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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.
There are 3663 articles by Bill Dries :
But a cutoff to large industrial water customers is a possibility if water pressure problems persist, MLGW President and CEO J.T. Young said Friday. Related article: Street clearing effort moves beyond major thoroughfares
Memphis, Light, Gas and Water’s water pressure situation has improved since Friday, but the utility organization’s president J.T. Young said it’s still “a critical patient.” He may have a better timetable Sunday on lifting the boil water advisory. Meanwhile, City Council members look at the water crisis.
About 700 students are affected. Rhodes President Marjorie Hass says the campus was having water pressure problems and made the move to help students and also answer MLGW’s call to conserve water during the crisis.
The city’s street plowing operation continues at least through Monday but begins to include less busy streets this weekend. Sun and warmer temperatures will help in the effort. But snow is still the dominant feature of the cityscape.
Low water pressure in Memphis Light, Gas and Water Division’s water grid prompted the utility to issue a rare boil water alert Thursday afternoon.
On “Behind The Headlines,” SCS board chairwoman Miska Clay Bibbs also said she is hearing from a lot of parents who will opt to continue online classes for their children — so many that she says it is possible some schools may have more teachers than students.
Here’s a review of some of the bills that would change elections in Shelby County and Tennessee. Some of them have been proposed before and others are new in the wake of the 2020 presidential election year.
On a party-line vote Tuesday, Feb. 16, the Shelby County Election Commission voted 3-2 to take the County Commission to court in the ongoing standoff over a new voting system for the 2022 elections.
Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland declared a citywide state of emergency Tuesday, Feb. 16, because of the ongoing winter storms.
The County Commission will discuss the call by Commissioner Mick Wright during Wednesday, Feb. 17, committee sessions. Wright said the current system needs to be reworked.
The Memphis City Council meeting scheduled for Tuesday, Feb. 16, has been postponed for a week as the city recovers from a Monday deluge of snow and sleet.
On The Daily Memphian Politics Podcast, City Council member JB Smiley Jr. says the Health Department needs “boots on the ground” in Black communities to remedy a racial disparity in who is getting the COVID-19 vaccines.
The state’s two Republican Senators telegraphed their votes for acquittal in former President Trump’s second impeachment trial days ahead of the Saturday vote to acquit that ended the trial.
Dangerously low wind chill readings and possibly significant snowfall forecast over next several days.
The County Commission Scorecard takes a look at votes from the Feb. 8 session.
The resolution from Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland going to City Council next week would include the city’s tallest building in the use of a PILOT extension fund and also include a parking garage in the “Snuff District.”
The coating of ice arrived just before dawn Thursday, after a night of rain and followed by a light snow by afternoon. It is expected to hang around into the weekend.
Related gallery:
Have an ice day – images from Memphis' winter weather
The letter to pastors and congregations from seven council members points to a racial disparity in the virus and death rates from the virus as well as testing that is now surfacing in vaccination numbers for the county.
Plans for the interactive sculpture were among several new riverfront developments, including Mud Island renovations, reviewed Tuesday, Feb. 9, by the Memphis River Parks Partnership board.
The project will widen a floodplain north of Big Creek for use as a recreational area with trails when the creek is low.
The delay by the Shelby County Commission also shows there may be a rift between commissioner Edmund Ford Jr. and his father, City Council member Edmund Ford Sr., on the issue.
The resolution, approved Monday, Feb. 8, in a unanimous vote, isn’t binding on the state. But it calls on the state to move teachers up in the vaccination line as a condition for reopening the state’s largest school system.
The recruitment ad was part of a series of ads planned as the department seeks to increase its force size.
Gov. Bill Lee’s third State of the State address Monday evening, Feb. 8, is already getting reaction from Democrats in the Legislature who say his response to the pandemic has been “too late, ended too early and did too little.”
Shelby County Commissioners vote Monday, Feb. 8, on first-phase funding of $5.9 million to start a Millington project that creates a broader flood plain for Big Creek and doubles as a recreational area when flood waters are low.