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Memphis City Council

Memphis City Council coverage in one place: the 13-member body that sets the city budget, approves contracts, and confirms mayoral appointments, plus the committees where the real horse-trading happens. Every Council vote is put on the record.

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Memphis City Council

The Southwest Twin Campus Is Sold as a Library and a Police Station. The Library Is Seven Percent of Tuesday's $13.6 Million.

City agenda documents break the appropriation into $8,528,052 for the police station, $3,069,945 for the fleet maintenance building, $954,963 for the library, and $1,120,000 in equipment for the police station and fleet building. The same day, the Budget Committee takes up authority for up to $350 million in refunding bonds on a deal currently priced at about $72 million.

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Memphis City Council

Memphis Wants to Spend $3.2 Million of Data Center Tax Money in 38109. Two Council Members Asked Where the Health Money Is.

The administration's first Community Benefits Fund plan puts $1.4 million into home repairs and $500,000 into a paid cleanup workforce. Councilwoman Jerri Green and Councilwoman Yolanda Cooper-Sutton both said the plan does not answer what residents actually asked for.

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Memphis City Council

Memphis Voters Added This Civil Service Protection in 2013. Now It May Be Back on the Ballot, and It Could Come Out.

The charter amendment held Tuesday night would let the City Council seat people "trained or experienced in labor and benefits matters" on the board that hears whether the city can fire, suspend, or demote its workers. Right now the charter requires those seats to be attorneys and judges. Section 7 of the ordinance authorizes the Mayor to spend public money defending the change in court. The Director of Finance certified it costs nothing.

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Memphis City Council

Eleven Sections to Create a Lobbyist Registry. Not One Defines a Lobbyist.

A Memphis charter amendment would mandate a lobbyist registry without defining a lobbyist or setting a penalty, while authorizing money to defend it in court.

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Memphis City Council

A Splash Pad Built in 45 Days Instead of 180. An Air Conditioner That Never Worked. Same Question Both Times.

In back to back committee meetings Tuesday, council members heard about two taxpayer-funded projects that failed early. Nobody could tell them how the vendors were chosen.

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Memphis City Council

Researchers Found 13 More Possible Holes in the Clay Over Our Drinking Water. The Health Department Wants 10 Cents a Page.

A University of Memphis team told a council committee the protective clay layer is thinner than anyone thought. To go further they need well records Shelby County has, and cannot get them.

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Memphis City Council

Memphis Has 3,400 Miles of Sidewalk, an Ordinance From 1967, and $500,000 Nobody Can Find

The city set aside half a million dollars for a sidewalk grant program. It was never built. The money has not been touched, and no one at Tuesday's committee meeting could say where it sits.

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Memphis City Council

The Council Confirmed the Mayor's Team and Changed How MATA Is Governed, Both in One Night

At its July 21 meeting the Memphis City Council confirmed leaders in Mayor Paul Young's administration, including Art Davis as the city's chief financial officer, and approved a change to the trustee structure the transit authority has operated under since 2025.

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Memphis City Council

The Council Says The Station Can Stay Open. A Chancery Court Case Is Still Pending.

A coalition of nearby liquor stores led by Buster's Liquors and Wines has spent months trying to shut down the East Memphis store. The Memphis City Council rejected their latest appeal on July 21. The lawsuit seeking to reverse the store's approval has not been resolved.

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Memphis Police

Two Men Killed by the Memphis Safe Task Force in One Week. A Grandfather Wants to See the Video.

Tyrin Johnson, 20, was killed by a Tennessee National Guard member. Alfonso Ivy, 47, was killed days later in a DEA-led warrant service. State records show task force shootings now match the total for MPD and the Sheriff's Office for all of 2024. The NAACP is demanding a federal investigation. Nobody has been charged, and the investigations are open.

