The Daily Memphian’s City Council Scorecard opens the new year with two council decisions — one on a familiar issue in council discussions. The other is a close vote on a lower speed limit.

The bill follows a City Council decision late last year to remove a referendum question that would have allowed Memphis police and firefighters to live outside Shelby County.

With a virtual groundbreaking ceremony before Christmas, actual construction work began Tuesday, Jan. 5, on the Tom Lee Park project.

By a narrow 7-6 vote, the Memphis City Council has changed the default speed limit on city streets without speed limit signs from 30 miles an hour to 25 miles an hour.

Grants for distressed businesses also got a share of the funding after a council debate. And the council mediated a call by a restaurant owner to MLGW to work out payment plans with the industry.

In the discussion with Memphis City Council members Tuesday, Jan. 5, the police director said he can’t carry out plans of a city task force to reopen several community policing centers given the pandemic. He got immediate pushback from several council members.

The first online council meeting of the year comes with some changes in committee chairmanships and votes on down-zoning two parts of Summer Avenue as well as new penalties for illegal street racing.

So far, $2 million of the $2.5 million goal has been raised to rebuild Overton Park golf course and renovate its Abe Goodman Clubhouse. 

The City of Memphis is evaluating bids ranging from $9.4 million to $10.1 million for restoration of and other improvements to the historic Memphis cobblestone landing.

The Daily Memphian City Council Scorecard tracked 48 key council decisions in the current council’s first year in office. These are five significant decisions made that promise to have an impact on what happens in 2021.

Affected property owners oppose the design for replacing the Poplar Viaduct that would remove direct access between Scott Street and Poplar Avenue. City and state engineers say keeping the connection would be less safe.

Now, the refinery and steelworkers of Presidents Island as well as Metal Museum visitors will be asked: “When you were still young, Did you ever dream about, Being who you are.”

The council action wasn’t unanimous and it follows a split vote the day before by the Shelby County Commission expressing support for the countywide directive that takes effect the day after Christmas.

The Memphis In May International Festival is calling off the Beale Street Music Festival in May as the Memphis City Council considers urging a Christmas week “safer at home” order. 

The council approved the financing for a $62 million set of five Downtown parking projects. But the issue was what to do with the money made from the parking garages. 

The local face of a global pandemic, challenges to education and the local reaction to the death of George Floyd topped a “Behind The Headlines” review of the year 2020.

The task force making the call is one of several working on police reforms and better police practices. The size of the Memphis Police force is a controversial part of the civic discussion about police reform.

The city is in a race with the calendar to spend its federal funding within the next two weeks or send it back to D.C. 

Memphis City Council members heard about the difficulty of getting financing for hotel projects before approving the financing of a third hotel for One Beale. The set of parking projects nearby had a more complex path to approval.

Homeless veterans, those in second chance and sober living programs or people simply wanting to get their lives in order are the target groups for The Purpose Place, the applicant behind the proposal.

A set of three proposed ordinances aren’t due for a vote by the full council until the new year. But several council members are concerned about how police will carry out the ordinances if they are passed.

The council also talks about limits on mufflers, a cleanup of the city’s code of ordinances and could take a final vote on a sidewalk change that would require a sidewalk inspection as part of the closing process in real estate sales.

The six-mile stretch through Orange Mound is changing, using the year-old Memphis 3.0 land use and development plan. Lots of other parts of the city want to follow the same path.

The 29th awards ceremony was virtual this year because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The online video of past ceremonies covered the annual event all the way back to its 1991 origins.