Reporter
Bill Dries covers city government and politics. He is a native Memphian and has been a reporter for more than 40 years.
There are 1825 articles by Bill Dries :
The state comptroller commented Tuesday during a visit to the county on the idea of reopening county government’s tax rate after the July 1 start of the fiscal year. But the county commissioner who vowed Monday to do just that next month says there is wiggle room in state law.
In a 50-50 party line procedural vote, Sens. Marsha Blackburn and Bill Hagerty of Tennessee remained vocal critics of the bill that passed the majority Democratic House in March.
The proposed review of appointees to the ethics body comes as County Mayor Lee Harris is about to propose new ethics regulations.
Marcia E. Lewis is retiring as the CEO of the Memphis Housing Authority effective Aug. 28.
The absence of four county commissioners, including three of the “yes” votes for the $3.45 property tax rate set two weeks ago, was crucial to undoing the tax hike. However, the issue is likely not over.
The Hospitality Hub undertaking Downtown, on land donated by the city and funded by private donors along with the city and county governments, is next to the Hub’s intake area for the homeless.
The scorecard tracks the key votes that closed out the city’s budget season, including cutting off a proposed property tax hike before it got to the floor.
The tax rate vote will mark the end of county government’s budget season. The commission also votes on moving items from the current fiscal year into the new fiscal year that begins July 1.
Some of the changes proposed and outlined on The Daily Memphian Politics Podcast address issues that came up in the allegations made against county commissioner Edmund Ford Jr. in an independent investigation made public last month in The Daily Memphian.
Collierville Mayor Stan Joyner and Bartlett Mayor Keith McDonald talked on “Behind The Headlines” about property tax hikes passed and up for a final vote, respectively, in the cities they lead and why the estimated share of federal ARPA funds in each of their cities took a tumble in the latest estimates.
The legal opinion will be about the chain of events at the June 7 session that led to the first approval of the $3.46 county tax rate.
Shelby County Schools officials say the Head Start contract with Porter-Leath is unprecedented in terms of its autonomy. A Porter-Leath representative says the relationship started to go bad two years ago.
A move for a 31-cent tax hike never got to a vote, with a council majority voting down a rule suspension to consider going up on the tax rate. That and other votes Tuesday, June 15, closed out the city’s budget season.
Before the council gets to final votes on operating and capital budgets, it will take up a call to raise property taxes by 29 cents to an even $3. The current city tax rate of $3.19 was lowered to $2.71 by the state to take into account the increase in property values with this year’s countywide property reappraisal.
Douglas Emhoff was just in the city last month to push the Biden administration’s infrastructure plan.
The Monday, June 14, groundbreaking starts with a youth sports complex that is the centerpiece of the $126 million project about where the Libertyland amusement park once stood.
The shortened park season opened with water in the Riverwalk. But other parts of the upgrade in the 39-year-old attraction have been delayed. Meanwhile, there was an attempt on the City Council to get the park’s long-dormant monorail up and running again that didn’t pan out.
Mairi Albertson, the city’s director of Housing and Community Development talks on The Daily Memphian Politics Podcast about the citywide plan, and says the lessons of the pandemic indicate broadband has to be able to handle several people online at the same time.
Here are some of the highlights, including additional funding for MATA, from the county budgets for the fiscal year that begins July 1.
The County Commission Scorecard tracks the critical votes on county government’s various budgets during the June 7 session that, for the most part, ended the budget season.
The announcement of the removal of the remains was made Friday, June 11, in Health Sciences Park, where Forrest and his wife had been reinterred for more than 100 years after originally being buried in Elmwood Cemetery.
The County Commission’s vote approving a one-cent property tax hike and the City Council’s consideration next week of a 29-cent city property tax hike were the dominant topics in a reporter’s roundtable on “Behind The Headlines.”
The announcement comes 11 days after work began on removing what is left of the monument. The work was also to include the reinterment of the remains of Forrest and his wife.
The start of construction follows last-minute changes in the project that upped the price by $6 million and added more courts. The center will keep the name of the Marine lieutenant colonel for whom it is named.
Our scorecard of critical Shelby County Commission votes tracks the set of votes this week that led to the approval of a one-cent increase in the recertified county property tax rate. The votes were more complex than usual with some parliamentary drama that almost brings down the curtain on another county budget season.