District 3 commissioner Mick Wright opened his re-election campaign over the weekend. Races where the incumbent commissioner is term limited are also showing signs of life.

The approval of the spending, which includes $19.1 million for Regional One Health and $4.4 milion to expand health care access to uninsured Shelby Countians, is county general fund money available as the federal ARPA money goes to account for lost county revenues in the pandemic.

Meanwhile, the Shelby County Election Commission has underlined with a resolution that it needs to have redistricting maps for the school board and the Shelby County Commission no later than Nov. 8 to be ready for the 2022 county elections.

Mathilde Crosby is leaving county government to return to the private financial sector. 

The state Board of Equalization approved Wednesday, Oct. 13, keeping the four-year cycle after Shelby County Assessor Melvin Burgess Jr. changed his recommendation for a two-year cycle late last week to whichever one the state board preferred.

The second-term Memphis City Council member declared his candidacy Monday, Oct. 11. In his interview with The Daily Memphian, Morgan talked about what to expect from his campaign.

Shelby County Schools has announced that employees can receive up to 10 consecutive days of paid sick leave while in isolation following a positive COVID-19 test. 

The county clerk is appealing for a county audit of how her office is funded a week after the Tennessee Comptroller ended a similar investigation, saying he found no evidence of fraud and that revenue in Halbert’s office was going where it was supposed to go.

The County Commission Scorecard highlights the commission’s choice of a new judicial commissioner and a call for U.S. Justice Department review of Juvenile Court and possibly a return to the federal oversight of the court that ended three years ago.

Two Memphis organizations providing meals to children in the summer of 2020 billed the state for meals they didn’t serve. Federally funded food programs have been susceptible to fraud for years.

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 county’s redistricting effort is on its third and fourth proposed maps of what the new boundaries could look like for the 13 County Commission districts going into the 2022 elections. A “Poplar-Midtown corridor” in the East Memphis district caused a lot of debate. 

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.

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

Halbert began complaining about the issue soon after she took office in 2018, resulting in the state investigation.

The county is paying an average of $34,000 per month to a Jackson, Tennessee, law firm to represent Sheriff Floyd Bonner in a federal lawsuit. 

Bartlett Chief Administrative Officer Mark Brown said the six suburban mayors agreed to adopt resolutions in opposition to consolidation that’s recently been brought up again.

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.

After two contentious budget seasons, commission chairman Willie Brooks has changed up what is the most critical committee assignment in county government. 

When chairman Willie Brooks created a study group Monday on possible local government changes without a vote, some commissioners call it a consolidation committee in all but name, causing chairman Reginald Milton to quit.

The second part of the City Council-County Commission move toward a consolidation charter proposal showed up unexpectedly in committee session last week on the county side. And it was panned by most of the seven commissioners present even after a compromise to consider steps short of a merger of the two governments.

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.