Chattanooga voters in City Council Districts 7 and 9 must return to the polls Tuesday to choose their local representatives.
We say "must" return to the polls because these local representatives - be they on city councils or county commissions - often have far more impact on our day-to-day lives than state or national elected officials.
Back in February, we interviewed all of the candidates for Chattanooga council seats and the mayor's office. And in March, voters chose to return Mayor Andy Berke to office, along with five incumbent council members, one new member who was unopposed and another new member who bested an incumbent.
But the races for Districts 7 and 9 ended with runoffs which voters will decide Tuesday. In each race, the incumbents got the most votes, but not enough to tally the required majority to win their seats outright.
Here are our endorsements for those races:
Chris AndersonDistrict 7, Chris Anderson
Chris Anderson in his first four years on the council has been, by his own admission, something of a lightning rod. But he has also been quite effective at transferring that electricity to his district. He has managed to get the funding to make needed and even showy improvements in the communities he represents - parts of Downtown, Alton Park, East Lake and St. Elmo.
At 36, Anderson has been the city's youngest council member, and he acknowledges that plays a part in the controversy that he has sometimes stirred.
"I am a little rambunctious, and a fighter," he told Times Free Press editors. "But being a fighter also helps me get more for my district."
He is right: Even council candidates in other districts bring up the comparisons of city improvements in District 7 versus those in other areas of the city. The improvements in Chattanooga's downtown are obvious: Southside and the Riverfront are booming with development that arguably might be happening no matter who is on the council.
But consider that East Lake, probably the most neglected Chattanooga neighborhood for 40 years, has in the last four years begun the work to clean and re-invigorate the lake and park that gave it its name. Finalizing the park has been and may still be a tricky process because the lake was polluted. But the neighborhood's history is huge, and the community - with many longtime families still in place - at long last has the city's newest and best playground.
"An investment there tells them they matter," Anderson said.
In Alton Park, residents have waited years since the Charles A. Bell School closed in 1990 and residents were promised a brownfield cleanup and a park there. That work, too, has finally begun.
Similarly, St. Elmo's on-again, off-again renaissance is now on again.
That's not to say all is done, Anderson says.
"St. Elmo needs traffic calming. Alton Park and East Lake need living wage jobs and workforce development education. We do Lexia (a Family Learning Center reading program) and Baby University in both, but we need to do more," he told Times Free Press editors.
Anderson's opponent - a former hospital executive, Erskine Oglesby Jr., 61, is a good man we hope will stay involved in public service and volunteerism.
But Anderson's success and his youthful eagerness to serve and learn make him a keeper.
Demetrus CoonrodDistrict 9, Demetrus Coonrod
District 9 will win no matter who is elected. We think it will win more with Demetrus Coonrod.
Incumbent Yusuf Hakeem has years of public service experience, but Coonrod, 40, is an impressive woman and ex-con who has turned her life around - giving her a breadth of life experience the council could use as it works to solve the prickly problems in the district's communities of East Chattanooga, Eastdale, Glenwood, Missionary Ridge and Ridgedale.
Now a franchise owner of JanPro and a former official of the Hamilton County Democratic Party, Coonrod's diverse background and plethora of new ideas would bring a new voice from the community that all too often Chattanooga doesn't hear.
In her younger years, Coonrod ran afoul of the law when "friends" used her car in a robbery. She was convicted as an accomplice and did her time - using that time to gain education and skills. Then she set about changing her life, getting her citizen rights back and becoming the very solid woman she is today.
Hakeem holds a different view, and recently called her "unhinged." She acknowledges that she isn't always politically correct. Of course, one has to wonder about the political correctness of a 68-year-old man calling his opponent "unhinged."
Coonrod says many of the district's residents need economic mobility and help to peel away the problems that hinder families trying to pull out of poverty.
"You have to invest in whole family offer mental health care, jobs, GEDs, nutrition and community support. You get the community and churches involved. And once you do that, they have a view. Once you get that view, you get faith. And then it's a domino effect," she said.
The city's new Baby University is an excellent example of the kind of family-building programs she is talking about, she says.
It's hard to argue with that.