East Hamilton needs bathrooms
East Hamilton is a nice school. They have nice ball fields. What they don’t have is bathrooms for the soccer, softball and baseball fields.
They have two portable toilets in a parking lot, and you have to walk about 100 yards to get to one. You also have gravel walkways, which makes it hard on wheelchairs.
The school board and the county need to get their act together and get this fixed.
Jim Wilson
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Prioritize school safety measures
The recent community meeting about school safety was encouraging. The ongoing private and public discussions among our various community leaders and students seem to be productive. Improvement is always desirable – in relationship building, in tip reporting and information sharing, and in counseling and other areas. And yes, in police presence, too.
East Hamilton High School senior Lauren Gossett shared the most pertinent concerns of all – the simple, logistical ones – and that’s where the best chance to really prevent school shootings lies: in eliminating the possibility of easy access into a school building by outsiders and in eliminating the possibility that a current student – at school legitimately – can clandestinely bring a weapon into the school without detection.
Those are the most difficult hurdles to clear, yet the most urgent and potentially effective prevention strategies. I hope we will be willing to pay whatever price it takes to get it done.
Forrest Vandegriff, Hixson
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Hedrick thanks voters for support
I’m not certain these last five months have sunk in yet. But one thing has: I have never been more overwhelmed in my life.
The amount of support, encouragement and volunteerism I have received is beyond belief. I’ve always heard the saying “thank you from the bottom of my heart” but never really understood it – until now. And the thankfulness I’m feeling right now is even more than that. I am so very grateful and blessed.
I am humbled with the responsibility and trust placed in me to serve as judge. I want to thank each voter for giving me this opportunity, and it is with great humility that I undertake to serve all the citizens of Hamilton County.
Again, my deepest thanks.
Judge Kyle Hedrick, Hamilton County Circuit Court, Division IV
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‘My Chattanooga’ blind to religion?
The TFP Sunday edition of April 29 provided a slick magazine, “My Chattanooga,” which extolled many of the virtues of this city and surrounding communities, and rightly so. But one important virtue was not mentioned, religion.
Only two small advertisements by churches were included, and I assume these were paid for by the churches. Have the preparers of this magazine become so secular that even mention of the rich heritage of religious belief in our community is abhorrent?
The magazine speaks of events, attractions, recreation, public art, music, restaurants and schools but not one word for the many Chattanooga citizens who attend church, synagogue and mosque, nor of the many choices they are afforded for peaceful pursuit of their individual religious beliefs. Is this another example of the progressive secular left in action?
I believe religious practice helps make Chattanooga a better place to live and is surely one of its virtues. Apparently “My Chattanooga” does not agree.
Gene Rogers