The latest reporting from The 901 Report, newest first.
Sen. Marsha Blackburn's gubernatorial campaign withdrew its public records demand against the Registry of Election Finance on September 23, eight days after threatening legal action over records about two board members' year-end reappointments.
The 901 Report
The donation supports the TACT unit. Nobody said what it buys, why the department needs a donation to buy it, or why the figure lands on an odd number of cents.
The 901 Report
The Tennessee Public Charter School Commission on October 9 overturned Metro Nashville's denials of two charter schools and made itself their authorizer for ten years, rejecting the district's argument that its estimated loss of about $3.5 million in first-year per-pupil funding was harm enough to say no.
The 901 Report
A Chalkbeat Tennessee analysis of state data finds nearly 20 percent of Memphis-Shelby County Schools educators resigned in 2024, against about 12 percent statewide, with the heaviest churn in the district's lowest-rated schools. Superintendent Roderick Richmond says competitive pay could mean job cuts.
The 901 Report
Two days after a Memphis Police Department patrol vehicle collided with a civilian car at Hickory Hill and Raines, killing five of its six occupants, the department has confirmed the call type and released its officers from the hospital. The public record on speed, lights, and dispatch priority has not moved.
The 901 Report
Three days after announcing it had "amicably parted ways" with Town Administrator Molly Mehner, Collierville named its deputy town administrator to run the government temporarily. The separation agreement pays Mehner nine months of salary, and the town still has not put a dollar figure on it.
The 901 Report
At a Washington conference, Mayor Paul Young defended his SpaceXAI approach against "sell out" criticism, said he supports stricter data center regulation, and said "some retaliation might come if my voice is saying it," a remark he tied to immigration policy.
The 901 Report
Two firms, two funding sources, two renewal options each. Nobody has ever said on the record what the project is.
The 901 Report
Seven Bend, two Conwood projects and Peach Tree. Four contract numbers, four same night minutes, and no inspection record stated on the floor.
The 901 Report
Eleven days after deadlocking 3-3, the State Building Commission unanimously cleared the way to market roughly 10 acres of state-owned parking lots in downtown Nashville to private developers, with a waiver of the normal legislative disclosure process attached.
The 901 Report
The bank said it sent the response to the trustee's office three days before the meeting. The trustee said it went to all thirteen commissioners by email. She said she did not get it, and voted yes.
The 901 Report
CNN, MS NOW and Politico filed a joint lawsuit September 21 after President Trump revoked their White House credentials over reporting he called "fake news," and major networks halted video coverage in protest.
The 901 Report
The Executive Session approved it with same night minutes on a voice vote. No member asked how many animals the shelter holds, what its capacity is, or what condition the building is in.
The 901 Report
A University of Memphis engineering team will inventory MATA's buses, facilities, and equipment and define the agency's bare minimum service floor, two years after a $60 million deficit came to light.
The 901 Report
Circuit court hearings set for September 21 and 22 were postponed to November 16 and 17 at the county's request, on the strength of a September 15 council resolution that recast the blocked transfer as invoice-by-invoice reimbursement.
The 901 Report
It began as an add-on nobody had seen. Five days later it passed 13 to nothing, and the sponsor list grew by four names in the ninety seconds before the vote.
The 901 Report
"You ain't got the power to do all those wonderful things," the Council attorney said. He told members the city controls siting and little else, and called community dividends something that looks to him like extortion.
The 901 Report
Marcy Ingram won 8 to 5. Nine days later, commissioners were arguing about how to replace her as their own counsel.
The 901 Report
Restore Our Fairgrounds delivered its petition September 18. Election officials have 30 days to certify roughly 41,000 valid signatures, while a Speedway Motorsports-backed coalition says more than 2,000 signers have asked to take their names off.
The 901 Report
Planning granted a three-month extension instead of the usual six because there had been no activity. A Council member asked whether the city should start at three months for everyone. The answer was that it could look at that.
The 901 Report
A claimed $14 million in reserves shrank to about $3 million on correction. On September 18 the county's three commissioners voted unanimously to start with a limited audit to get the FY2027 budget numbers right, with a broader look back to 2023 under discussion.
The 901 Report
They came back on September 14 and again on September 28. The resolution has not been heard.
The 901 Report
The Chief Financial Officer said the calculation arrived late on August 27. He asked for the item to be added to the agenda at the last minute and for same night minutes, because a ten-day grace period was the only thing keeping the city current.
