Ron Littlefield, City of Chattanooga MayorThe sudden re-emergence of the flawed recall movement against Mayor Ron Littlefield and the partisan handling of it by the county's Election Commission could not come at worse time for the city. It casts a cloud of uncertainty over local government, threatening cohesive leadership at City Hall just as the city is poised to reach a level of momentum that not too many years ago would have seemed unimaginable.
Consider what's occurred in the just the past couple of weeks.
Regional growth plan. With economic development initiatives here reaching critical mass, government and business leaders in Chattanooga, Hamilton County and 15 surrounding counties in the tri-state region on Tuesday selected a team of national experts to develop a 16-county strategic growth plan. The planners will study long term strategic needs that are central to the growth which is now expected to occur over the next 40 years in the interconnected corner of southeast Tennessee, northwest Georgia and northeast Alabama.
Selection of the McBride Dale Clarion team followed a meeting of around 300 interested area citizens at a public forum here last week to hear presentations by the final three consortiums vying to lead the growth planning initiative. Business and political leaders from each of the partnering counties stepped up to this project because they are well aware that a coordinated, tri-state initiative -- founded on job-sharing, work-force development, technological innovation, resource management, efficient transportation corridors, quality-of-life and civic amenities -- will be required to remain competitive as an attractive megaregion in coming years in the widening global economy.
Chattanooga's and Bradley County's position at the fulcrum of tri-state development was enhanced last week by growing speculation regarding new plant additions. Volkswagen may be expanded to accommodate a second vehicle line. Wacker Chemical may expand its huge plant capacity and footprint in Bradley County. As related growth occurs, smart leadership, smart growth and protection of our quality of life will be increasingly important.
Young entrepreneurs and start-ups. For many years, local leaders understandably moaned that scarce opportunities prompted our brightest and most innovative youth to leave town for more fertile environments in other places. That has begun to change.
Civic investments in the Southside, i.e., CreateHere, MakeWork and GreenSpace, coupled with the nation's first major gigabit broadband capacity and increasing awareness of the region's world-class outdoor sports venues, have begun to keep and draw an entrepreneurial, tech-savy younger generation. Business start-up aid, with venture capital and angel funds, has come along, too. Two of the biggest local players boosting start-ups here are the Lamp Post Group and the Company Lab, or Co.Lab.
Two weeks ago, for instance, 48Hour Launch, an initiative of start-up incubator Co.Lab and Four Bridges Capital, drew a crowd of creative young people with entrepreneurial ideas to a non-stop, 48-hour, team-based competition at Track 29 (a major new music venue) to imagine, design and present viable new business ideas.
Teams shared their members' creative skills for tech innovation, business design, marketing ideas and start-up plans. After rapid-fire presentations on a Sunday evening to finish the event, winners in each of the three areas of competition took home a prize of $10,000 in cash and business services to help start their new businesses. The environment and infrastructure for this competition didn't exist here two years ago. That it's here now is compelling evidence of a key shift in the city's future potential.
Civic amenities. Chattanooga's evolving landscape has been on a roll for two decades. Trust for Public Land and advocates in like-minded groups have built a splendid and steadily growing network of greenways anchored to the Riverpark spine. And that work isn't close to being finished. We can now look forward to the possibility of the newly unveiled plan proposed for the Moccasin Bend (Park) Gateway in the North Shore. It would be, perhaps, even more spectacular in its scope and interconnections than the recently debuted plan for the Riverwalk extension on the south shore of the Tennessee River from Ross' Landing by the Tennessee Aquarium to South Broad Street.
The latter has already been well-described in this newspaper. The Moccasin Bend Gateway plan isn't yet as familiar. But it will be soon: It promises to be show-stopper. It would feature two landscaped, pedestrian-and-bicycle friendly routes to connect the North Shore commercial to the Moccasin Bend National Archaeological District's planned visitor's center. It also would provide equally enhanced interconnecting routes, as well to natural sites of interest between the river, and to, the new Stringer's Ridge park.
Civic improvements, given funding and continued interest, won't stop there. River City's Design Challenge series, aimed at developing conceptual architectural and civic use plans for six underused but key downtown sites, is revealing dynamic and innovative ways to make such sites models for city development. Plans already unveiled for the 700 block of Market Street and the old Civic Forum site on 10th Street between Market and Broad have generated deserved excitement.
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Given the current opportunities, progress and potential for the city and our larger community, strong mayoral leadership has never seem so important. There is much work yet to be done to make the most of the moment. It's a needlessly hurtful irony now to be distracted by an undeserved recall controversy.