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 4091 articles by Bill Dries :
Mayor Jim Strickland’s reform discussions are continuing, he said Wednesday, but critics of the belief that more cops means less crime have become more vocal since the death in Minneapolis of George Floyd on Memorial Day.
Memphis City Council members also got their first look Tuesday at how much police have spent in the past four years on overtime and riot gear as well as other preparations to handle protests.
The offer by CEO Jeff Lyash at a Tuesday City Council presentation includes investments and money over a 20-year period. Meanwhile, there was more reaction from other parts of the issue on a final version of the Integrated Resource Plan on the matter commissioned by MLGW.
The deadline is the end of the business day Tuesday for those not already registered. But 83% of the county's voting age population is already on the voting rolls. Meanwhile, about 7,500 Shelby Countians already registered to vote have requested absentee ballots — far above the usual number of requests for the mail-in ballots.
While critical of the first draft of the IRP by Siemens consulting, the environmental group says it still makes a case for more renewable energy to generate electric power. The Sierra Club response also stops short of recommending cutting ties to TVA, saying the cost of transmission lines to rival MISO should be fully explored.
Memphis City Council members to discuss removing police from the city’s civil service system.
The Cordova headquarters opening spotlighted the only countywide race on the August ballot – the race for General Sessions Court Clerk between Democrat Joe Brown and Republican Paul Boyd.
The public comment period on the first draft of the study that plays a crucial role in whether the city-owned utility stays with the federal agency ends Monday.
The ordinance to be discussed is aimed at cases in which police leadership have moved to fire officers they found had used excessive force or deadly force improperly only to have those officers reinstated on appeal. The appeal is part of the city's civil service system.
U.S. District Judge Sheryl Lipman says the case isn't about her ordering changes at Shelby County Jail, but about whether vulnerable prisoners should be ordered released.
On “Behind The Headlines,” the first-term council member said the proposals to come will push further on changing the Memphis Police Department beyond nonbinding resolutions approved last month.
The commission scorecard includes votes on a property tax hike, a Juneteenth holiday and a resolution recognizing racism as a pandemic.
The measures, effective immediately, include no out-of-county prisoners into the four facilities and more access to visitation and prison programs by video livestream. They follow a testing surge for prisoners and staff earlier in June.
Speaking to an online meeting of the Memphis Rotary Club, the U.S. senator from Tennessee said efforts to take down the statue of Andrew Jackson in Washington D.C. show "a terrible misunderstanding of history." Alexander also said the lawsuit seeking to do away with the Affordable Care Act is "flimsy."
Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland and Memphis Police Director Michael Rallings talked about further police reform efforts at a Tuesday briefing that was partially an answer to critics of Strickland's first set of reforms.
Black Lives Matter is a seven-year-old movement with an ambitious platform beyond the protests of police abuses with which it has been most associated. And in the past month of protests, activists and academics locally have seen reaction to it shift — a shift explored on The Daily Memphian Politics Podcast and a recent Hooks Institute forum.
The scorecard also tracks votes on paid sick leave laws at the state level and council action on a restaurant accused of racial discrimination.
The coalition of 150 local nonprofits issued a call for change two weeks ago. But they say they have seen little indication of movement and will continue to press their demands.
The city's top elected Democrat talked about Barr's coming appearance before the House next month and the police reform debate in Washington and in the streets of Memphis.
Clerk Wanda Halbert says the seven locations will operate differently. They'll have appointments, and people will wait in their cars before being called into the office. Halbert warns there could be long lines and few employees at the counter until social distancing partitions are installed. The one-week shutdown was the second for the office since the global pandemic was declared in mid-March.
Nine ministers – who were all involved in the set of private meetings with the mayor that lead up to his City Hall announcement Thursday regarding moves toward police reform – put out a letter Friday critical of the reforms Strickland had announced.
Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland has signed the ordinance that requires masks or face coverings inside public places within the city.
The county mayor also said in a "Behind The Headlines" interview that he has no regrets about his budget proposal that the commission rejected, which included a wheel tax hike with some budget cuts and an ambitious five-year plan to fund new school construction.
The Shelby County Commission is planning to install plexiglass barriers when it returns to its chambers next month. The Memphis City Council is making arrangements to find a new temporary meeting place. Its City Hall chambers are still undergoing a renovation that began before the pandemic.
The press conference comes after a month of private discussions with community and religious leaders and a move toward police reforms by the Memphis City Council as well as the Shelby County Commission.