The 21% raises garnered only two yes votes and two no votes in the first of three readings with seven county commissioners abstaining. The final vote is set for Dec. 20 and will take nine votes to be approved.

Germantown Municipal School District reverses course, returns to masking Tuesday. 

The commission also votes Monday, Nov. 15, on $10.8 million in indirect federal American Rescue Plan Act funding delayed when the commission approved a budget for using most but not all of the federal funding.

Schools throughout Shelby County will likely continue masking despite sweeping COVID-19 laws that went into effect late Friday afternoon.

Gov. Bill Lee Friday, Nov. 12, allowed widespread bans on COVID-related mandates to become law — some with his signature and some not.

Shelby County had announced plans to assess a $25 per pay period surcharge against county employees who did not get vaccinated for COVID by a July deadline.

Memphis Regional Megasite of West Tennessee: The Haywood County site no longer includes a reference to the city of Memphis. Now, it’s officially the Megasite of West Tennessee.

With a respectful, patriotic nod, local Veterans Day events recognized the commitment of those who served in the military.

The hotel at Elvis Presley Boulevard would be One Stop Housing’s third property in Memphis. 

Memphis criminal justice leaders discuss violent crime at crime forum. 

If approved on three votes, the raises would apply to the next term of office that begins Sept. 1, 2022, after next year’s county primaries and general elections. Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris says he doesn’t support it.

Tennessee stands to get billions of dollars to repair roads and bridges, build public transit and broadband and provide clean water after the U.S. House passed a $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill Nov. 5.

The redistricting map approved Monday keeps a new Cordova-based district, restores the Collierville 7 precinct to District 2 and Germantown 4 to District 4. It also separates two incumbents expected to run again.

The Monday, Nov. 8, special meeting of the Shelby County Commission comes after a party-line 8-5 vote a week ago to approve a plan that creates a Cordova district.

The commissioner’s attempt to reopen the county’s ARPA budget ran aground when Chairman Willie Brooks and others said he is abusing the process.

The joint meeting Wed., Nov. 10, is a tentative first step toward consolidating the two governments. 

Shelby County government employees would have until April to get vaccinated or pay a $25 per pay period surcharge starting in July under the notice sent to county employees Tuesday, Nov. 2.

St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital was the first to make vaccination mandatory. It has not released the percentage of staff that complied.

Democrats voted for it and Republicans voted against it. But the party line was not enough to make it the final vote on the redistricting plan that creates a new commission district built around Cordova, where most of the growth was in the 2020 Census. 

It might be a long day at the county building Monday, Nov. 1, when Shelby County commissioners are scheduled for the final vote on the once-a-decade process of drawing new district lines.

On the WKNO program “Behind The Headlines,” Natalie McKinney and Terence Patterson also called for a move away from the idea that school choice for parents involves getting students to schools in other parts of the city.

As the Shelby County Commission nears a final vote on a new set of district lines, here is how to find out what commission district you live in, who is your commissioner and whose district you might be in depending on which map the commission approves at its Monday, Nov. 1, session.

Meeting in special session Wednesday, Oct. 27, Shelby County commissioners set the stage to approve a redistricting ordinance on third and final reading at their regular Monday meeting. They also increased the recommendations from the ad hoc group on redistricting to a total of four maps.