It's about to be 2018 - the year to make a difference.
This will be the year to stretch. The year to further understanding, compassion, efficiency - locally and globally.
The year to vote.
Learn - really learn - who your political leaders are at your city hall, on the county commission, on the school board, in the state's general assembly and in the U.S. Congress. Call them and email them. Often. Even visit them.
Call Chattanooga Mayor Andy Berke and tell him what you like and don't like about what's happening in Chattanooga. Tell him you love the fact that Chattanooga is in the top 25 cities for job growth in the nation, is seeing nearly $1 billion being invested right now in new housing, hotel and commercial space and has just this year become the first city in the world to host four Ironman events.
But tell him, too, that Chattanooga streets jar our teeth loose, and we still have unacceptable community pockets of poverty where there are far too many shootings in neighborhoods in which gangs are the only education and employment some young men and women think is available to them.
Go to the next Hamilton County Board of Education meeting. While you're there, corner members and administrators (because you won't be allowed a speaking opportunity to the group) and tell them you're pleased they finally hired a new superintendent - one who finally found a way to work with state officials to launch an "Opportunity Zone" to support 12 of the district's struggling schools. Tell them you're happy they finally got off the dime and decided to spend $125 million to build, merge and renovate schools. Emphasize "finally."
But tell them you will not tolerate ever again any effort by them to keep the public out of the decision-making process. Tell them you expect their future conversations about all education issues here to be discussed publicly and transparently.
Make 2018 the year you take a Wednesday morning off to sit and listen to a Hamilton County Commission meeting. You'll be shocked at how little public conversation you'll hear. And what you do hear will largely be rehearsed. Otherwise, how could those nine men and women, along with County Mayor Jim Coppinger, approve or disapprove in a matter of minutes complicated decisions like how much of our money should be spent on schools, the jail, police services, roadwork and tourism recruitment by the local convention and cisitors bureau, known as the CVB?
Tell them you still don't understand why groups like the CVB, whose budgets are made up largely of your money, don't have to keep detailed records of how they spend that money. Tell them you believe they made the right decision to increase the money allotted to schools, even if it did mean your property taxes went up about $100 a year. But tell them also that if Huntsville's convention and visitors bureau can bring in $1 billion in tourism revenue with an expenditure of $2 million, you don't understand why our CVB brings in that same amount of revenue on an expenditure of $7 million. Gosh, we could give the schools another good boost if our CVB didn't spend more than three times what Huntsville does. And Huntsville doesn't have anything like what Chattanooga has to offer tourists.
While you're at it, tell the people you've elected to the city council and the county commission and state offices that they need to appoint better people - people who won't be afraid to have leadership discussions publicly so taxpayers and customers can hear them - to the CVB board, the Erlanger board, the EPB board and plenty of other boards locally that oversee important services.
Call and write your Tennessee or Georgia state legislators and tell them you're proud that Tennessee and Georgia job growth and business starts outpaced the U.S. rate. But make it clear to them how disgusted you are with their petty political games to restrict voting rights and women's rights. Ask them why they have such a fear of voter fraud because your mother's driver's license doesn't have a photo, or includes her maiden name?
Ask them why they've made it harder yo vote than it is to carry a gun into a movie theater, park or church? Ask them to take their hands out of the National Rifle Association's pocket.
Fill up the phone lines to Tennessee, Georgia and Alabama members of Congress to demand they give wage-earners the best tax breaks - not corporations and the richest 1 percent in our country. (Hint: that richest 1 percent includes most of Congress.)
Ask them to do their jobs and insist that President Donald Trump stop bullying and start acting like a leader. Insist that they demand he open his tax records, divest himself of properties that are clearly a conflict of interest for the president of the United States to hold, respect the law and cooperate with the congressional investigators and special counsel who are trying to understand how the Russians interfered with our 2016 elections.
Then, as elections roll up this year from May through November, go to the polls and vote. Vote for or against those folks you've been watching and getting to know.