The Chattanooga City Council, after working on a redistricting plan in private for the past six months, will give the public its first and likely last opportunity to comment at a public hearing Tuesday evening. Council members plan to vote on the plan on April 5.
At the hearing, I will ask the council to press the reset button on redistricting and begin anew. The process to date involved a three-person council committee that met privately with mayoral staff beginning last September. The committee presented its report to the full council on March 1.
The city’s process likely violated the Tennessee Open Meetings Act. This “Sunshine Law” prohibits multiple members of a governing body from meeting privately to deliberate on decisions about public business. Deliberation means “to think about or discuss issues carefully.” The committee could not have developed new district boundaries unless council members deliberated and gave feedback to mapping staff.
Who made the decision not to hold public meetings, thus removing any possibility that the public could comment? When the redistricting committee made its March 1 presentation, one slide read: “Public input is not required by state law or the charter.” Does the council want to be perceived as a body that only solicits public input when it is required?
After the March 1 meeting, a newspaper reporter wrote that the city staff person advising the committee said that “it was decided to work out the plan in-house without public participation “