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 3905 articles by Bill Dries :
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 Commission Scorecard also looks at a possible compromise to the stand-off over a new voting system that may be beyond reach.
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 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.
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 Shelby County mayor says a survey of county employees found that 70% had already been vaccinated.
The outline includes major funding for an expansion of broadband to parts of the city where connections were a problem as schools went to virtual learning last year.
Dr. Jason Martin of Nashville, a likely contender in the Democratic primary for governor, campaigned in Memphis this past weekend.
The Hernando DeSoto Bridge reopened to all traffic — eastbound and westbound — 84 days after is was closed when Arkansas bridge inspectors noticed structural damage to a box beam on the north face of the span.
Two resolutions come up in council committees Tuesday, Aug. 3. One urges TVA to keep coal ash from the old Allen Fossil plant out of the city, another seeks to have the ash taken outside the eight-state region where a system of aquifers provides water for Memphis and other cities.
A common presence at the two July town hall meetings within two days of each other was the city’s new police chief, who is feeling her way through different discussions on what is the most effective response to violent crime.
Dr. Michelle Fiscus spoke Saturday, July 31, at a local forum in Binghampton following a state Democratic party rally nearby. Democratic party leaders say Republican Gov. Bill Lee’s handling of the COVID pandemic will be an issue in 2022 state elections.
Shelby County Election Commission Chairman Brent Taylor said on The Daily Memphian Politics Podcast, that local Democrats want disputed election results, referring to the push for paper ballots, which he believes will lead to chaos.
Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris says it is too early to announce whether he will run for a second term. But local Democrats are anxious for an answer. Meanwhile the local Democratic party has a two-way race for a new chairman next month and the coalition for a “Moral Budget” talked about tax rate regrets at the “People’s Summit” in Whitehaven.
The pandemic’s return to Memphis was among the topics discussed in a reporters’ roundtable on the WKNO program “Behind The Headlines.”
The Tennessee Department of Transportation plans to move up the reopening of eastbound lanes of traffic on the Hernando DeSoto Bridge to Saturday evening, July 31.
A week after welcoming the public back to its sessions at City Hall, the Memphis City Council is reinstituting pandemic measures starting with the Tuesday, Aug. 3, committee sessions and the full meeting of the council later in the day.
The first step would be a commission to draft a charter for a combined city of Memphis and Shelby County government covering Memphis and unincorporated Shelby County but not the six suburban towns and cities.
Eastbound traffic will resume by Monday, Aug. 2, and westbound lanes will reopen Friday, Aug. 6. Crews will continue some work on the Hernando DeSoto Bridge even after the span across the Mississippi River resumes.
The Council Scorecard follows the saga of a used car lot in Raleigh that has come to symbolize the complexity of trying to move toward less-intense commercial development on major roads that have neighborhoods just behind them.
The National Civil Rights Museum plans to mark its 30th anniversary in late September with a “community celebration.”
The Tennessee Department of Transportation is expected to announce a more specific reopening schedule Wednesday, July 28.
The County Commission will soon have a panel of five to advise on ethics. One commissioner warns it could be seen as conflicting with the ongoing special prosecutor’s investigation into a 2019 grant proposed by Commissioner Edmund Ford Jr.
Brent Taylor says the County Commission decision to take its own bids on a new voting system “effectively bypasses” the Election Commission and “doesn’t indicate a willingness to work cooperatively.”
The surprise announcement last week at City Hall of a plan to truck the waste to a landfill near Memphis International Airport drew immediate criticism from City Council members. TVA isn’t pulling the plan but says will seek more public input.