The City Council approved the pipeline right-of-way ordinance on the first of three votes Tuesday, Oct. 5. It covers the entire city, requiring a permitting process for any work done beneath or across city streets. 

City Council members took a test vote of sorts in committee sessions on a proposal to make pay of $21 an hour the minimum for getting tax breaks from EDGE. The new Ford plant in Haywood County came up in the discussion.

The council is on record opposing TVA’s plan to truck coal ash from the old Allen Fossil Plant to a landfill in Capleville. The Tuesday council committee discussion also ventured into TVA’s role in the Blue Oval City Ford battery plant. 

The $4.9 million in funding would replace much, but not all, of the 55-year old structure’s exterior marble veneer.

A woman was also injured during the robbery. 

Three federal judges have said the mask opt-out order is unlawful, but analysts say it doesn’t matter. Lee can still say he tried.

Elementary school children in the area received free bikes with bike safety training lessons, free swimming lessons and swim safety curriculum as part of the event. 

The Memphis Police Department is still on scene investigating the crime.

The day after an announcement from the Memphis Zoo, that it would continue with its parking lot expansion plan, Citizens to Preserve Overton Park has already begun discussing strategies to combat the decision.

Former federal prosecutor Linda Harris said Memphians are becoming “desensitized” to violence and that current remedies aren’t working. Harris is one of several candidates who plan to challenge incumbents in the criminal justice system by calling for change.

Shelby County Schools reported 165 new COVID-19 cases among students and 30 among staff at the district-managed public and charter schools for the week of Sept. 24-30.

The naming rights deal with Simmons Bank will help make dramatic improvements to the stadium, Mayor Jim Strickland said. 

Townsend, who has split his time between the Greater Memphis Chamber and the University of Memphis over the past year, is now working exclusively for the Chamber. 

Barbara Swearengen Ware died Thursday, Sept. 30, 11 years after she resigned from the Memphis City Council after a plea deal on an official misconduct charge. She served 17 years on the council representing the North Memphis area that included the Douglass community.

The opt-out policy has been blocked in three metro counties, including Shelby County.

Former Memphis City Council member Barbara Swearengen Ware has died at the age of 82.

Memphis and the surrounding region lost out when the state’s original auto corridor was established in Middle Tennessee almost 40 years ago. But the new Ford plant in Haywood County comes with lessons from that pursuit as well as doubts and the prospect of more change beyond the electric vehicles powered by batteries made at the megasite.

The Memphis City Council and Shelby County Commission are already getting requests from groups that want a share of the money.

Statewide, there have been 4,933 student cases and 755 staff cases reported as of Friday afternoon.

The head of the city’s Office of Business Diversity and Compliance is also leaving her position.

Sheriff Floyd Bonner says the COVID-19 pandemic has made his job more difficult but touted low crime rates in unincorporated Shelby County. 

Some of the reaction called for an immediate look at the causes of such violence as part of a national debate while others called for supporting those grieving from the loss of life, at least for now.

The Shelby County Commission’s ad hoc group on the new district lines got its first look at some proposed maps for the redistricting plan this week. The group makes recommendations to the full commission, which decides on how to deal with shifts in population within its 13 districts.

Shelby may still be the largest of Tennessee’s 95 counties, but it long ago lost the influence and cachet that it once enjoyed statewide.

The resolution to form a commission to draft a consolidation charter showed up in Wednesday committee sessions without notice. Like the City Council, county commissioners amended it to stop short of beginning to draft a charter and to include looking at changes to local government short of consolidation.