Attorney for the Western Division of Tennessee, is the new chief deputy of the Tennessee attorney general’s office. -
City of Memphis City Council calls six a quorum, as four hire attorney
Six Memphis City Council members on Tuesday, Dec. 11, approved 39 resolutions from the delayed Dec. 4 agenda as the four members not present sent their lawyer to the special session at City Hall. -
City of Memphis Pleasant led Election Commission through changes, challenges
In three decades on the Shelby County Election Commission, 24 of them as chairman, O.C. Pleasant oversaw changes from lever voting machines to electronic machines to touch-screen machines and dodged an attempt to introduce punch-card voting in local elections. -
City of Memphis Ballot Basics: The Elections of 2018
The last vote count of a busy election year is certified and in the books. -
City of Memphis City Council gives quorum call another try Tuesday
Within minutes of each other and just a few yards apart at City Hall last week, council members Joe Brown and Berlin Boyd each told reporters the vacant and hotly contested council District 1 seat is “the people’s seat.” -
Education Hopson says still too many older schools at his exit from SCS
Before he leaves his position as superintendent of Shelby County Schools at the end of January, Dorsey Hopson said he will have some “food for thought” for the SCS board on the size of the school system – the number of schools in the city of Memphis and unincorporated Shelby County, including charter schools and schools run by the state through the Achievement School District. -
City of Memphis Week ends without City Council quorum as District 1 stalemate continues
On the fourth consecutive day of what Memphis City Council chairman Berlin Boyd calls “the situation,” the council again could not muster a quorum of seven members to transact business. -
State Government The Daily Memphian Conversation: Tennessee Gov.-Elect Bill Lee
Tennessee Gov.-elect Bill Lee talked with The Daily Memphian at Muddy’s Bake Shop + Coffee in Cooper-Young before he spoke at the Greater Memphis Chamber’s annual luncheon Thursday, Dec. 6. Here is a transcript of the conversation, edited for clarity. -
State Government Lee points to criminal justice reform, shift of public education as budget priorities
Tennessee Gov.-elect Bill Lee says his first budget proposal will focus on capping growth in state government and shifting funds toward criminal justice reform and to more vocational, technical and agricultural education in public schools.
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