District 8 City Council candidate Anthony Byrd.District 8 needs the new eyes and perspective of Anthony Byrd.
Byrd, 41, is a native Chattanoogan, a musician, a businessman, property owner and a clerk in Hamilton County's Criminal Court.
And he's interested in bringing city government closer to the people in his neighborhood of East Chattanooga - something he believes incumbent Councilman Moses Freeman, 78, no longer does. Byrd said he knows Freeman has done many good things as councilman, and he says he asked Freeman to mentor him and pass the baton - to no avail.
But Byrd adds that working in criminal court offices gives him an unusual perspective. Chattanooga offers "awesome opportunity" for people here, but that awesomeness and the information about how to avail ourselves of the city's opportunities too often don't make it to the city's "forgotten children" in the streets of poorer neighborhoods. Byrd wants to bring that - and some energy - into District 8's neighborhoods of Eastside, Amnicola, Avondale and Bushtown.
We think he can do it. And so, too, could Thomas Kunesh, another political novice and candidate in the district.
Kunesh, 60, lives in Ferger Place and is deeply concerned that Chattanooga pays too little attention to its Native American and African-American roots. Both of those issues come together in the Lincoln Park controversy and what Kunesh, who is of Native American descent, believes is a questionable plan to further disturb the Citico Mound and Native American burials in the Amnicola area to build additional apartments and condos. That new housing would ostensibly be for UTC students and faculty but it's unlikely to be in their price range, he says.
"There's no historic preservationist for the city, and there hasn't been for years. We need more urban voices on the council," not just development voices, he says.
And, yes, Councilman Freeman has been a strong activist and leader here, not just on the council but throughout his life in Chattanooga - so much so that his likeness as a boy on a bicycle delivering papers is on the giant downtown mural on Martin Luther King Boulevard.
Freeman says the city finally is taking a positive step on land planning - moving toward form-based code and away from zoning laws that fit the suburbs. He believes the Violence Reduction Initiative "has to have time to germinate."
Re-elected or not, Freeman and other long-time black leaders here need to be mentoring a younger generation of leaders for Chattanooga - black, white, red, brown.
Voters in this district really can't go wrong on March 7 - unless they just don't vote.