Audio clip
Peggy Roselle
The leader of a relatively new organization set up to improve the Brainerd community said there’s plenty of work left undone by another neighborhood group.
“We saw that Brainerd has more neighborhood associations that don’t connect with each other,” said Candy Corneliussen, co-founder of the Brainerd Unity Group. “We want to be a group that brings people together to start making things happen.”
Ms. Corneliussen and Julia Morgan Scott formed the Brainerd Unity Group in October 2007 after they said the Brainerd Neighborhood Coalition, led by former City Councilwoman Marti Rutherford, stopped meeting. The coalition started four years ago.
Ms. Rutherford said the coalition’s work never stopped. She said members of the other group previously attended coalition meetings but quit coming.
“I asked them to work through the Brainerd Neighborhood Coalition,” Ms. Rutherford said. “They chose not to.”
The neighborhood coalition last met in December, she said. Meetings in January and February were canceled because of political forums for District 6 City Council candidates and other events already scheduled.
“We’re doing concrete things,” Ms. Rutherford said of the coalition’s efforts to improve one of the city’s oldest and largest communities. “We don’t have meetings every month, but we do have nine or 10 a year.”
Bill Eiselstein, president of the 21st Century Neighborhood Association, said the groups don’t overlap.
“It doesn’t hurt to have two groups. Both will do what they can to unite Brainerd,” he said.
Brainerd includes 3,415 households and 7,789 residents, about 5 percent of Chattanooga’s population, according to the Community Research Council.
Most of the Brainerd neighborhood groups are bounded by the Missionary Ridge Tunnels to Spring Creek and from Interstate 75 to Rogers Road.
The groups encompass parts of three City Council districts including District 5, District 9 and District 6, where the majority of Brainerd residents live.
About 14 Brainerd neighborhood organizations are represented in the Brainerd Neighborhood Coalition. Representatives from four of the same neighborhood groups also have attended Brainerd Unity Group meetings.
Members of both groups met at different places on the same night this month to discuss how they could improve Brainerd.
Peggy Roselle, owner of Out of the Blue Cafe & Kites, attended the Brained Unity Group meeting at her cafe.
“We hope that in time we coordinate the groups and work toward common goals,” said Mrs. Roselle, who is also president of the Brainerd area Chamber of Commerce.
Residents at both meetings said they were concerned about the number of Check into Cash businesses in the community and the loud noise from Deep Blue, a nightclub on the corner of South Seminole and Brainerd Road.
The club is closed temporarily, but residents at the Brainerd Neighborhood Coalition meeting discussed how they could prevent the noise from becoming a problem when the business reopens.
Ms. Corneliussen said her group will focus on finding the best way to promote the good things in Brainerd.
“We’re focused on improving Brainerd’s image by promoting (Brainerd businesses),” said Ms. Corneliussen. “Brainerd is a hidden treasure. There’s a suburban feel in the neighborhoods, but we’re surrounded by commerce.”
Yolanda Putman has been a reporter at the Times Free Press for 11 years. She covers housing and previously covered education and crime. Yolanda is a Chattanooga native who has a master’s degree in communication from the University of Tennessee and a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Alabama State University. She previously worked at the Lima (Ohio) News. She enjoys running, reading and writing and is the mother of one son, Tyreese. She has also ...
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