Political Roundup: The school board’s bad night, tracking D.C. votes and new council meeting time
A line to get into a special-called meeting stretches around the corner of MSCS headquarters Dec. 17, 2024. (Patrick Lantrip/The Daily Mempian)
The politics of being on a school board is a different kind of politics. So are the tactics.
Try to imagine what happened at the Tuesday, Dec. 17, Memphis-Shelby County Schools board meeting happening the way it did on any other local elected legislative body — the City Council or the County Commission.
As the doors were about to open to an overflow crowd for the MSCS school board meeting Tuesday evening, the Memphis City Council was wrapping up its final meeting of the year Downtown.
After completing a light agenda, the council heard from a longer than usual list of citizens who filled out cards to speak on any topic at the end of the meeting.
Many of the speakers came to talk about the U.S. Justice Department report on Memphis Police.
Some expressing outrage at the allegations of police misconduct and calling for the council to take action — including stopping the construction of a police Command Center in the Beale Street entertainment district.
Topics
Memphis-Shelby County Schools board Memphis City Council David Kustoff Steve Cohen Marsha Blackburn Bill Hagerty Subscriber OnlyIt’s GivingTuesday week! Will you join the celebration?
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Bill Dries
Bill Dries covers city and county government and politics. He is a native Memphian and has been a reporter for almost 50 years covering a wide variety of stories from the 1977 death of Elvis Presley and the 1978 police and fire strikes to numerous political campaigns, every county mayor and every Memphis Mayor starting with Wyeth Chandler.
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