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 4046 articles by Bill Dries :
The city council's attorney has been bond counsel on 17 of the 18 Memphis Light, Gas and Water Division bond issues over the past 28 years. The relationship is being brought up again as the utility's relationship with TVA is being examined.
Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris talks about his $1.4 billion COVID pandemic county budget on The Daily Memphian Politics Podcast.
A new wheel tax proposal, a revenue hole from COVID-19 and a review of the city budget proposal.
The mask resolution was proposed as a rule requiring all within the city to wear coverings of some kind before some council members questioned how it could be enforced.
The money is to help businesses and communities get back on their feet from the economic blow that has accompanied the COVID-19 pandemic. But the city is still searching for new federal funding proposals that could be used to make up for more than $100 million in revenue losses the city is expected to take in the economic shutdown.
The mayors of Shelby County and all seven of its cities and towns have agreed on a plan for reopening businesses after 14 days of a stable or declining number of confirmed COVID-19 cases. But the math isn’t as simple as counting the numbers of cases and marking off days on a calendar.
The Shelby County Election Commission is preparing for an increase in absentee balloting in advance of the Aug. 6 election day.
Shelby County Health Department Director Alisa Haushalter says businesses should begin to prepare. Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris says a countywide alliance of mayors remains intact despite some rumblings in the suburbs.
The city's chief operating officer said on Behind The Headlines that the hospital is one example of how the pandemic has changed and will continue to change how the city addresses issues that existed before COVID-19 arrived.
Shelby County's suburban cities are beginning to expand on openings allowed under the first phase of the local "Back to Business" phased plan and will allow "close contact" businesses to open next week.
MICAH director Rev. Ayanna Watkins talks about bail reform, the digital divide and homelessness and the new look its getting with the urgency of the COVID-19 pandemic in Shelby County.
The director of the social justice organization says on The Daily Memphian Politics Podcast problems with online learning as schools closed and maintaining school lunch programs have opened the eyes of Memphians to long- standing problems.
Strickland has three possible options for a city budget proposal in the new fiscal year that starts July 1. Also on the council agenda is the first steps toward a $354 million MLGW bond issue, a resolution calling for no restrictions on absentee voting by mail and an ordinance to require face masks in all public places in the city.
In an online press conference Tuesday, Cohen also talked about offering mail-in absentee voting as an option to all in the November presidential general election.
Barber and beauty shops can reopen as early as Wednesday in Shelby County under new health department directives announced Monday.
The council moved $354 million in bonds closer to a summer issuance. But the bonds took a back seat to more maneuvering in the question of whether MLGW should continue its 80-year relationship with TVA. And in the process, it looks like one rival to TVA may have been ruled out.
Strickland says the city's $113.6 million federal CARES Act grant cannot be used to make up for revenue losses to the city as things stand now, causing a $40 million dip into the city's $78 million reserve fund without raising taxes, laying off employees or raising salaries for city employees.
Three days into the first round of local business reopenings, there are lots of questions about the specific safeguards businesses are to take.
The mayor says it’s time for residents in his community to “come out of our bunker and fight for our way of life again.”
Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee says the goals of preserving lives and livelihoods has been a difficult balance at times. And Tennessee Health Commissioner Dr. Lisa Piercey says testing statewide is moving toward focusing on clusters and outbreaks of the virus just as local health officials are making the same shift.
In today's COVID-19 task force briefing, Jennifer Randle, laboratory supervisor for the Health Department, did a face mask/face covering demonstration.
The CEO of Christ Community Health Services discusses her organization's response to the COVID-19 crisis.
Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris said there is “solid progress” on indicators of success, including testing capacity with an “upward trajectory."
As Gov. Bill Lee addresses the latest developments, Tennessee Department of Health announces 251 more confirmed coronavirus cases and three more deaths resulting from the disease.