A reporter interviewing Occupy Chattanooga members on the lawn of the Courthouse said that the County Commission was planning to waste tax-payer money by pursuing legal action in Chancery Court. Occupy Chattanooga has been peacefully and very respectfully (even deferentially) demonstrating since moving to the courthouse in November.
The County Commission had previously met in secret, violating the Open Meetings Act or "Sunshine Law", to discuss taking legal action against Occupy. Since then, County Commissioners Warren Mackey and Tim Boyd have both publicly stated their opposition to the current "Sunshine Law" which demands greater government transparency in favor of a new law which would allow for private, back-door deliberations.
According to the Hamilton County Commission website, the next planned meeting of the County Commission is an Agenda Setting Meeting on December 29th and then another Regular County Commission Meeting is scheduled for January 4th. All meetings are held at 9:30 AM.
County Commission Chairman Larry Henry can be reached at (423) 894-6269 & (423)209-7200
During the latter part of Mayor Littlefield's first term in office, several female city employees began to speak out against the sexual harassment they were suffering while on the job. These women followed proper procedure and filed complaints against their boss, Paul Page, alleging that Mr. Page was sexually harassing them while on the job. Instead of being protected, however, city hall punished and retaliated against these women instead of seeking to do justice.
So begins the sordid story of Paul Page.
In 2006, Mayor Ron Littlefield hired Paul Page to a specially-created position called the Director of General Services. Paul, who has a history of workplace controversy in other counties, was also known to be a friend of the Mayor's. In 2008, two women filed complaints of sexual harassment against Paul Page. In response, the city retaliated against these women according to a finding from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Independent investigations as ordered by the City also found that Paul Page had sexually harassed multiple women.
Equally as disturbing as the claims of sexual harassment is Mayor Littlefield's silence in the face of these allegations. As the chief executive of city government, it is Mr. Littlefield's responsibility to ensure that all employees can work in safe, harassment-free environments. Instead of protecting the victims, Mr. Littlefield instead rushed to protect the predator, Mr. Page, saying in the Times Free Press: "He's expressed a desire to me to get out of the shooting gallery, which I can understand...”.
Mr. Littlefield's eagerness to protect his associates despite federally-verified claims of sexual harassment reveals a good deal of his character. Important questions must be asked: What did the Mayor know and when did he know it? Was Mayor Littlefield aware of the sexual harassment; was he aware that city government was punishing women for speaking out?
The Ron Littlefield Memorial Dump: “Homeless Hilton” A Boon for Businessman, Loss for Taxpayers
After campaigning on the promise to develop a one-stop multi-unit complex to house multiple organizations to meet the needs of Chattanooga’s most vulnerable (the homeless), mayor Ron Littlefield bought a known hazardous waste dump, the old Farmers Market, for an amount approximately $650,000 more than it had been bought for three years prior. The man who originally bought the property (prior to quick deeding it to his children, three months before the sale to the city), William A. Thompson, was a major campaign contributor and personal friend of mayor Ron Littlefield. At the time of the purchase by the city, the Thompsons owed just under $200,000 in back taxes to both the city and county - approximately $70,000 more than amount that William A. Thompson originally purchased the property for. Also, the property could never have been zoned for the purpose of housing the homeless, since the property was a former superfund site and is leeching toxic waste, a fact the mayor, according to at least one news article, was fully aware of prior to proposing the purchase.
On Thursday, November 17th, 2011, history was made in the city of Chattanooga. Nearly one year after hundreds of citizens had gathered over 15,000 signatures to recall Mayor Ron Littlefield, the Hamilton County Election Commission finally certified the petitions and declared Mayor Ron Littlefield officially recalled. Despite all the attempts of Mayor Littlefield to subvert the democratic process through lawsuits and court battles, the grassroots people of Chattanooga proved that democracy works.