The 901 Report
The wrongful-death complaint, filed in Shelby County Circuit Court and since moved to federal court, alleges the Tulane Road mezzanine had no guardrails, no safety net, and no working anchor point for the harness Alexis Vicent was wearing when he fell 25 to 30 feet.
The 901 Report
PK24107 was cited in the August 18 Pine Hill netting resolution. On September 1 it belongs to the $4 million Audubon Golf Clubhouse. Three of the other four parks items approved the same morning still have no project number at all.
The 901 Report
Jail East was full. The youth facility was full. The correctional center was ten short. The building holding about 3,000 people was thirty short.
The 901 Report
Seven appointments and one reappointment, approved with same night minutes. Mayor Paul Young told the committee the interim president has to leave at the end of the year and the board is needed to hire his replacement.
The 901 Report
Not guilty pleas were entered to aggravated child neglect, criminally negligent homicide, and tampering with governmental records. The next court date is October 30.
The 901 Report
Fifteen TBI agents are working inside the Memphis Safe Task Force under an April 2026 law, with 17 more investigators being hired and an eight-member board that can send agents without a local request.
The 901 Report
Judge Eli Richardson dismissed all nine of DC BLOX's claims against Metro Nashville's data center permitting moratorium, giving the developer 21 days to replead three of them. The ruling is the first Tennessee court reading on the tool Memphis City Council takes to a final vote on October 20.
The 901 Report
Two Memphis police officers answering a call collided with a civilian car at Hickory Hill and Raines early on October 11, killing five people in the other vehicle. The Tennessee Highway Patrol now owns the investigation, and the most important facts are still unpublished.
The 901 Report
A commissioner did the arithmetic out loud at the table and asked whether the county had priced non-compliance as a cost of doing business.
The 901 Report
Two members described state roads around Graceland, the airport, the zoo and the civil rights museum as the city's front door. One said her Tennessee Highway Patrol detail comments on the condition every day.
The 901 Report
District data reported to the board shows enrollment above 101,000, down from 103,280 last year, a roughly 2.2 percent drop in a funding formula that pays per student, while the takeover fight is still in federal court.
The 901 Report
Protect Our Aquifer is taking a 1,000-signature petition to MLGW asking the utility to end volume discounts for its largest industrial water users and adopt a conservation structure, pointing to Jackson, Mississippi, where higher-usage tiers now cost nearly double the base rate.
The 901 Report
The city's community development block grant fell from $6.8 million in 2021 to $6.07 million in 2026. Officials told the Council the biggest driver is not population. It is that the national pot keeps shrinking.
The 901 Report
He is not an employee. There is no current contract. He stepped off the vote anyway, and said why on the record.
The 901 Report
The amount has not changed since Memphis and the utility set it 27 years ago. A Council member asked what that money was worth then and what it is worth now. He did not get an answer.
The 901 Report
A class action filed September 15 alleges heat above 90 degrees, weeks in plastic chairs instead of beds, sewage in living areas, and failing fire systems at the Shelby County Jail, and asks for court intervention and an independent monitor rather than money.
The 901 Report
Prince George's County's council voted 8-2 to rewrite the terms of a disputed $39 million transfer from its park and planning commission days before circuit court hearings, while two of its own council members seek an independent audit of the council's "project charges" spending.
The 901 Report
The body has thirteen members. The clerk read eleven names and one recusal. The thirteenth does not appear in the tally.
The 901 Report
The resolution delegates the interest rate, the term and the structure to the Chief Financial Officer and authorizes a negotiated sale. It passed 8 to 0 on the same day the Chief Financial Officer told a committee the sewer fund was carrying a negative cash claim.
The 901 Report
U.S. District Judge Susan Illston found the Department of Homeland Security unlawfully gutted FEMA's disaster workforce, and said she will presume the Signal messages officials deleted would have counted against them. What gets rebuilt comes in a remedies ruling expected within a month.
The 901 Report
Mayor Paul Young paused the Paul R. Lowry Road extension into Frank C. Pidgeon Industrial Park and promised a fresh look. Advocates led by Memphis Community Against Pollution say the fresh look should end with cancellation.
The 901 Report
Adams Avenue between North B.B. King Boulevard and Fourth Street will honorarily be St. Peter Sam Avenue. The Council passed it by acclamation, sponsored by all thirteen members, and the city engineer is asked to put up the signs.
The 901 Report
The same thirteen commissioners, the same two finalists, the same margin, reversed.
The 901 Report
Coleman Thompson, the sole remaining District 84 member of the Shelby County Democratic Party's executive committee, selected mayoral aide Matthew Szalaj to replace former Rep. Joe Towns Jr. on the November ballot, per the Tennessee Lookout.
