Reporter
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 :
The Thursday meeting will be the first look at some of the price quotes and other proposals to replace TVA as MLGW’s supplier of electric power. But there will probably still be some secrecy about who made what bid.
The city charter change still has plenty of time to make the November ballot. The council has already approved another ballot question on extending term limits for the August ballot.
The council also narrowed a plan to increase the pay of city employees to one that adds 1% to the pay of about 2,000 unrepresented employees.
A city council resolution calling for Memphis Police to not get involved in any escort of the former President if he comes through the city later this month didn’t make it to Tuesday’s council agenda.
Wednesday, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee made his first extensive public comments on a Monday executive order on gun violence in schools. “We’re not looking at gun laws right now,” he told reporters.
The commission voted to fund a new voting system with both touch-screen machines with a paper trail as well as hand-marked paper ballots.
For years, advocates have said MLGW could save hundreds of millions of dollars annually by leaving TVA and buying electricity from someone else. But savings of “huge dollars” didn’t materialize in the latest proposals from other providers.
Republican U.S. Representative says it’s “a seat at the table on issues such as taxes, trade and healthcare” for constituents in West Tennessee and the Mid-South region.
Dan Michael makes the case on “Behind The Headlines” for court reforms and changes in the police interactions with Black children. It’s a very different view than the one he took five years ago.
The Tennessee Democratic Party’s primary board ordered recounts for the Shelby County Commission Districts 7 and 11 races.
The inspections come amid reports of no air conditioning as summer temperatures reach dangerous levels this week.
Prices to attend Saturday’s event range from $9 a person to watch a live feed from an overflow room to a $3,995 “presidential” package that was recently changed to a “buy one, get one free” deal.
Code enforcement found 36 units with no air conditioning; 36 units had no hot water.
The City Council Scorecard examines a vote on a resolution to deny former President Donald Trump a police escort to his Saturday appearance in Southaven, Mississippi.
The Shelby County Election Commission has until Monday to complete the process for primary races that each got fewer than 3,000 votes.
The County Commission Scorecard tracks the votes on the end of the budget season and several unrelated longstanding controversies the commission got off its plate in a marathon June 6 meeting.
The former president, the headliner at a conservative political conference on Saturday, offered a preview during a speech in Nashville of what he is likely to say.
The ballot question would be the second amending the city charter in this election year. Also on the budget are Memphis Area Transit Authority funding and the city’s blight problem.
Flanagan, who is remembered for his signature shorts and flowered Hawaiian shirts, died June 15, ending a career that included involvement in the local Democratic Party’s executive committee as well as an organizer of the Midtown St. Patrick’s Day Pub Crawl.
On “Behind The Headlines,” Memphis City Court Judge Tarik Sugarmon said Juvenile Court Judge Dan Michael’s appearance on the show a week earlier looks like a change in Michael’s attitude toward juvenile justice reform but isn’t.
The recount requested by two second-place finishers in the May primaries and approved by the state Democratic party’s primary board did not change the certified results.
The ordinance was tabled Tuesday, June 21, by its council sponsor, Martavius Jones.
The council also discussed the riverfront’s Cobblestone Landing, a blight and illegal dumping task force and police escorts for Donald Trump’s Southaven speech.
The growing pool of property-tax funding is expected to reach the $30 million goal in the next seven to eight fiscal years — with city and county combined funding. City Council tables indefinitely ballot question to allow partisan primaries City Council rejects used-car lot on Elvis Presley BoulevardRelated stories:
The Memphis Branch NAACP and other organizations say problems at an early voting location ahead of the May county primary election day have prompted their push for paper ballots as a backup.