Democracy doesn’t end on Election Day. In fact, many democratic governments throughout history have instituted various forms of direct democracy to ensure that the decisions of elected officials could be held accountable to everyday people. Direct democracy usually takes three forms: initiative, recall, and referendum. These tools give ordinary, non-elected citizens the power to propose legislation, remove elected officials, and veto legislation passed by legislative bodies. The modern forms of initiative, recall, and referendum take their roots back to the Progressive Era of American history - a time when ordinary grassroots people gathered together to reform their governments in order to fight back against the power of organized corporate money. But the origins of direct democracy go back even farther, even back to Athens itself! (Aristotle, Athenian Constitution, Part 43)
Chattanooga’s City Charter, the governing document of the City, provides the citizens of Chattanooga with all three avenues for direct democracy. The recall provision, found in Title III of the City Charter, allows for citizens to remove both the Mayor and members of the City Council. The City Charter also allows for initiative and referendum. As found in Title XI, these provisions allow for citizens of the city to place legislation directly on the ballot and to veto legislation that comes out of the City Council. By voting to uphold the rights of citizens to use these democratic tools to change or alter their city government, the Hamilton County Election Commission has created a powerful precedent for bottom-up, grassroots reform.
Now that Mayor Littlefield has been successfully recalled, the doors to direct democratic participation are blown wide open. Now for the first time in our city’s history, the grassroots, everyday people of Chattanooga have recalled a sitting elected official. The future history of our city will no longer be written by land developers, career politicians, and business and political elites. Instead, the history of our city will be written by the grassroots people who have the determination to make change possible.
What started as the sighs of exhaustion and frustration with an unaccountable government soon became the biggest grassroots volunteer effort ever co-ordinated in our city’s history. With little to no knowledge in the methods of canvasing, meeting facilitation or volunteer training, hundreds of Chattanoogans gathered 15,559 signatures in less than 60 days, getting the agreement of over 1 out of every 10 city residents that Chattanooga deserved change. Despite the malicious attacks by the Mayor against ordinary citizens leading the effort and despite the patronizing warnings of the city’s only newspaper to not sign the petition, the all volunteer effort gathered thousands of signatures weekly. With less than three days remaining until the petition deadline, members of Chattanooga Organized for Action turned in the final amount of signatures needed to force the first recall election in Chattanooga’s history.
In a desperate attempt to hold on to power, Mayor Littlefield “lawyered-up” and took the voters of Chattanooga to court. The case, heard in Hamilton County’s Circuit Court, was cited as being one of the most important trials in Chattanooga history. In a stunning denial of the rights of ordinary citizens, Judge Jeff Hollingsworth threw the recall petition out and allowed for Mayor Ron Littlefield to stay in office.
While Littlefield was temporarily successful in winning a court order to stop the election, the case went to the Tennessee Court of Appeal in Knoxville. There, the Appeals Court sided with the grassroots citizens of Chattanooga.
Led by Chattanooga Organized for Action, the history of our city will never be the same.
When the avenues for public participation are shut down and the citizens are shut out, there are those who will say “you can’t fight City Hall.” Chattanooga Organized for Action knows better.
The summer of 2010 saw the City of Chattanooga in a political uproar. Ron Littlefield, entering his last term as Mayor, had written a harsh budget balanced on the backs of the city’s poorest and most vulnerable populations. With a proposed 33% property tax hike guaranteed to make rents and mortgages climb even higher in the midst of the Great Recession, citizens from across the entire political spectrum demanded accountability and answers, but citizens’ questions were met with silence. The Littlefield Administration exhibited outright disdain for demands of transparency. The Chairman of the Chattanooga City Council harshly shut down citizens trying to speak at Council meetings with the words “we don’t have to listen to anybody!”
The grassroots people of Chattanooga sprung up in active resistance. They decided to do the unthinkable – force the democratic removal of Mayor Ron Littlefield.
Moving from protests at City Hall to the streets of Chattanooga’s communities, members of the newly-formed Chattanooga Organized for Action allied with individuals and organizations from all across the political spectrum to form a truly post-partisan coalition to force change and begin a push for real grassroots democracy. From college students to city workers, from businessmen to the clergy, the everyday people of Chattanooga decided to take action and educate themselves in the democratic methods of change in order to accomplish their goal: the Recall of Mayor Ron Littlefield.
