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 4043 articles by Bill Dries :
At the noon Thursday, Feb. 17, filing deadline to get on the county primary ballot, there was only one contested Republican primary. But every incumbent Democratic official holding countywide office had challengers in the May primaries.
Election Commission Chairman Brent Taylor and Shelby County Commissioner Van Turner spoke on this week’s “Behind The Headlines.”
Memphis and Southaven have been in court over Mayor Jim Strickland’s plan to end any new sewer connections to North Mississippi in 2023.
Speaking Thursday, Feb. 17, at the Frayser Exchange Club, Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland said the city’s chronic power outages during frequent storms is mostly about the trees that dominate the city’s landscape. Strickland says any solution to the continuing outages will be expensive.
The deadline to get on the ballot is noon, Thursday, Feb. 17, and there were a lot of political moves up to the 24-hour mark for candidates to file their qualifying petitions with the Shelby County Election Commission.
The city is forming a citizens group to review the ice storm response and how recent power outages have been handled by Memphis Light, Gas and Water Division.
On the way to the deadline for the May county primaries, the race for a new Cordova County Commission seat has grown and there are early moves by state Rep. London Lamar on the August ballot.
The vote for cashless payments to get cars impounded by towing companies was unanimous.
The council debate was underway as state legislators were debating in Nashville. The common factor in both discussions was Memphis Police Chief Cerelyn “C.J.” Davis, who backed the bill in Nashville while outlining strategies to hire more officers who live in Memphis.
Also Tuesday, the council will consider opposing a bill in the Tennessee General Assembly that would outlaw any kind of residency requirement for police and firefighters.
“The river is a remarkable, remarkable sight right there at Tom Lee Park ... like the surface of a muscular dragon,” said David Alan Clark, who created the monument that was put in place 16 years ago.
Meanwhile, Jason Martin slams Gov. Bill Lee’s state of the state address and calls for the legalization of pot in all forms. And a look at the May and August ballots ahead of Thursday’s deadline to get on the May county primary ballot.
In his weekly email, Strickland said he isn’t recommending action at this point, but all options should be explored to cure how the city has been crippled by 14 major storms over the past 19 years, not counting the 1994 ice storm.
Judy Martin’s departure from the Shelby County Health Department was called a “retirement” at the time. Her lawsuit says she was forced to retire or be fired over problems in the vaccine distribution handled by the county.
Many of the incumbents on the August ballot showed up for the first day of the period to pull and file qualifying petitions to get on the ballot.
Memphis Light, Gas and Water officials say there have been no reported robberies of tree-trimming or utility crews during the current ice storm damage repair, although such problems have been an issue in the past.
Some elected leaders are already promising a long-term review of why outages continue to cripple the city for days at a time.
The Council Scorecard follows the latest turn in the path of a mixed-use project on prime Midtown commercial real estate on Union Avenue. The council is concerned about approving the hotel before residential or retail permits are issued.
Andre Mathis’ nomination as a federal appeals court judge advances to the full Senate as Republican U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee again opposed Mathis as “unqualified” and talked Thursday in Washington of “street talk in Memphis.”
In other action, the commission approved funding for the Shelby County Sheriff’s office to up recruiting deputy jailers, environment justice initiatives and a continuation of several pandemic initiatives.
MLGW pushes back its estimate to have all customers restored and begins looking to fix smaller outages. Related story:
The $56 million Memphis Sports and Event Center is the centerpiece of Liberty Park, which sits on the grounds of what was once the Libertyland theme park.
The utility missed its goal by about three percentage points, with more than 40,000 homes and businesses still without power as the temperature goes above freezing in the city.
The center, funded by AutoZone, has a specific goal of increasing Black representation in corporate C-suites and senior executive leadership.
Contenders seeking a place on the ballot of more than 100 races and potentially hundreds of candidates can begin pulling and filing qualifying petitions Monday in the second of three elections this year. Meanwhile, the May county primary ballot continues to take shape with its own overlapping deadlines.