Though they split into three groups, 20 District 8 residents still identified the same problems that face their neighborhoods.
The residents met Monday night at Brown Academy with Chattanooga City Councilman Andraé McGary to identify problems in the district and solutions to them.
“What are the issues in District 8?” a volunteer asked the group at the start of a two-hour meeting.
Crime, neighborhood relations with the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, juvenile delinquency, drugs, neighborhood beautification, a lack of grocery stores, homeless people, gang activities, trash in the streets and other complaints filled sheet after sheet of paper.
Then the residents were asked to come up with solutions.
“Now we’re talking about what do you want to see happen on the issue,” Mr. McGary said.
Topic by topic they outlined what might be done to solve the problems.
“It’s going to take the whole district,” Clifton Hills Neighborhood Association President Amanda Stofan said of the possibility of getting a grocery store nearby.
District 8 encompasses 14,000 residents that live in the Clifton Hills, East Side, Courthouse and Avondale precincts.
While crime concerns topped nearly every group’s list early in the evening, some offered perspective, saying neighborhood blight and the perception of crime were the bigger problems.
“It wasn’t that long ago that people wouldn’t go into downtown Chattanooga after dark,” Fortwood resident Nancy Bibler said.
Mrs. Bibler noted that, with decades of development and financial support, the downtown area has thrived.
Merri Mai Williamson, a member of the M.L. King Neighborhood Association board, worried that any progress “is going to be hampered by lack of resources and political will.”
She said regional plans for the M.L. King area were drawn up but unfunded, leaving residents with few ways to substantially improve their neighborhood.
This was the second meeting of its kind held by Mr. McGary. Other district residents met with the councilman Saturday and worked through some of the same concerns, he said.
The meeting idea came during a recent ride with police by Mr. McGary after a spate of shootings in the city. He held a news conference April 12 challenging others in the city to do the same and get involved where they could.
The next step for this group is putting the plans in action, he said. He said he would work on what he could do himself at the city level, and he called upon volunteers to begin work on the proposed solutions.
“We’re going to e-mail these items out to you and ask you for action,” Mr. McGary told the group.
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