Armed with petitions, clipboards and pens and with only their singular determination to guide them, a massive volunteer team took to the streets and entered the pages of Chattanooga history.
Fact of the matter is that Chucky believes that people who make money off of money, like himself, should NOT PAY ANY TAXES at all - while people who actually work and produce for a living are left bearing the entirety of the tax burden.
Fleischmann is just another big business mouthpiece advancing the interests of Wall Street fat cats and corporate elites over the needs of actual working families in the Third District.
What started as the sighs of exhaustion and frustration with an unaccountable government soon became the biggest grassroots volunteer effort ever co-ordinated in our city’s history. With little to no knowledge in the methods of canvasing, meeting facilitation or volunteer training, hundreds of Chattanoogans gathered 15,559 signatures in less than 60 days, getting the agreement of over 1 out of every 10 city residents that Chattanooga deserved change. Despite the malicious attacks by the Mayor against ordinary citizens leading the effort and despite the patronizing warnings of the city’s only newspaper to not sign the petition, the all volunteer effort gathered thousands of signatures weekly. With less than three days remaining until the petition deadline, members of Chattanooga Organized for Action turned in the final amount of signatures needed to force the first recall election in Chattanooga’s history.
In a desperate attempt to hold on to power, Mayor Littlefield “lawyered-up” and took the voters of Chattanooga to court. The case, heard in Hamilton County’s Circuit Court, was cited as being one of the most important trials in Chattanooga history. In a stunning denial of the rights of ordinary citizens, Judge Jeff Hollingsworth threw the recall petition out and allowed for Mayor Ron Littlefield to stay in office.
While Littlefield was temporarily successful in winning a court order to stop the election, the case went to the Tennessee Court of Appeal in Knoxville. There, the Appeals Court sided with the grassroots citizens of Chattanooga.
Led by Chattanooga Organized for Action, the history of our city will never be the same.
When the avenues for public participation are shut down and the citizens are shut out, there are those who will say “you can’t fight City Hall.” Chattanooga Organized for Action knows better.
The summer of 2010 saw the City of Chattanooga in a political uproar. Ron Littlefield, entering his last term as Mayor, had written a harsh budget balanced on the backs of the city’s poorest and most vulnerable populations. With a proposed 33% property tax hike guaranteed to make rents and mortgages climb even higher in the midst of the Great Recession, citizens from across the entire political spectrum demanded accountability and answers, but citizens’ questions were met with silence. The Littlefield Administration exhibited outright disdain for demands of transparency. The Chairman of the Chattanooga City Council harshly shut down citizens trying to speak at Council meetings with the words “we don’t have to listen to anybody!”
The grassroots people of Chattanooga sprung up in active resistance. They decided to do the unthinkable – force the democratic removal of Mayor Ron Littlefield.
Moving from protests at City Hall to the streets of Chattanooga’s communities, members of the newly-formed Chattanooga Organized for Action allied with individuals and organizations from all across the political spectrum to form a truly post-partisan coalition to force change and begin a push for real grassroots democracy. From college students to city workers, from businessmen to the clergy, the everyday people of Chattanooga decided to take action and educate themselves in the democratic methods of change in order to accomplish their goal: the Recall of Mayor Ron Littlefield.
Armed with petitions, clipboards and pens and with only their singular determination to guide them, a massive volunteer team took to the streets and entered the pages of Chattanooga history.
Hamilton County Commission designates its chairman to enforce laws against those on county property
http://chactivist.blogspot.com/2011/12/county-commission-forces-through.html
A reporter interviewing Occupy Chattanooga members on the lawn of the Courthouse said that the County Commission was planning to waste tax-payer money by pursuing legal action in Chancery Court. Occupy Chattanooga has been peacefully and very respectfully (even deferentially) demonstrating since moving to the courthouse in November.
The County Commission had previously met in secret, violating the Open Meetings Act or "Sunshine Law", to discuss taking legal action against Occupy. Since then, County Commissioners Warren Mackey and Tim Boyd have both publicly stated their opposition to the current "Sunshine Law" which demands greater government transparency in favor of a new law which would allow for private, back-door deliberations.
