There are 162 article(s) tagged Tami Sawyer:
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.
Alisa Haushalter provided guidelines for residents to follow that will help move the county toward Phase 3. Additionally, she addressed Shelby County Commission's decision to provide additional funding for hiring 141 new positions.
The call to "defund" police during three weeks of daily protests in Memphis has grown as action moves from marches to specific issues. The terms doesn't always mean the same thing to everyone, however.
What makes these protests different for me is that I’ve seen how they can influence conversation and bring about change – in both Minneapolis and Memphis.
Shelby County Commissioner Tami Sawyer and protesters Monday addressed an incident in which two drivers drove through a protest in Cooper-Young last week. One woman was injured when she was hit by a SUV.
The plan to balance the county budget came apart when the commission put too much weight on the idea that federal reimbursements for county dollars spent on the pandemic freed up about $4.8 million. It didn't. Then a move to cut the sheriff's department budget brought two weeks of protest over the George Floyd incident into the discussion.
Shelby County commissioners got within $11 million of rebuilding County Mayor Lee Harris’s consolidated county budget proposal before calling it a day and leaving the rest for a Monday commission meeting.
The Memphis City Council could vote this week to require citizens to wear face masks in public places. The facial coverings have touched a political nerve and divide, although proponents of the push for masks say it's not political.
On The Daily Memphian Politics Podcast, Shelby County Commissioner Tami Sawyer also talked about the rift between the Democratic county mayor and the eight-vote Democratic majority on the commission.
Shelby County Commissioner Tami Sawyer talks about the County Commission’s budget struggle, almost two years in office with a Democratic majority and the politics of face masks.
The resolution urges Health Department officials to require Shelby County residents and visitors to wear masks when out and about.
The elevation of mask-usage into a kind of political symbol is a drag — it’s flat-out dumb — but it’s happened, and I’d worry that a government requirement, even a loosely enforced one, would increase the political strife around the issue without a commensurate increase in compliance.
Many county commissioners said their constituents don't like the wheel tax, don't know how it's used and thought it was going away.