There are 224 article(s) tagged Tami Sawyer:
Before Shelby County Commissioners and Memphis City Council members get together to talk about changing the most used tax incentive in local economic development, they want to do more than watch PowerPoint presentations on PILOTs – payments in lieu of taxes.
The ordinance allows the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office and Emergency and Homeland Security to acquire some surplus military hardware for protection and natural disasters. But most military hardware offered by the federal government requires a majority vote of the commission.
The Monday County Commission meeting includes a possible six-month moratorium on new PILOTs. And there is a compromise with Sheriff Floyd Bonner that would rewrite the ordinance requiring him to get approval from the commission to acquire surplus military hardware from the federal government.
The resolutions were discussed as commissioners watched the presidential inauguration while working through committee agendas. The full commission votes on the matters Monday.
Sawyer wants to examine the ground rules for awarding the most-used tax incentive in Memphis economic development and the results of past or ongoing PILOTs.
In a free, virtual series, actors will perform speeches by Booker T. Washington, Shirley Chisholm, Dick Gregory and John Lewis. They’ll be introduced by Shelby County Commission members present and past and a Rhodes College professor, among others.
A proposal by Commissioner Tami Sawyer to require County Commission approval for any sheriff to acquire surplus federal military equipment was postponed.
Republican commissioners said their “no” votes were because of concerns about the use of county reserves to create the $2.5 million fund. Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris is asking Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee to reimburse the county funding with state money.
Harris took the proposal for grants of $1,000 per qualified worker to commission committee sessions Wednesday, Jan. 6.
Shelby County commissioners voted Monday, Dec. 21, to support a health department directive announced earlier in the day and, in a separate vote, to give the health department the authority to cite and fine business owners for violating the directive.
A new health directive is looming – one that could significantly tighten restrictions for the upcoming holidays.
Shelby County commissioners called on Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee Monday, Dec. 7, to enact a statewide mask mandate, but the vote wasn’t unanimous. It was among a series of COVID-related measures.
They seldom agree, just like a couple of United States Supreme Court justices you might remember. But Shelby County commissioners Tami Sawyer and Mick Wright share a healthy respect for one another.
Political and cultural division in Memphis, the state of Tennessee and the country, is real. But as polarized as Americans might be, it has been worse and it can get better.
A variety of community voices spoke out on police reform during two discussions last week.
A resolution by Edmund Ford Jr. on setting deadlines and milestones for the county budget season is on the County Commission’s agenda for Monday, Nov. 9.
Shelby County commissioners voted down an ordinance that would have required the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office to decertify deputies who use excessive force and to keep a record of officers who are fired or resign because of an excessive-force complaint.
Ordinances that address use of force, the purchase of military equipment and the use of tear gas will go to the full commission without a second reading committee vote.
The trio of ordinances affecting the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office and corrections officers advanced automatically in Monday’s first of three votes on the measures. A second reading will be held in two weeks and a third is tentatively set in October.
The three ordinances are scheduled for the first of three votes on Monday. And still to weigh in on the proposals is Shelby County Sheriff Floyd Bonner.
Shelby County officials, who last year approved funding for preliminary work to build a new juvenile detention facility, are now exploring alternatives such as renovating a closed youth facility in Southeast Memphis.
The Yellow Fever epidemic of 1878 in Memphis spawned new words, such as "Stranger Fever," and changed people's thoughts and actions. The COVID-19 pandemic, with its "social distancing" and "new normal" is not so different. History has provided an echo.
Shelby County teachers held die-in in front of the county building Monday to demand safe schools locally, statewide and nationally as the coronavirus pandemic grows.
The nonbinding resolutions approved by the Shelby County Commission call for adoption of “8 Can’t Wait” use of force measures for law enforcement and call racism a pandemic with associated health issues for people of color.
Shelby County Sheriff Floyd Bonner said the sheriff’s office SWAT team used C.S. gas, or “tear gas,” in a May 31 protest Downtown after bricks and bottles were thrown at them as they blocked some protesters from trying to get on the Hernando DeSoto Bridge.