According to the Hamilton County Commission website, the next planned meeting of the County Commission is an Agenda Setting Meeting on December 29th and then another Regular County Commission Meeting is scheduled for January 4th. All meetings are held at 9:30 AM.
County Commission Chairman Larry Henry can be reached at (423) 894-6269 & (423)209-7200
Mayoral recall election set for August
During the latter part of Mayor Littlefield's first term in office, several female city employees began to speak out against the sexual harassment they were suffering while on the job. These women followed proper procedure and filed complaints against their boss, Paul Page, alleging that Mr. Page was sexually harassing them while on the job. Instead of being protected, however, city hall punished and retaliated against these women instead of seeking to do justice.
So begins the sordid story of Paul Page.
In 2006, Mayor Ron Littlefield hired Paul Page to a specially-created position called the Director of General Services. Paul, who has a history of workplace controversy in other counties, was also known to be a friend of the Mayor's. In 2008, two women filed complaints of sexual harassment against Paul Page. In response, the city retaliated against these women according to a finding from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Independent investigations as ordered by the City also found that Paul Page had sexually harassed multiple women.
Equally as disturbing as the claims of sexual harassment is Mayor Littlefield's silence in the face of these allegations. As the chief executive of city government, it is Mr. Littlefield's responsibility to ensure that all employees can work in safe, harassment-free environments. Instead of protecting the victims, Mr. Littlefield instead rushed to protect the predator, Mr. Page, saying in the Times Free Press: "He's expressed a desire to me to get out of the shooting gallery, which I can understand...”.
Mr. Littlefield's eagerness to protect his associates despite federally-verified claims of sexual harassment reveals a good deal of his character. Important questions must be asked: What did the Mayor know and when did he know it? Was Mayor Littlefield aware of the sexual harassment; was he aware that city government was punishing women for speaking out?
Mayoral recall election set for August
The Ron Littlefield Memorial Dump: “Homeless Hilton” A Boon for Businessman, Loss for Taxpayers
After campaigning on the promise to develop a one-stop multi-unit complex to house multiple organizations to meet the needs of Chattanooga’s most vulnerable (the homeless), mayor Ron Littlefield bought a known hazardous waste dump, the old Farmers Market, for an amount approximately $650,000 more than it had been bought for three years prior. The man who originally bought the property (prior to quick deeding it to his children, three months before the sale to the city), William A. Thompson, was a major campaign contributor and personal friend of mayor Ron Littlefield. At the time of the purchase by the city, the Thompsons owed just under $200,000 in back taxes to both the city and county - approximately $70,000 more than amount that William A. Thompson originally purchased the property for. Also, the property could never have been zoned for the purpose of housing the homeless, since the property was a former superfund site and is leeching toxic waste, a fact the mayor, according to at least one news article, was fully aware of prior to proposing the purchase.
Watch the Youtube movie about the Ron Littlefield Memorial Dump HERE: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EP54U1...
Mayoral recall election set for August
On Thursday, November 17th, 2011, history was made in the city of Chattanooga. Nearly one year after hundreds of citizens had gathered over 15,000 signatures to recall Mayor Ron Littlefield, the Hamilton County Election Commission finally certified the petitions and declared Mayor Ron Littlefield officially recalled. Despite all the attempts of Mayor Littlefield to subvert the democratic process through lawsuits and court battles, the grassroots people of Chattanooga proved that democracy works.
