The Early Word: City Council OKs raises, wants Downtown bathrooms
Greetings, Memphis. It’s Wednesday, May 21, and Downtown’s Center City Development Corp. will consider grants for two new Edge District bars today: one fancy (Bar Limina) and one not-so-fancy (Gussied Up). But with those names, it’d be hard to say which is which.
It’s also the last day of school for Germantown Municipal School District students, and all the other kids will just have to wait. It’s a good week for Germantown teachers, too: They’re getting raises soon.
Speaking of raises, cue that Oprah meme, because (almost) everybody in the City of Memphis government is getting a raise. But first, the city has to find $39 million to pay for the increases the Memphis City Council approved Wednesday. It was just two weeks ago that Memphis Mayor Paul Young warned that pay raises could threaten the city budget and may force the administration to cut 550 positions and reduce services. But the council approved the raise anyway. Here’s how much employees are getting.
In other Memphis City Council news, council member Dr. Jeff Warren wants to see more public bathrooms around Downtown. That came up during a Downtown Memphis Commission’s budget presentation to the council on Tuesday, when Warren went off about homeless people going No. 2 in alleys and vacant buildings. Warren also had some thoughts about what to do about the aging Shelby County Jail.
Plus, FedEx Freight has its first leader, St. Jude is tearing down buildings and some Bartlett residents say a developer is putting profits over kids.
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Bianca Phillips
Bianca Phillips is a Northeast Arkansas native and longtime Memphian who’s worked in local journalism and PR for more than 20 years. In her days as a reporter, she covered everything from local government and crime to LGBTQ issues and the arts. She’s the author of “Cookin Crunk: Eatin’ Vegan in the Dirty South,” a cookbook of vegan Southern recipes.
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