Blues behind for center?
The Bessie Smith Cultural Center has another opportunity to begin again. The African-American museum and event hall, financially troubled since its opening in 1996, has a new executive director in Dionne Jennings.
The former board member and foundation fundraiser will be tasked with turning around the center's reputation of being mismanaged and losing money.
With a marvelous location, ample parking and an interesting history to illustrate, the Bessie could and should become one of downtown's best small venues.
Jennings says she plans to restore the public's trust by partnering with new organizations, expanding the center's educational programs for children, improving the advertisement of its changing exhibits, and increasing membership and attendance.
It's a large but necessary task. The center, according to newspaper archives, was plagued by cost overruns during its construction, operated in the red in its early years and has lost money for at least the last three years. When either $42,000 or $88,000 -- records are unclear -- disappeared from the hall following its Bessie Smith Strut fundraiser in June, disengaged eyebrows were finally raised.
The city has directed more than $285,000 to the center over five years recently, including $30,000 for the 2015 budget year, and, with Mayor Andy Berke's budgeting-for-outcomes approach, should demand better accountability.
The Bessie still can become a gem among Chattanooga's downtown diamonds, but it must turn the corner to do so.
Target: Uber
Taxi companies around the world wish they had come up with the idea for an Internet-based rideshare service such as Uber, Lyft or Sidecar before the founders of those companies did. Now, here in Chattanooga as well as elsewhere, they want to throw up barriers for those companies who showed the ingenuity and creativity to try something new.
The Chattanooga City Council was to finalize reasonable revamped transportation rules to both regulate such mobile rideshare networks as Uber on Tuesday night and loosen them a bit on six local taxi companies. But that didn't stop one taxi service owner from trying to make some last-minute changes.
Millennium Taxi Service owner Tim Duckett wanted the council to exempt taxis from passing the annual Hamilton County emissions test or register their taxis in another county to avoid the testing. That's nonsense, of course, since you certainly want automobiles driving constantly throughout the city to be as "clean" as possible And many vehicles -- cars older than 1975, motorcycles and vehicles with a gross vehicle weight ratio of 10,500 pounds or less -- are already exempt.
And he complained about the use of cellphones by mobile companies to do business instead of having a "central place" from which to work. But cellphone use in a car is already a staple -- though it's not always used safely -- and rideshare companies such as Uber already have other safeguards in place for drivers and riders.
Taxi companies shouldn't feel overly threatened by rideshare companies, but those who don't embrace better technology and a better experience for the rider certainly ought to look over their shoulder from time to time.
Fighting the 'war'
If you ever wonder why the Democratic Party seems to be out of sync with so many Tennesseans, here is just one comment from late 2013 by an elected Democrat about the economic situation in Tennessee: "Unfortunately for Tennesseans," said House Democratic Caucus Chairman Mike Turner, D-Nashville, "the Republicans are winning their war on working people. ... Our workers are being left behind in an economic recovery."
The reality, as noted Monday by Business Facilities magazine, is that the Volunteer State's "war on working people" gave it an unprecedented back-to-back designation as State of the Year -- the best state in the union for economic development for 2014. It also is the first state to have won the designation three times, having previously won it in 2009.
The magazine cited the state's educational improvements, automotive industry growth, and its location and infrastructure. It was listed as tops in the nation in the "Education: Race to the Top" category," second in "Best Infrastructure" and has won the "Automotive Manufacturing Strength" category four of the past five years.
Indeed, in 2014, the state Department of Economic and Community Development worked on projects expected to generate a record of more than 24,000 jobs, surpassing the previous record 23,000 jobs in 2013. Since Gov. Bill Haslam was inaugurated to his first term, the state has attracted more than $15 billion of business investment.
Other states should seek how to become involved in such a "war."