Democracy doesn’t end on Election Day. In fact, many democratic governments throughout history have instituted various forms of direct democracy to ensure that the decisions of elected officials could be held accountable to everyday people. Direct democracy usually takes three forms: initiative, recall, and referendum. These tools give ordinary, non-elected citizens the power to propose legislation, remove elected officials, and veto legislation passed by legislative bodies. The modern forms of initiative, recall, and referendum take their roots back to the Progressive Era of American history - a time when ordinary grassroots people gathered together to reform their governments in order to fight back against the power of organized corporate money. But the origins of direct democracy go back even farther, even back to Athens itself! (Aristotle, Athenian Constitution, Part 43)
Chattanooga’s City Charter, the governing document of the City, provides the citizens of Chattanooga with all three avenues for direct democracy. The recall provision, found in Title III of the City Charter, allows for citizens to remove both the Mayor and members of the City Council. The City Charter also allows for initiative and referendum. As found in Title XI, these provisions allow for citizens of the city to place legislation directly on the ballot and to veto legislation that comes out of the City Council. By voting to uphold the rights of citizens to use these democratic tools to change or alter their city government, the Hamilton County Election Commission has created a powerful precedent for bottom-up, grassroots reform.
Now that Mayor Littlefield has been successfully recalled, the doors to direct democratic participation are blown wide open. Now for the first time in our city’s history, the grassroots, everyday people of Chattanooga have recalled a sitting elected official. The future history of our city will no longer be written by land developers, career politicians, and business and political elites. Instead, the history of our city will be written by the grassroots people who have the determination to make change possible.
www.chattaction.org
Chattanooga: Election Commission says mayoral recall can proceed; Littlefield considers challenge
What started as the sighs of exhaustion and frustration with an unaccountable government soon became the biggest grassroots volunteer effort ever co-ordinated in our city’s history. With little to no knowledge in the methods of canvasing, meeting facilitation or volunteer training, hundreds of Chattanoogans gathered 15,559 signatures in less than 60 days, getting the agreement of over 1 out of every 10 city residents that Chattanooga deserved change. Despite the malicious attacks by the Mayor against ordinary citizens leading the effort and despite the patronizing warnings of the city’s only newspaper to not sign the petition, the all volunteer effort gathered thousands of signatures weekly. With less than three days remaining until the petition deadline, members of Chattanooga Organized for Action turned in the final amount of signatures needed to force the first recall election in Chattanooga’s history.
In a desperate attempt to hold on to power, Mayor Littlefield “lawyered-up” and took the voters of Chattanooga to court. The case, heard in Hamilton County’s Circuit Court, was cited as being one of the most important trials in Chattanooga history. In a stunning denial of the rights of ordinary citizens, Judge Jeff Hollingsworth threw the recall petition out and allowed for Mayor Ron Littlefield to stay in office.
While Littlefield was temporarily successful in winning a court order to stop the election, the case went to the Tennessee Court of Appeal in Knoxville. There, the Appeals Court sided with the grassroots citizens of Chattanooga.
Led by Chattanooga Organized for Action, the history of our city will never be the same.
www.chattaction.org
Chattanooga: Election Commission says mayoral recall can proceed; Littlefield considers challenge
History of The Recall of Mayor Ron Littlefield:
When the avenues for public participation are shut down and the citizens are shut out, there are those who will say “you can’t fight City Hall.” Chattanooga Organized for Action knows better.
The summer of 2010 saw the City of Chattanooga in a political uproar. Ron Littlefield, entering his last term as Mayor, had written a harsh budget balanced on the backs of the city’s poorest and most vulnerable populations. With a proposed 33% property tax hike guaranteed to make rents and mortgages climb even higher in the midst of the Great Recession, citizens from across the entire political spectrum demanded accountability and answers, but citizens’ questions were met with silence. The Littlefield Administration exhibited outright disdain for demands of transparency. The Chairman of the Chattanooga City Council harshly shut down citizens trying to speak at Council meetings with the words “we don’t have to listen to anybody!”
The grassroots people of Chattanooga sprung up in active resistance. They decided to do the unthinkable – force the democratic removal of Mayor Ron Littlefield.
Moving from protests at City Hall to the streets of Chattanooga’s communities, members of the newly-formed Chattanooga Organized for Action allied with individuals and organizations from all across the political spectrum to form a truly post-partisan coalition to force change and begin a push for real grassroots democracy. From college students to city workers, from businessmen to the clergy, the everyday people of Chattanooga decided to take action and educate themselves in the democratic methods of change in order to accomplish their goal: the Recall of Mayor Ron Littlefield.