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Memphis City Council

The Council Is Renewing a $2.6 Million Grant Fund That Gives Each Member $200,000 to Hand Out

A committee advanced the FY2027 Community Grant Program on July 7. It arrives after city auditors questioned a $13,000 grant to a County Commissioner-elect, and after a former county commissioner pleaded guilty to five tax evasion counts tied to steering nonprofit grant money. The full Council still has to approve it.

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Memphis City Council

The People Who Run Memphis's Money Are Out: Young Replaces His COO and CFO Days After the Budget Passed

Young is replacing two Strickland-era holdovers, COO Antonio Adams and CFO Walter Person, as the city engineer retires. The new COO and CFO need Council confirmation.

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Memphis City Council

Memphis Council Passes Nearly $900 Million Budget; AutoZone Park Funded, Transit Left Out

The Memphis City Council approved Mayor Paul Young's FY2027 budget 11 to 1 on June 23, holding the tax rate flat and adding $5 million for AutoZone Park, but without the transit and violence-prevention money residents pressed for over weeks of hearings.

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Memphis City Council

Memphis Budget Vote Returns to Council After Two-Week Delay

The Memphis City Council delayed its FY27 budget vote on June 9 after residents demanded more funding for violence prevention, transit, and housing. The decision is due back at the Council's next scheduled meeting.

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Memphis Police

MPD Consent Decree Compliance Under Scrutiny as a Federal Task Force Operates in Memphis

Civil liberties groups are pressing MPD to follow a decades-old court order limiting surveillance as federal agents and National Guard troops operate in the city. Supporters of the deployment say the goal is reducing violent crime.

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Memphis City Council

Hearing #3: The math doesn't work, and the Chair said so

Janika White (Super District 8-2), chairing the budget block, stated publicly that the FY27 budget cannot meet the city's needs through cuts and named a tax increase as a topic Council needs to discuss. The 10,000 housing units math gap was confirmed. The City Attorney did not mention the Tyre Nichols civil trial. The livestream dropped during the Parks presentation.

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Memphis City Council

Hearing #2: The police overtime shell game

The administration confirmed on the public record that the Memphis Police Department's proposed $29.8M FY27 overtime budget is not an operational reduction. $4-5M of it comes from a state Violence Intervention grant that expires in FY28. When the grant ends, the cost lands back on the General Fund.

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Memphis City Council

Hearing #1: What Council asked, what the administration said, and what's still missing

The first FY27 Memphis budget hearing in plain English. Council got real answers on the debt cliff, pre-K, and potholes. They did not ask about police overtime, the $13M contractor cut, or the Tyre Nichols civil trial. And the 10,000 housing units promise got quietly redefined.

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Memphis City Council

The FY27 Budget Timeline: What Happens Between Now and the Council's Final Vote

The Council's FY27 budget hearings run through early June. The final vote is scheduled before the fiscal year begins on July 1. Here is what is still open.

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Memphis City Council

What the First Week of FY27 Budget Hearings Actually Showed

The Council's first week of FY27 budget hearings covered police, fire, public works, and general services. The pattern was consistent: presentations answered how much, not what for.

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Memphis Police

Four Memphis Residents Sue the Memphis Safe Task Force for Retaliating Against People Who Recorded Them

The ACLU of Tennessee filed a federal First Amendment lawsuit against the Memphis Safe Task Force on behalf of four residents, one week after a DEA agent working under the task force shot and killed a man at a Frayser Burger King.

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Memphis City Council

Police and Fire Take the Stand: FY27 Budget Hearings Begin With the City's Biggest Personnel Bill

Police and fire went before Council on May 19 in the first substantive FY27 budget hearing. The Memphis Police Department is on track for roughly $221 million under the mayor's proposal.

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Memphis City Council

Pensions Are the Quiet Line in Memphis's FY27 Budget

72% of Mayor Paul Young's proposed $898 million FY27 budget is personnel: salaries, health insurance, and pensions. The pension piece is the one nobody wants to talk about.

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