The Memphis mayor promised details at his Wednesday oath of office ceremony on a city effort aimed at "opportunity youth" between the ages of 16 and 24. 

Special counsel Alan Crone will soon take his leave from Mayor Jim Strickland’s administration. As Strickland starts his second and last term, Crone, a long-time friend, will return full-time to his own law practice.

Since March 2018, the City of Memphis has been saying it intends to end the 1970s-era agreement to treat wastewater in a North Mississippi sewer district that predates the incorporation of Southaven. 

The Tennessee Court of Appeals has upheld dismissal of a 2018 lawsuit against the City of Memphis, Shelby County government and the Memphis Grizzlies by Elvis Presley Enterprises over Graceland’s plans to build a 6,200-seat arena on its Whitehaven campus.

Analysis of what is ahead for second-term Mayor Jim Strickland and a City Council that is a mix of second-termers, new members and those in between after an election year that delivered some mandates.

The incoming and outgoing leaders of the Memphis City Council agree the city probably doesn't have enough money from a half-cent sales tax hike approved by voters in October to fully restore benefits cut by the city in 2014. 

The grants to eight nonprofits announced at City Hall Monday cover areas outside Downtown and Midtown where the housing stock is old and could use some help to encourage private development. The fund works with the city's recently approved Memphis 3.0 land use and development guidelines.

The six Memphis City Council members whose terms end with the new year said their farewells Dec. 17 at the last council meeting of the year. For some it was emotional, for others it was a time to reflect and for still others it was political.

City leaders announced Wednesday, Dec. 18, they are pausing the parking plan at the Memphis Zoo to consider instead building a one-story parking deck of 350 spaces. 

Water and gas rate hikes were approved but a proposed electric rate hike was rejected. The council also took back its rejection of a solid waste fee hike that goes on the same monthly utility bills. That after Mayor Jim Strickland threatened layoffs and reductions in garbage service in the new year without the hike.

The Holiday Night Market Friday in the park highlights the intersection between the drive to remove the monuments and an earlier effort to activate the park for more Memphians.

The eight-unit apartment building at Kansas and Waldorf from the 1950s got an extensive rehab with state funding and some donations after sitting vacant for 20 years.

The City Council could also Tuesday revisit its decision two weeks ago to reject a solid waste fee hike. Mayor Jim Strickland said no fee hike could lead to laying off sanitation workers and scaling back garbage pickups of curbside trash. The combination with the MLGW rate hike proposal could cause the council to do either/or but not both.

Toys for Tots and Alpha Phi Alphi Fraternity, Inc., staged two events for holiday giving that took place just blocks apart in Whitehaven.

The tiny Deaderick family cemetery in Orange Mound was once much bigger. And this week, an archaeological effort by the city and several Orange Mound groups found evidence of more graves beyond the wrought iron fence of the cemetery along Park Avenue. 

A trio of leaders of community development corporations on "Behind The Headlines" say the long-term Memphis 3.0 land use and development guidelines should give them and others working on nonprofit catalysts more of a voice in how the city grows. 

The Studio Gang design firm talked by video conference Tuesday with the board of the Memphis River Parks Partnership about meeting the specific terms of a mediated agreement announced last week. Among the results is more space for the 2006 Tom Lee Memorial in the park.

Mayor Jim Strickland has raised the possibility of layoffs and garbage service cutbacks six days into the new year if the Memphis City Council doesn’t reconsider its decision to reject a solid waste fee hike.

The Shelby County Assessor and his director of residential appraisal, on The Daily Memphian Politics Podcast, pointed to bringing back commercial development first in Orange Mound and working on seeding infrastructure for a later residential revival. 

The city administration lost the vote on a solid waste fee hike, but it has taken one issue with sanitation services off the table as fewer routes mean longer routes and close to an eight-hour work day for sanitation workers. 

The mediation between the Memphis River Parks Partnership and the Memphis In May International Festival ends months of mediation between the two with a detailed agreement, down to square footage and feet between stages.

Memphis police, St. Jude and city officials discuss traffic, road closures and public safety during Saturday's marathon and the American Athletic Championship championship football game. 

The City of Memphis has $5.6 million, most of it in federal funding, to test for and remove lead paint from up to 350 single-family homes and multi-family housing units in the city and county built before 1978.

The decisions at Tuesday’s council session would remove two items from the agenda of the council that leaves office at the end of the month. Other items are straddling the New Year’s line between the council leaving office and the new council that takes office in January.

Richard W. Smith, the outgoing chamber board chairman and FedEx Express vice president, defended the use of tax incentives for economic development gains during an extended "Behind The Headlines" interview.