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 3909 articles by Bill Dries :
On Behind The Headlines, Republican Party Chairman Chris Tutor says “don’t vote Democrat” if you want to see Memphis have more power in the state capitol. Democratic Party Chairman Michael Harris says Republicans in state government are explicitly ignoring Memphis.
While presidential battleground states continue to count votes, the count in Shelby County is quietly moving toward completion with a large number of provisional ballots.
The response reflects Memphis’ Democratic majority that supported Biden, as well as statewide totals that gave Trump Tennessee.
A resolution by Edmund Ford Jr. on setting deadlines and milestones for the county budget season is on the County Commission’s agenda for Monday, Nov. 9.
The latest hiccup is a higher-than-expected contract for the University of Tennessee Health Science Center to run the county’s forensic center for the region, with the county dipping into its reserves for the difference.
Health department director Alisa Haushalter and Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris react to the wave of confirmed COVID-19 cases, and a bill that could usurp local authority.
The effort short of a statewide mask mandate includes a coalition of local leaders across West Tennessee. Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris said he is also working on a long-term plan for the county to continue to deal with the pandemic through 2021 and after federal CARES Act funding runs out at the end of December.
The chairman of the Shelby County legislative delegation to the Tennessee General Assembly talked about the issue on The Daily Memphian Politics Podcast.
Memphis is ahead of the curve in reversing the results of old rules and regulations that encouraged segregation and created pockets of poverty. So changes in the federal fair housing policy have had little impact.
Two conversations about police reform show the more detailed the proposed reforms become, the more differences they reveal.
A variety of community voices spoke out on police reform during two discussions last week.
The Memphis City Council agenda Tuesday also includes a new violent crime task force, a ban on bottled water at all city facilities post pandemic and the election of a new chairman for 2021.
The Shelby County Election Commission says its hand was forced by having to keep voting machines used in the November elections sealed until all results from that election are certified next week. Early voting in the two Collierville runoff elections starts Wednesday.
A new Shelby County Election Commission report shows nearly 15,000 more voters on the rolls counytwide in the last two months leading up to the Nov. 3 Election Day. Meanwhile, the Shelby County Voter Alliance says its effort got 2,500 of those voters on the rolls. The alliance of 18 organizations has now set its sights on the 2022 countywide ballot.
Council members set votes for Dec. 1 after getting answers to questions about both proposals.
Frank Colvett won election as City Council chairman Tuesday over Martavius Jones. But Colvett’s selection did not come without some controversy.
The task force is among the recommendations in a violent crime blueprint touted by council member Jeff Warren for the past year. Meanwhile, the city should have a new police director by the spring and the head of the MPD is a key player in such a task force.
With $500,000 in federal grant money, the small-scale pilot includes electric vehicle chargers as well as a broader reconsideration of how county government makes the decision of which vehicles to purchase.
The Council Scorecard dives deeper into the political winds blowing in what turned into a race for council chairman and the mixed results in a set of proposed convenience stores with gas pumps.
Council member JB Smiley is also seeking a change in council rules that would allow the chairman of the body to bar a council member who does what Ford did twice during Tuesday’s council meetings.
Increased restrictions designed to curb the rising COVID-19 numbers are likely coming soon, mayors were told Thursday.
Mayors from the West Tennessee counties outside Shelby County heard a pitch from Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris and others Thursday for a regional mask mandate. Harris says Gov. Bill Lee is unlikely to order a statewide mask requirement. The regional effort will move to one-on-one talks.
The mayors of Bartlett and Germantown are pushing Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee for a statewide mask mandate. Short of that, they’re working to create a county-by-county mandate among West Tennessee mayors.