Council presses TVA for details of coal ash disposal
Council resolutions to call for no coal ash disposal within the city and over aquifers that supply the city’s drinking water will be voted on in two weeks.
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Bill Dries covers city and county government and politics. He is a native Memphian and has been a reporter for more than 40 years.
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Council resolutions to call for no coal ash disposal within the city and over aquifers that supply the city’s drinking water will be voted on in two weeks.
The Memphis City Council members changed their minds about a used car lot in Raleigh. And, the council will vote on a pair of resolutions asking the TVA to avoid moving coal ash from the old Allen Fossil plant.
The resolution is not binding and the council cannot enact a mask mandate as it did previously because the state has blocked the ability for local governments to do so.
The Commission Scorecard also looks at a possible compromise to the stand-off over a new voting system that may be beyond reach.
County commissioners will vote Monday, Aug. 9, on a resolution urging the Shelby County Health Department to require masks be worn in public. Some on the commission are trying to avoid the politics of the county’s first mask mandate.
The attorney advising the Shelby County Commission would be separate from the county attorney’s office under a proposal on which the commission is expected to take its first vote Monday.
The demolition work now underway on a block of Jefferson Avenue west of Manassas Street is one of several changes to the Medical District landscape toward that end.
Shelby County commissioner’s exploratory committee for Memphis mayor is another indication that county Mayor Lee Harris will seek re-election next year.
Memphis Light, Gas and Water Division has issued the second of three RFPs — requests for proposal — in its process of determining whether to stay with the Tennessee Valley Authority or leave it for another electric power wholesaler.
City Council member Chase Carlisle distinguishes between the case for consolidation and the case for drafting a consolidation charter. He also acknowledges getting the votes to form a charter commission will not be easy.
The commission is the latest body to take up a call for a countywide mask mandate that would come from the Shelby County Health Department. The health department amended its latest health directive Friday to require all K-12 students in all schools – public and private – across the county to wear masks as the school year begins. Also on Monday’s agenda is a veto override.
The Shelby County Commission delayed action Monday, Aug. 9, on a resolution requesting a countywide mask mandate.
The veto override by the commission is the latest chapter in an ongoing dispute between County Commissioner Edmund Ford Jr. and Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris.
The delays to the Aug. 23 commission meeting followed a rancorous debate among commissioners and between commissioners and anti-maskers who taunted one commissioner online before Monday’s session.
The delay comes after all seven city mayors in Shelby County came out against the switch from a four-year reappraisal cycle to the two-year cycle approved earlier this year by the Shelby County Commission.
A proposed used-car lot in Raleigh has become symbolic of a much larger change in the council’s consideration of what development goes where and under what conditions.
The Shelby County Commission voted Monday, Aug. 9, to override the veto of a new ethics advisory panel the commission would appoint.
Tennessee’s two Republican U.S. Senators telegraphed their “no” votes well ahead of Tuesday’s vote, which was delayed over the weekend by Hagerty.
Shelby County Commissioner Mick Wright says even with recent changes in state laws this year, it’s unclear where the health department’s authority to issue mask mandates and require other measures ends and where decisions by elected officials begin.
All four House Republicans from the Shelby County delegation signed Sexton’s call for a special session.
The first step toward consolidation shows up on the City Council’s committee list for next week.
The data will help determine how districts are drawn for the Tennessee General Assembly and Congressional districts as well as the Shelby County Commission and the Memphis City Council.
Greater Memphis Chamber chief public policy officer Bobby White said planning construction could take a decade or more, most likely across the administrations of several presidents, governors and mayors.
One of the county’s most vocal advocates for a new voting system with hand-marked paper ballots says the push for such a system isn’t part of the national political movement that contends Donald Trump won the 2020 presidential election.
Tennessee’s two Republican U.S. senators were highly critical of President Joe Biden’s decision to withdraw U.S. military forces before his speech Monday, Aug. 16. They were more critical after the speech.