City Councilwoman resigns parks job amid ethics complaint
Amid an ethics complaint into her employment, Memphis City Councilwoman Michalyn Easter-Thomas has resigned from her job at Memphis River Parks Partnership.
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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.
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Amid an ethics complaint into her employment, Memphis City Councilwoman Michalyn Easter-Thomas has resigned from her job at Memphis River Parks Partnership.
The Riverview Community Center got a $2.3 million renovation that includes more natural light in the gym and rooms for exercise, games and computers along with a new exterior.
Paul Young said the city’s strategy for crime suppression includes “criminal activity disruption” along with focusing police and city blight efforts in high-crime areas.
The attempt to oust Shelby County Clerk Wanda Halbert from office is in Circuit Court for a preliminary hearing May 31. The arguments filed by both sides in the suit show the case will be about legal definitions of willful neglect.
Here’s a history of previous local ouster cases including the one that ousted E.H. Crump from the mayor’s office in 1916, a Shelby County Sheriff shortly after that and a Shelby County commissioner in the 1960s.
Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Gloria Johnson campaigns in Memphis over the long holiday weekend and hopes Democrats throw national support behind her effort to upset incumbent Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn.
Church Health founder Dr. Scott Morris talks on “Behind The Headlines” about the 37-year-old institution he founded and how complex it has become in an era of big medicine and big health-care institutions.
John Gillespie questioned MPD’s policies in a Thursday news release. He and Brent Taylor sponsored the law that bans police departments from not pulling someone over when they have reasonable suspicion the person violated the law.
Republican state Senator Brent Taylor told a group of 50 at the Whitehaven Republican Club that school leaders should “keep quiet” about not using a state law that allows for teachers to carry guns at schools.
The Memphis City Council looked at alternatives to Mayor Paul Young’s proposed 75-cent city property-tax hike Tuesday, as well as an assortment of other issues. ‘A tough push:’ Council skeptical of adding suburban votes to MLGW boardRelated story:
The City Council Scorecard looks at the April surprise that scuttled plans by Mayor Paul Young for a budget proposal with no property-tax hike.
The ordinance that sets the county property tax rate still has a blank where the rate goes. But commissioners approved Tuesday where the pennies on the tax rate go based on keeping the $3.39 rate the same.
The council takes the second of three votes Tuesday, May 21, on raising the city’s monthly solid-waste fee and decides six wages disputes between the city administration and labor unions.
The County Commission has several Shelby County Sheriff’s Office items to vote on Monday, from emergency money for new jail door locks to calling for collaboration on what happens next at the juvenile detention center on Old Getwell Road.
City Council members talked Thursday, May 16, about at least whittling down the tax hike proposed by Mayor Paul Young, with discussing other revenue sources, during a town hall forum at New Salem Baptist Church in South Memphis.
“We consider it to be defunding police,” a Shelby County Sheriff’s Office official said of a proposed budget that cuts 441 vacant positions from the Sheriff’s office, a $31.4 million impact.
Wanda Halbert says she’s working on a plan, but she said her reports may still be late or inaccurate, the software auditors recommended doesn’t work for her office and the county is not funding her enough.
Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris told the Memphis Rotary Club he has asked leaders of both of the city’s health care giants about becoming involved in the rebuild of Regional One Health. But he also admitted the discussions haven’t gotten very far yet.
Asked about Halbert’s statements, Mayor Lee Harris told The Daily Memphian: “I’m shocked by everything you just said. The rabbit hole has gotten deeper.”
Memphis City Council members weigh a 75-cent tax hike as Shelby County commissioners have to make some decisions about change to the funding for a Regional One Health rebuild.
The nomination takes place against a backdrop of a dispute between Republicans and Democrats in the chamber over a procedural custom for notifying senators of the opposing party that was suspended during the Trump administration.
After his heroic efforts to save 32 people from a capsized excursion boat on the Mississippi River, Tom Lee worked as a city sanitation worker and lived in the Klondike neighborhood.
Against a wall of windows facing a wind-swept Mississippi River, a small group of people at Beale Street Landing raised a toast to Tom Lee Wednesday, May 8, in the park named in his honor.
The political roundup reviews Mayor Paul Young’s tax-hike pitch to citizens in Orange Mound. Also Justin J. Pearson on the shaky state of Democratic unity, and Telisa Franklin opens her campaign for the District 96 seat.
School board candidates on the August ballot talk about MSCS superintendent Marie Feagins’ vision for the district.