Armed with petitions, clipboards and pens and with only their singular determination to guide them, a massive volunteer team took to the streets and entered the pages of Chattanooga history.
Chattanooga Mayor Ron Littlefield seeks rehearing in recall case
This article is factually inaccurate. The City Charter requires 50% of the number who voted in the last mayoral election, the Hamilton County Election Commission determined this number to be 8,957 - see the Election Commission minutes: http://elect.hamiltontn.gov/citizen/Election%20Comm%20Minutes/2010%20Minutes/2010-8-23.pdf
The Recallers went well above this number having around 9,600 verified signatures.
For more information visit www.chattaction.org>
U.S. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann would benefit from tax bill
Fact of the matter is that Chucky believes that people who make money off of money, like himself, should NOT PAY ANY TAXES at all - while people who actually work and produce for a living are left bearing the entirety of the tax burden. Fleischmann is just another big business mouthpiece advancing the interests of Wall Street fat cats and corporate elites over the needs of actual working families in the Third District.
Chattanooga Mayor Ron Littlefield may again face a recall election
What started as the sighs of exhaustion and frustration with an unaccountable government soon became the biggest grassroots volunteer effort ever co-ordinated in our city’s history. With little to no knowledge in the methods of canvasing, meeting facilitation or volunteer training, hundreds of Chattanoogans gathered 15,559 signatures in less than 60 days, getting the agreement of over 1 out of every 10 city residents that Chattanooga deserved change. Despite the malicious attacks by the Mayor against ordinary citizens leading the effort and despite the patronizing warnings of the city’s only newspaper to not sign the petition, the all volunteer effort gathered thousands of signatures weekly. With less than three days remaining until the petition deadline, members of Chattanooga Organized for Action turned in the final amount of signatures needed to force the first recall election in Chattanooga’s history.
In a desperate attempt to hold on to power, Mayor Littlefield “lawyered-up” and took the voters of Chattanooga to court. The case, heard in Hamilton County’s Circuit Court, was cited as being one of the most important trials in Chattanooga history. In a stunning denial of the rights of ordinary citizens, Judge Jeff Hollingsworth threw the recall petition out and allowed for Mayor Ron Littlefield to stay in office.
While Littlefield was temporarily successful in winning a court order to stop the election, the case went to the Tennessee Court of Appeal in Knoxville. There, the Appeals Court sided with the grassroots citizens of Chattanooga.
Led by Chattanooga Organized for Action, the history of our city will never be the same.
For more information visit www.chattaction.org>
Chattanooga Mayor Ron Littlefield may again face a recall election
History of The Recall of Mayor Ron Littlefield:
When the avenues for public participation are shut down and the citizens are shut out, there are those who will say “you can’t fight City Hall.” Chattanooga Organized for Action knows better.
The summer of 2010 saw the City of Chattanooga in a political uproar. Ron Littlefield, entering his last term as Mayor, had written a harsh budget balanced on the backs of the city’s poorest and most vulnerable populations. With a proposed 33% property tax hike guaranteed to make rents and mortgages climb even higher in the midst of the Great Recession, citizens from across the entire political spectrum demanded accountability and answers, but citizens’ questions were met with silence. The Littlefield Administration exhibited outright disdain for demands of transparency. The Chairman of the Chattanooga City Council harshly shut down citizens trying to speak at Council meetings with the words “we don’t have to listen to anybody!”
The grassroots people of Chattanooga sprung up in active resistance. They decided to do the unthinkable – force the democratic removal of Mayor Ron Littlefield.
Moving from protests at City Hall to the streets of Chattanooga’s communities, members of the newly-formed Chattanooga Organized for Action allied with individuals and organizations from all across the political spectrum to form a truly post-partisan coalition to force change and begin a push for real grassroots democracy. From college students to city workers, from businessmen to the clergy, the everyday people of Chattanooga decided to take action and educate themselves in the democratic methods of change in order to accomplish their goal: the Recall of Mayor Ron Littlefield.
Armed with petitions, clipboards and pens and with only their singular determination to guide them, a massive volunteer team took to the streets and entered the pages of Chattanooga history.