Reporter
Bill Dries covers city and county government and politics. He is a native Memphian and has been a reporter for more than 40 years.
There are 3662 articles by Bill Dries :
The 2007 Memphis elections saw Willie Herenton elected mayor for the fifth time and the largest turnover of Memphis City Council seats in the 55-year history of the mayor-council form of government.
Here is everything you need to know about early voting in the Memphis elections and links to the ballot as well as a locator to figure out what council districts you live in.
The Shelby County Commission gave final approval Monday, Oct. 2, to a pair of ordinances calling on the Shelby County Sheriff to collect data on specialized units as well as traffic stops, use of force and citizen complaints. It rejected an ordinance asking the Sheriff’s Office to ban pretextual traffic stops.
U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen was among the Democratic majority voting for the bill, and Rep. David Kustoff was among the 126 Republicans who voted for it.
More than three-fourths of those who participated in an email survey said they want to move Memphis in May’s annual barbecue contest to Liberty Park.
The council is still considering partisan city primaries for the 2024 ballot, but did not vote on any proposal Tuesday. Here’s a rundown of other council matters.
Also on the commission agenda Monday, Oct. 2, are locations for a group of 30 surveillance cameras in the district of commissioner Edmund Ford Jr. One of the cameras is to be placed across the street from where he lives.
A year-old program to get children in poverty into pre-kindergarten classes earlier is part of a discussion on “Behind The Headlines” that took in larger questions.
None of the other 13 Memphis mayoral candidates on the ballot were in six figures, but these four spent six-figure sums on their campaigns throughout the summer. Election season’s final act starts as curtain goes down on early votingRelated story:
The last day of early voting is Saturday, Sept. 30, at 18 sites across the city. Next, the Oct. 5 election day will close out the campaigns for Memphis mayor and all 13 seats on the Memphis City Council.
An ongoing renovation of the historic church was paused Thursday, Sept. 28, for a look at new stained-glass images of the city’s turmoil in the 1968 sanitation workers’ strike.
The sixth and final chapter of The Daily Memphian’s series on the 50th anniversary of court-ordered busing within Memphis City Schools looks at the end of busing for integration, the legacy of Plan Z and its impact on Memphis in the 21st century.
The latest chapter in The Daily Memphian’s oral history on the 50th anniversary of busing in Memphis City Schools moves into the years of the late 1970s and early 80s.
More than 31,000 Memphians had voted early through Tuesday, Sept. 26, passing the totals for the same period during 2015 and 2019 city elections.
City would chip in $7 million to help low-income residents afford fiber — plus $15 million over 40 years to own part of the fiber’s capacity.
Memories of that first year under Plan Z still linger for those who lived through it.
The third chapter of The Daily Memphian’s oral history marking the 50th anniversary of busing in Memphis City Schools covers the arrival of Plan Z, the comprehensive plan to bus 39,000 children to racially integrate most of the city’s public schools.
This second part of The Daily Memphian’s oral history series marking the 50th anniversary of Plan Z begins with prophetic words from McRae’s December 1971 ruling that set the stage for Plan A’s implementation.
Half a century ago this month, 39,000 Memphis children — about a third of the then-Memphis City Schools system — were told to board school buses and continue their education at new schools in an effort to racially integrate them.Related story:
The proposals both go to Memphis City Council members Tuesday, Sept. 26, for discussion and could be added to the afternoon agenda for the first of three votes. The proposals come as Strickland has three months left in office.
J. Ivy has written and performed a new piece about Tom Lee to mark the opening of the redesigned riverfront park named in Lee’s honor. The work is the first in a series commissioned by the Mellon Foundation.
The full “Behind The Headlines” interview with Shelby County Sheriff and mayoral contender Floyd Bonner Jr. includes the candidate saying his law enforcement background will directly affect his relationship with whoever he would appoint as police director.
The underground fall-out shelter in the gated Lion’s Gate community was built in the early 1960s by Memphis radio and television pioneer Hoyt Wooten.
“That video should not have been released,” Bonner said in an interview on the WKNO-TV program “Behind The Headlines.”
The Daily Memphian celebrates its fifth anniversary by asking long-term writers to share a few of their favorite stories. Here are those stories and why the authors chose them, in their own words.