A questionable deal that ultimately steered money from a River City Company enterprise to the pocket of one of its employees raises serious concerns about how the partially taxpayer-funded organization operates.
River City is a nonprofit that serves as Chattanooga’s de facto downtown redevelopment agency. The large number of city and county elected officials required to sit on the River City board of directors, and the millions in combined public funding the outfit has received over the past two decades – and the tens of thousands annually it still receives – is a testament to that fact.
One of River City’s roles is working on behalf of the city government to negotiate taxpayer-funded and revenue-sapping corporate welfare deals. Another is acting as judge and jury to decide which businesses are allowed to locate in certain downtown Chattanooga commercial spaces. (River City president Kim White admitted last October that the non-profit has kept at least six different businesses that wanted to locate downtown out of empty storefronts.)
With River City performing functions that, in most cities, are left to governments, it is necessary that the organization act with integrity and good judgment.
Unfortunately, integrity and good judgment were in short supply when River City leaders agreed to give a sweetheart catering and venue management deal to River City’s own Director of Creative Strategies, Tiffanie Robinson, and her husband, Michael.