Reporter
Bill Dries covers city government and politics. He is a native Memphian and has been a reporter for more than 40 years.
1166 articles by Bill Dries :
While critical of the first draft of the IRP by Siemens consulting, the environmental group says it still makes a case for more renewable energy to generate electric power. The Sierra Club response also stops short of recommending cutting ties to TVA, saying the cost of transmission lines to rival MISO should be fully explored.
Memphis City Council members to discuss removing police from the city’s civil service system.
The Cordova headquarters opening spotlighted the only countywide race on the August ballot – the race for General Sessions Court Clerk between Democrat Joe Brown and Republican Paul Boyd.
The public comment period on the first draft of the study that plays a crucial role in whether the city-owned utility stays with the federal agency ends Monday.
The ordinance to be discussed is aimed at cases in which police leadership have moved to fire officers they found had used excessive force or deadly force improperly only to have those officers reinstated on appeal. The appeal is part of the city's civil service system.
U.S. District Judge Sheryl Lipman says the case isn't about her ordering changes at Shelby County Jail, but about whether vulnerable prisoners should be ordered released.
On “Behind The Headlines,” the first-term council member said the proposals to come will push further on changing the Memphis Police Department beyond nonbinding resolutions approved last month.
The commission scorecard includes votes on a property tax hike, a Juneteenth holiday and a resolution recognizing racism as a pandemic.
The measures, effective immediately, include no out-of-county prisoners into the four facilities and more access to visitation and prison programs by video livestream. They follow a testing surge for prisoners and staff earlier in June.
Speaking to an online meeting of the Memphis Rotary Club, the U.S. senator from Tennessee said efforts to take down the statue of Andrew Jackson in Washington D.C. show "a terrible misunderstanding of history." Alexander also said the lawsuit seeking to do away with the Affordable Care Act is "flimsy."
Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland and Memphis Police Director Michael Rallings talked about further police reform efforts at a Tuesday briefing that was partially an answer to critics of Strickland's first set of reforms.
Black Lives Matter is a seven-year-old movement with an ambitious platform beyond the protests of police abuses with which it has been most associated. And in the past month of protests, activists and academics locally have seen reaction to it shift — a shift explored on The Daily Memphian Politics Podcast and a recent Hooks Institute forum.
The scorecard also tracks votes on paid sick leave laws at the state level and council action on a restaurant accused of racial discrimination.
The coalition of 150 local nonprofits issued a call for change two weeks ago. But they say they have seen little indication of movement and will continue to press their demands.
The city's top elected Democrat talked about Barr's coming appearance before the House next month and the police reform debate in Washington and in the streets of Memphis.
Clerk Wanda Halbert says the seven locations will operate differently. They'll have appointments, and people will wait in their cars before being called into the office. Halbert warns there could be long lines and few employees at the counter until social distancing partitions are installed. The one-week shutdown was the second for the office since the global pandemic was declared in mid-March.
Nine ministers – who were all involved in the set of private meetings with the mayor that lead up to his City Hall announcement Thursday regarding moves toward police reform – put out a letter Friday critical of the reforms Strickland had announced.
Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland has signed the ordinance that requires masks or face coverings inside public places within the city.
The county mayor also said in a "Behind The Headlines" interview that he has no regrets about his budget proposal that the commission rejected, which included a wheel tax hike with some budget cuts and an ambitious five-year plan to fund new school construction.
The Shelby County Commission is planning to install plexiglass barriers when it returns to its chambers next month. The Memphis City Council is making arrangements to find a new temporary meeting place. Its City Hall chambers are still undergoing a renovation that began before the pandemic.
The press conference comes after a month of private discussions with community and religious leaders and a move toward police reforms by the Memphis City Council as well as the Shelby County Commission.
Bellevue Baptist Church in Cordova is replaced by Briarwood Church among the 26 locations that open for July 17 for the early voting period in advance of the Aug. 6 election day. State and federal primaries as well as county general elections are on the ballot. And more than 5,000 citizens have applied so far to vote by absentee ballots in the election.
The civic group calling for MLGW to cut ties with TVA says TVA's estimate this week of hundreds of millions of dollars in expenses in the switch is wrong. And it says the draft report's recommendation of local power generation by MLGW is wrong too.
Shelby County Property Assessor Melvin Burgess Jr. said the $1.4 million tax abatement Comcast received wasn't what such incentives were intended for. It’s the second time Burgess has criticized EDGE tax incentives.
The federal agency’s formal response to the draft report released last month says Memphis Light, Gas and Water Division could lose $260 million a year if it drops TVA to go with another electric power supplier.
Sign up for our morning and evening editions, plus breaking news.