The 901 Report
The FY2027 capital plan carries $109,225,008 in general obligation bonds. One percent is $1,092,250, capped by ordinance at $1 million. The Council moved $512,000 out of unspent school upgrades on August 18. That brings the program to $912,000.
The 901 Report
After Justice Kavanaugh's September 8 denial, the full Supreme Court on September 10 issued an unsigned order, with no noted dissents, blocking a federal judge's order to use the Republican-drawn map and keeping the 2022 lines in place for the midterms.
The 901 Report
The driver, the assistant director, and an assistant at the now-closed Kid University in Cordova each face aggravated child neglect, criminally negligent homicide, and tampering with governmental records.
The 901 Report
Four names went into nomination. The first ballot split six, four, two and one. Fourteen days after the body was sworn in, it finally had a chair.
The 901 Report
Ordinance 5980 rewrites how the city enforces short-term rentals reported as a public nuisance. It moved through the consent agenda in one vote while the committee item created to discuss it was postponed.
The 901 Report
LULAC, Common Cause, UnidosUS, and the City and County of Denver sued the Department of Homeland Security on September 10 over its authorization for armed ICE officers to enter polling places during the 2026 midterms.
The 901 Report
The early-voting window for the November 3 state and federal general election runs October 14 through October 29 at 26 sites, with a governor's race, a U.S. Senate seat, and five suburban city elections on the ballot.
The 901 Report
The Election Commission completed early-voting machine checks Thursday, October 8, and Administrator of Elections Linda Phillips is urging voters to read three constitutional amendments and three Memphis charter questions before early voting opens Wednesday, October 14.
The 901 Report
Early voting opens Wednesday, October 14. Directly after the governor's race, voters will decide on bail, a permanent ban on a state property tax, and an expanded victims' rights section.
The 901 Report
The county's collection program for the August 22 windstorm runs through November 30, requires a phone call to Roads and Bridges, and covers unincorporated areas only.
The 901 Report
The new sheriff is recruiting nationally for the official who will run Tennessee's largest jail and Jail East for Women, while the facilities sit under active litigation and a jail healthcare contract nears its end.
The 901 Report
The Solicitor General pulled Application 26A297 and refiled as 26A305, asking the justices to stay Judge Talwani's September 4 injunction. The Court denied it September 14.
The 901 Report
The Shelby County Sheriff's Office says Beverly Turnage, 43, was found unresponsive on September 12 and pronounced dead within the hour. The office calls it an active investigation, and it has not said who is reviewing the death or what caused it.
The 901 Report
The September 8 denial leaves the 2022 congressional districts in place for the November 3 election, and puts the blocked 2025 map before Missouri voters on the same ballot.
The 901 Report
Richardson, who won District 8 with 81 percent of the vote in August, was booked September 9 on two counts of falsifying state revenue records, a grand jury having indicted him August 25. The charges are allegations. He has not been convicted, has posted bond, and is presumed innocent.
The 901 Report
MATA has received 12 of 56 buses and needs the city's local share by August 25 to pay for them. The money for all of it comes out of capital already appropriated for the Innovation Corridor and transit amenities.
The 901 Report
Two organizations told the Council on August 18 that the city is a pass-through, not a funder. One operates on $739,000. Both asked for $2 million each and $10 million for the city office that coordinates them.
The 901 Report
The committee chairman told colleagues the locations were chosen from data, not out of a hat, and asked for responses by Friday, August 21. The list was not read into the record, is not attached to the published agenda, and no member asked for it to be released.
The 901 Report
The amendment raises the multiplier from 2.25 percent to 2.50 percent and removes a 5 percent early retirement penalty. The cost is charged to a fund created by a 2019 sales tax referendum, with an automatic step-down if that fund cannot carry it.
The 901 Report
Every item a commissioner files has to pass through administrative review first. Commissioner Mick Wright said that when it does not, the resolution arrives disadvantaged, and the body starts to treat its members unequally.
The 901 Report
S&P lowered the sewer revenue rating to A from A+ on July 14 with a negative outlook. On August 18 the Chief Financial Officer told a Council committee the system was carrying a negative claim on cash of about $13 million, one month after a $37 million interfund rescue.
The 901 Report
The same committee had just advanced an ordinance adding accountability and eligibility requirements to county grants. The truck item followed it, and passed without a question.
The 901 Report
The money funds a partnership with LeMoyne-Owen College athletics, including indoor tennis courts, an expanded pro shop with locker rooms and a turf field. The project still has no CIP number, and the filed resolution opens by citing Glenview Park Aquatic Facility.
