Reporter
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.
There are 4215 articles by Bill Dries :
A new Shelby County Election Commission report shows nearly 15,000 more voters on the rolls counytwide in the last two months leading up to the Nov. 3 Election Day. Meanwhile, the Shelby County Voter Alliance says its effort got 2,500 of those voters on the rolls. The alliance of 18 organizations has now set its sights on the 2022 countywide ballot.
The Shelby County Election Commission says its hand was forced by having to keep voting machines used in the November elections sealed until all results from that election are certified next week. Early voting in the two Collierville runoff elections starts Wednesday.
The Memphis City Council agenda Tuesday also includes a new violent crime task force, a ban on bottled water at all city facilities post pandemic and the election of a new chairman for 2021.
A variety of community voices spoke out on police reform during two discussions last week.
Two conversations about police reform show the more detailed the proposed reforms become, the more differences they reveal.
Memphis is ahead of the curve in reversing the results of old rules and regulations that encouraged segregation and created pockets of poverty. So changes in the federal fair housing policy have had little impact.
The chairman of the Shelby County legislative delegation to the Tennessee General Assembly talked about the issue on The Daily Memphian Politics Podcast.
The effort short of a statewide mask mandate includes a coalition of local leaders across West Tennessee. Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris said he is also working on a long-term plan for the county to continue to deal with the pandemic through 2021 and after federal CARES Act funding runs out at the end of December.
Health department director Alisa Haushalter and Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris react to the wave of confirmed COVID-19 cases, and a bill that could usurp local authority.
The latest hiccup is a higher-than-expected contract for the University of Tennessee Health Science Center to run the county’s forensic center for the region, with the county dipping into its reserves for the difference.
A resolution by Edmund Ford Jr. on setting deadlines and milestones for the county budget season is on the County Commission’s agenda for Monday, Nov. 9.
The response reflects Memphis’ Democratic majority that supported Biden, as well as statewide totals that gave Trump Tennessee.
While presidential battleground states continue to count votes, the count in Shelby County is quietly moving toward completion with a large number of provisional ballots.
On Behind The Headlines, Republican Party Chairman Chris Tutor says “don’t vote Democrat” if you want to see Memphis have more power in the state capitol. Democratic Party Chairman Michael Harris says Republicans in state government are explicitly ignoring Memphis.
The City Council-appointed citizens panel decided Thursday its priority will be eliminating Confederacy-related names from city street and finding problematic street names for first responders. The group is to make recommendations to the Memphis City Council.
A record early vote total in Shelby County was the high point as voter turnout lagged on Election Day. In the aftermath of Tuesday’s election, there were other indications of deep fissures behind both of the front lines that define the county’s partisan divide.
Torrey Harris, who lost to John DeBerry by 21 percentage points in the 2018 Democratic primary, upset the 26-year incumbent in Tuesday’s voting.
MLGW president and CEO J.T. Young said the utility should put more emphasis on electric rate savings for customers as it pursues the question of leaving or staying with the Tennessee Valley Authority.
Overall, election officials were happy with the day’s process. “It was well-organized. We had a good plan and a lot of people,” Shelby County Elections Administrator Linda Phillips said.
Millions of voters put aside worries about the virus — and some long lines — to turn out in person, joining 102 million fellow Americans who voted days or weeks earlier, a record number that represented 73% of the total vote in the 2016 presidential election.
Memphis City Council members met briefly Tuesday, Nov. 3, in their regularly schedule online session.
Republican Bill Hagerty was in Cordova Monday morning and Democrat Marquita Bradshaw ended her campaign Monday evening in Orange Mound. The two have waged very different campaigns for the seat Lamar Alexander leaves at the end of the year.