Our infrastructure is our valued people
Who keeps Chattanooga running while the rest of us sleep? Road crews. Clerks. Maintenance staff. Firefighters. Police. They are our city’s true infrastructure. Streets are made safe. Water flows. Emergencies are answered. Life continues because of their labor. Yet in this budget debate over the amount of a property tax increase, both Mayor Kelly’s Council member Henderson’s plans treat our essential workers as line items.
Before asking citizens to pay more, we must audit city spending. Redundant programs. Bloated administration. Low-impact initiatives. These drain resources that should go to the people who actually keep Chattanooga running. Zero-based budgeting and independent oversight can identify savings and ensure funding flows directly to the pillars that hold up our communities.
Chattanooga leadership can honor its human infrastructure or continue treating it as expendable. Real reform starts with labor, not numbers.
Taylor Sanders
School board praised, slammed for vote
To the honorable vice Chairwoman Karitsa Jones and school board members Jill Black, Ben Connor, Felice Hadden and Jackie AndersonThomas: Thank you for voting to approve the mental health support contract with Centerstone for our children. You did your job well.
To Chairman Joe Smith and school board members Ben Daugherty, Larry Grohn, Gary Kuehn, Jodi Schaffer and Steve Slater:
You all are an absolute disgrace to the children and families you were elected to serve. Why are you even on this board if all you’re going to do is cut funding, cut resources, and cut needed services for our children, our school staff, and our schools? I know exactly why you’re here and you’re doing exactly what you ran to do. The shameful part is that many of you, if not all, claim to be “good Christians.” I have yet to see any of you actually following and living like Christ. And I don’t mean your made-up Christ who you seem to think would have approved of discriminating against children based on their race, socioeconomic status, religion, identity, or beliefs. I mean the actual Jesus Christ who tended to the least of these.
I’d ask you all to find your empathy and put yourselves in literally anyone’s shoes beside your own, but you have nothing left to find. I’ll pray for you.
Stefanie Dalton
Republicans like Hitler’s Germans
I am 81 years old, and the more I see what the GOP is doing, I feel they no longer believe in our country and Constitution.
They seem to act like Hitler’s people in Germany before World War II.
They seem to only want one group — they must be in charge. If you don’t support them, then get out or land in jail.
I am not sure the Democrats are any better.
I have always considered myself to be an independent but in living in some states, I had to be a Democrat or Republican because the primary was the only way to select a candidate.
Roger Thompson
Coffee County
Need somebody better than Chuck, Marsha
I am truly hoping that there are enough not-so-far-left Democrats, and enough not too far right Republicans, to send a middle of the road people to replace Chuck and Marsha. I don’t think I am wrong in thinking that most people in Tennessee do not approve of the Trump administration, its policies or the way it is enforcing those policies.
Chuck and Marsha unfortunately both agree with the Trumpers, even if they go against the wishes of the voters. Poll numbers show that most voters are against either those policies or the way the policies are being handled. Chuck and Marsha are way too the right of voters and need to go away. Surely we can come up with better folks to lead, rather those that choose to follow.
Mark Tyson