The best way to end residential disputes involving City of Chattanooga employees, it seems to us, is to change city code to allow employees to live wherever they like.
Once again, a prominent city employee, Dan Reuter, head planner for the Chattanooga-Hamilton County Regional Planning Agency, is under fire because he accepted a homestead exemption in Decatur, Georgia — requiring the home to be his primary residence — while stating he lives in Tennessee, which he is required to do by city code.
Last year, then-Chattanooga Police Chief Celeste Murphy was indicted on charges including forgery and perjury, and stepped down from her position, after a state investigation found she supposedly filled out an illegal voter registration. The investigation was prompted by a Times Free Press report that discovered she was claiming a homestead exemption in Georgia while registering to vote in Tennessee.
Clearly, Reuter can’t have it both ways — qualify for a homestead exemption in Georgia, where he says his daughter now lives, and vote there, as he did in the November presidential election, and state that he lives in Chattanooga.
However, City Auditor Stan Sewell said no one at the city has raised concerns about the issue, and no formal complaints about the planner have been reported to the city’s internal audit division. Mande Green, the city’s chief operating officer, also said “we do not believe he is in violation of Chattanooga city policy on residency.”