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 3907 articles by Bill Dries :
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.
‘We haven’t gone after those jobs ... that would make people drop everything and move to Memphis,' City Council member Martavius Jones said.
A proposed change in the utility’s debt policy could allow it to build a power generating plant, which would be key if MLGW cuts its ties to TVA, and pay for the plant with the savings to come from it.
Several dozen non-binding budget amendments were suggested in the Senate to make political statements. Meanwhile, there was a House vote on Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.
The link to city information on the “rebalance” includes a map to find your home as well as an app with reminders of the pickup schedule.
The state’s largest school system – Shelby County Schools – becomes the only school system in the state to have no in-person classes as Metro Nashville Schools resumes some in-person classes Thursday, Feb. 4.
Both areas of the city are part of Area E on the city’s solid waste map, an area that has had problems with solid waste service even before the pandemic.