There are 1027 article(s) tagged Memphis City Council:
The review by the council budget committee continued Wednesday with no major changes to the $708.8 million operating budget proposed by Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland. The full council is scheduled to take final votes on the budget and a stable city property tax rate next week.
The city council approved a resolution that asks the mayor to seek specific information on what it would take for MLGW to break ties with TVA and pursue another electric power supplier. But the effort will wait at least until a first draft of a comprehensive report commissioned by MLGW is released May 29.
The call for an executive order by Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee is the latest, including three lawsuits pending in Nashville. Lee has said he will not issue an executive order dropping state law's present restrictions on the mail-in ballots.
The testing money would come from the city's $113.6 million allocation of federal CARES Act funding. Strickland's proposal, presented Tuesday to the Memphis City Council, also includes an immediate $2.7 million to beef up health department contact tracing and long-term city funding of the health department beyond that.
Up for discussion Tuesday is a move to get a proposal from a specific TVA competitor and a legal opinion that could put off an electric rate hike scheduled to take effect July 1.
The elevation of mask-usage into a kind of political symbol is a drag — it’s flat-out dumb — but it’s happened, and I’d worry that a government requirement, even a loosely enforced one, would increase the political strife around the issue without a commensurate increase in compliance.
The $26 million in red ink is mostly from drops in sales tax revenue because of the closing of "nonessential" businesses in the pandemic. The plan for the current fiscal year, including more use of the city's reserves, was presented to city council members Monday with a vote possible at Tuesday's council session.
Fred Davis, a charter member of the Memphis City Council, may have left elected office more than 40 years ago, he never stepped aside.
Fred Davis was an early advocate of black-owned business growth even before the city had a majority African American population. He was also on the city council during the 1968 sanitation workers strike.
City council member Martavius Jones, on The Daily Memphian Politics Podcast, said a proposal to cut MATA funding by $10 million is the first item in the city budget book that got his attention.
City council budget committee chairman Martavius Jones talks about the city budget season and the effect of the pandemic on city finances.
The council moved $354 million in bonds closer to a summer issuance. But the bonds took a back seat to more maneuvering in the question of whether MLGW should continue its 80-year relationship with TVA. And in the process, it looks like one rival to TVA may have been ruled out.
Strickland has three possible options for a city budget proposal in the new fiscal year that starts July 1. Also on the council agenda is the first steps toward a $354 million MLGW bond issue, a resolution calling for no restrictions on absentee voting by mail and an ordinance to require face masks in all public places in the city.
The money is to help businesses and communities get back on their feet from the economic blow that has accompanied the COVID-19 pandemic. But the city is still searching for new federal funding proposals that could be used to make up for more than $100 million in revenue losses the city is expected to take in the economic shutdown.
The mask resolution was proposed as a rule requiring all within the city to wear coverings of some kind before some council members questioned how it could be enforced.
The city council's attorney has been bond counsel on 17 of the 18 Memphis Light, Gas and Water Division bond issues over the past 28 years. The relationship is being brought up again as the utility's relationship with TVA is being examined.
Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland says the city faces an $80 million loss of revenues from the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in a worst-case scenario and a “status quo” budget with no growth is the most optimistic forecast of federal and state government relief.
Former City Council member Florence Leffler died this week, ending a life as an educator, actress and politician and sometimes a blend of all three.
The council's second online meeting includes a pared-down agenda of 17 items and a committee discussion on changes to the city's upcoming budget season that means no council community grants.
Mayor Jim Strickland plans to keep his April 21 date to present his budget proposal for the new fiscal year to the city council as his administration evaluates the impact of the COVID-19 virus on sales tax revenues that finance some of the city's biggest construction projects.
No one was at City Hall for the meeting which was all on-line except for roll call votes by voice on matters for an institution that has had electronic voting for nearly 40 years.
The Tuesday council session includes setting aside $2 million in the city budget for pandemic responses like reducing transit fees and better funding the Mid-South Food Bank.
Here is everything you need to know to watch Tuesday's meeting of the Memphis City Council -- a rare online-only session of the city's legislative body during the COVID-19 pandemic.