The 901 Report
An administrator told the committee the federal standard for a small construction firm is roughly $12 million to $13 million. If commissioners amend the ordinance now, it restarts at first reading under a new Commission.
The 901 Report
Anna Harwell asked for it herself. She told the Commission a son had said it would not happen, and that she told him it certainly would not if she did not try.
The 901 Report
Missouri officials filed their emergency application late September 4 asking the U.S. Supreme Court to revive the voided mid-decade map. Justice Brett Kavanaugh set responses for noon September 7 and the state wants a decision by September 14.
The 901 Report
Judge Indira Talwani enjoined the Postal Service's mail-ballot rule on September 4 and called it unconstitutional. The government's Supreme Court application is still pending, with responses due September 8.
The 901 Report
The sponsor was absent from committee, so it advanced without a recommendation. On the floor it was set aside mid-agenda because staff could not find the summary sheet, then picked back up and passed without a word.
The 901 Report
The Parks and Environment Committee moved every item on August 18 with no questions on eight of nine. The filed resolutions carry PK-TBD where a CIP project number belongs, and two of them cite two different numbers in the same document.
The 901 Report
The Information Technology division asked the Budget Committee on August 18 to move another $300,000 into the line it can actually spend from. A council member asked what happens if no emergency comes. The answer was that the money stays where it is.
The 901 Report
Asked how the local firms compare on capacity, the county's benefits administrator said the county does not know.
The 901 Report
The Building Home Program rewrite passed on its third reading with the fee amount stated aloud for the first time, in answer to a question from the floor.
The 901 Report
Fifteen of the properties sold for less than the taxes owed. Every property that went to an out-of-town buyer sold for less than the taxes owed.
The 901 Report
The fix is a document handed over with every plumbing permit. It came from a resident who noticed the difference.
The 901 Report
The resolution buys qualifying medical debt at a fraction of face value and abolishes it. No application is required. The nonprofit told the Council it will not say which providers it buys from without their consent.
The 901 Report
The answer came in the final minutes of a routine quarterly report. The Trustee said the company has not been late, and that the current year's bills have only just gone out.
The 901 Report
The utility told the Council its president stood up a processing center in three days with more than 100 volunteers, obligated $6.6 million and pushed call center wait times from under a minute to as long as thirteen. Funding to Shelby County fell roughly in half.
The 901 Report
The Trustee's final quarterly report set records for collections and investment income. Asked what fiscal year 2027 assumes for that income, the Trustee said her office does not forecast it and finance said it did not know the number.
The 901 Report
Kilgore Flares, a Chemring-owned maker of missile-decoy flares in Toone, filed a state WARN notice for a permanent layoff effective October 31. Eight years ago Tennessee celebrated a $40 million expansion at the same plant that was supposed to add roughly 100 jobs.
The 901 Report
One is an emergency award for $2,790,687.45 in rooftop air conditioning. One ratifies a 2025 software invoice paid after the fact. The whole package passed the Council in one vote with no member in the queue to speak.
The 901 Report
The swap funds four new criminal court clerks from the general fund and moves the mental health court to the opioid abatement fund. The judge said the switch restricts how she can spend it. Finance said one stream of that fund is unrestricted.
The 901 Report
MLGW told the Memphis City Council it serves 16 data centers, has two approved expansions, two 350 MW requests pending, and ten unstudied applications.
The 901 Report
Eight days after meeting behind closed doors and standing by Chief Harold Vanderford, the Board of Aldermen rejected his resignation letter and voted unanimously to terminate him.
The 901 Report
The item was not on the printed agenda. It took a suspension of the rules to be heard at all. Three commissioners voted to advance it.
The 901 Report
The Justice Department filed an emergency application September 3 to unblock the Postal Service's mail-ballot rule. Responses are due September 8. North Carolina and Alabama began mailing ballots September 4.
The 901 Report
The consent agenda carried Ordinance 5982's second reading, first readings for the pension amendment and three other ordinances, and four subdivision bond releases. No member spoke. The whole thing took about ninety seconds.
The 901 Report
The Memphis Democrat resigned to take office as Shelby County Criminal Court Clerk. With no Republican on the November ballot, the replacement process is the whole contest.
The 901 Report
The committee sent the item forward without a recommendation, then reopened it an hour later when staff arrived. The county cut the tenant's rent in half to keep it in the building.
The 901 Report
The federal government claimed the Macon Road operation. The paperwork behind it, new reporting shows, was obtained by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation in Shelby County Criminal Court.
The 901 Report
The moratorium passed first reading on August 18. The filed text lets the city keep accepting applications for docketing, exempts anything already vested before the ordinance was introduced, and runs twelve months. Two readings remain.
The 901 Report
The full Commission adopted the youth seclusion ordinance on August 24, 2026, by 10 votes, five days after a committee advanced it with no questions and no data on how often seclusion is used.
The 901 Report
The chairwoman called it an administrative cleanup required by state law. A commissioner pulled it off the consent agenda so it could not pass silently.
The 901 Report
The committee advanced it on two votes. Five days later the sponsor moved to suspend the rules so the Commission could hear it, and the chamber went silent.
The 901 Report
A commissioner read the numbers into the record while voting against two $100,000 training contracts. She said she asked for this information at budget hearings in May and never got it.
The 901 Report
The county closed fiscal year 2026 by moving $7,185,588.36 to cover funds that ended the year short. A commissioner asked what that leaves in reserve. The answer was about $80 million, flat to last year.
The 901 Report
County planning staff recommended rejection twice. On the floor, staff produced the detail that mattered: the road-widening plans the applicant cited had expired.
The 901 Report
The resolution started as a ban on spending and ended as a reporting requirement. It passed seven to three after two hours of public comment and a fight over whether it could be heard at all.
The 901 Report
The stopgap passed the House on September 1 and went to the President. If signed, the government stays funded through December 11 and the rule that would put political appointees over federal grant approvals stays blocked.
The 901 Report
Two days after the Memphis Safe Task Force and the city both said the El Corralon operation was not theirs, Homeland Security named it Operation Corral Light, put ICE's New Orleans office in charge, and gave a number. It did not say where the 121 people are.
The 901 Report
One day after the largest immigration raid in city history, a business campaign put specific, answerable demands to Mayor Young, the City Council, the County Commission, and Governor Lee.
The 901 Report
The shutdown is the first countable milestone under the agreed order with Mississippi regulators. Fifty-eight temporary turbines are still running while the permanent plant is built.
The 901 Report
Doug McGowen says the city and county will seek about $18 million in reimbursement for the August 22 storm. The application, the program, and the split are all still unpublished.
The 901 Report
The swearing-in lands on the county's own FY2027 budget deadline day, one week after the outgoing Commission committed contingency money to a jail study and capped its takeover legal bill.
The 901 Report
Federal agents detained more than 100 people at El Corralon before dawn on August 30, 2026. DHS claimed the operation two days later and counted 121 arrests.
The 901 Report
Days after the Supreme Court lifted her earlier injunction for coming before any finalized plan existed, U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani blocked the Postal Service's finalized mail-ballot rule nationwide, with a hearing set for September 3.
The 901 Report
The sealed report, obtained by CBS News Miami, traces settlement money owed to the state through a charity tied to the First Lady's initiative and into a political committee, and concludes nobody would take responsibility for the decision.
The 901 Report
Governor Bill Lee's August 27 clemency round centers on Thomas Clardy, who served roughly 17 years for a 2005 Davidson County killing, was freed after a federal court overturned his conviction, and faced a return to prison after an appeals court reinstated it.
The 901 Report
The government that spent public money prosecuting two ouster efforts against its own county clerk has been ordered to reimburse her defense, per WKNO, and the Daily Memphian reports the county does not want to pay.
The 901 Report
Memphis-Shelby County Schools had 45 days to respond to the Comptroller's forensic audit, a clock that ran out August 22. As of August 29, neither the district nor the Comptroller's office will say whether a response exists. The office has issued four other news releases this month.
The 901 Report
A proposed USDA rule would cut the federal share of SNAP administrative costs from 50 percent to 25 percent starting in fiscal year 2027, shifting an estimated $16.9 billion onto states over five years. The comment period, extended to September 8, is still open. The fiscal year turns October 1.
The 901 Report
The public statement supporting Chief Harold Vanderford followed a Tuesday meeting between the Mayor, the Board of Aldermen, and the chief that residents say was never publicly noticed. On August 28 a community group demanded his firing.
The 901 Report
State figures put per-pupil public school funding at $7,272 for 2026-27 and the Education Freedom Scholarship voucher at $7,530. In 29 districts the gap runs wider, and at one Memphis school system it reaches $663 per student.
The 901 Report
The Tennessee Fish and Wildlife Commission unanimously approved a new license structure on August 21 with most increases in the 27 to 29 percent range. A combination hunt and fish license goes from $33 to $42. The increase still needs legislative sign-off.
The 901 Report