Wow, did our community get its eyes opened to what leadership failure leads to. That failure touches the City Council, the County Commission, the Board of Education and the media. This failure goes back at least to the ’60s.
City voters punted the city schools’ problems to the county, and the county and the school board then started the annual “kick the can” down the road while not facing up to the problems. What now?
I would suggest that the only possible solution to cover this financial disaster is a bond issue for the full amount to be paid over a period of time that the county could handle. A commission of leading business leaders in Chattanooga should be appointed to oversee the spending from this bond and not left in the hands of the county or school board.
This whole thing is embarrassing to our community, but it can be fixed with leadership by the smartest people in our community who know how to run a half-billion dollar enterprise.
Barney Ottinger
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We need something to bring us together
Everybody talks about divisiveness in today’s world – lines drawn so far apart that any resolution seems unlikely. Well, I have a message of hope. Sort of.
The only reason we can be this big of fools is that we haven’t had a major die-off in several decades. No world wars, no plagues, no world-wide famines – nothing that has brought us together in the face of something undeniably larger than all of us.
It will come.
John Fain
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$10 minimum wage wouldn’t ruin jobs
That an increase in minimum wage would ruin small businesses and eliminate jobs is a tired, worn-out excuse to keep people poor and dependent on social services since 2009.
Teens, students and moms needed a little extra money then, and that little job was usually a second or third income. Rural residents and single parent families are struggling with two or more jobs. There is no time for education or training.
Isn’t our economy in Tennessee booming? Isn’t a decrease in social services what is wanted?
Even raising minimum wage to a living wage of $10 would allow undervalued workers to spend more and save and be present for their families.
Did your business fail when you got a raise? How many salary increases have you gotten since 2009?
Sandra Rice
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Trump, all who agree with him are racist
Trump contends he doesn’t have a racist bone in his body. His body contains 206 bones, according to my high school biology class, all racist, I contend. His local supporters have the same number of racist bones, I believe. I also contend Trump is a pharisee by biblical description, and by extension all who agree with him and his myopic view.
Allan Baggett, Trion, Ga.
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Evangelicals operate with broken compass
Regrettably, Trump-style evangelistic Christianity is operating with a broken moral compass. The respected, long-standing genuineness of the evangelistic community has been overwhelmingly altered by its love affair with the president. Moreover, the evangelical-blemished political agenda has been laid bare.
To stimulate thought, these questions should raise the eyebrows of thinking Americans.
Does God work through Trump? Did God revise his moral thinking before endorsing Trump? Did God actually endorse Trump? To many, the answers to these questions are immersed in “belief opinion” – I believe it so, therefore it must be true. In the absence of fact, will mainstream voters prolong tolerating the opinion-driven influence of the far right’s changing moral/political values?
Our government is now paralyzed with both political parties frozen, awaiting the outcome of the 2020 election. In addition at the expense of the voter, both parties persist at playing political games.
Let’s agree to demand elected members of Congress abandon partisan politics and come to a consensus on the major issues at hand – of a surety, some newly elected representatives will speed this cause. Both political parties must face the challenge of working toward restoring honesty, respectability and civility in our government!
Johnny Jones, Hixson
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Safeguard downtown economy with BID
Downtown Chattanooga has always been the anchor of our city. At times, that anchor has been in better shape than others. Nevertheless, the vitality of downtown matters to our entire city.
And as a city, both from government and the private sector, we have invested heavily in our downtown, and it’s paid off. However, now is not the time to quit. We must remain competitive as a city, and a Business Improvement District helps us do that.
As the owner of a commercial real estate company and a downtown property owner, my job includes selling this city to prospective businesses every day. That’s a hard task to do with a prospect when there’s the sharp smell of urine or bags of trash baking in the summer sun on the sidewalk outside an available storefront.
Enhanced cleaning, beautification projects and hospitality ambassadors – you may ask, “shouldn’t the city already be doing this?” I would say yes.
But, it’s not happening. And to protect downtown’s economy and one of our largest industry and economic drivers – tourism – property owners are asking the City Council to pass the Business Improvement District and let us get to work.
John R. Healy, Healy & Co.
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Don’t be too quick to judge our sheriff
I have a couple of questions about the unfortunate event involving Mr. James Myron Mitchell.
First, I know Sheriff Jim Hammond personally and have found him to be very responsive to concerns raised by our citizens. I also know that he is a devoted Christian and not a racist. As such, I have to believe he has taken an appropriate course of action for the time being in investigating the arrest of Mr. Mitchell.
It would help, however, for the citizens to better understand the sheriff’s actions if we knew whether Mr. Mitchell resisted arrest or was being antagonistic? These are things I believe are important to know.
And as for the pastors who have demanded Sheriff Hammond’s resignation presumably in the name of the Church, how do their actions manifest the teachings of Jesus and the Word? I recall the scriptures say bless those that curse you and pray for your enemies. Just asking … .
Catherine M. White
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Where is concern for border children?
Trump has repudiated every word of the inscription on the Statue of Liberty, which ought to be removed for the remainder of his administration that has rendered it meaningless.
It would seem that something so obvious could not be overlooked even by Trump’s base, but this could be because they simply do not care. His fundamentalist supporters either ignore or disregard the admonition of Christ, who proclaimed it better for a child abuser to be drowned than subject to eternal damnation.
With Trump’s approval and throughout his administration, many hundreds of children were removed from their mother’s arms, thrown into cages in detention centers where observers witnessed older.children supervising their lice-infected younger ones.
If Republican members of Congress have been there or if any of them have expressed concern for these children, this has escaped my notice.
John Bratton, Sewanee
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Put up or shut up on immigrant housing
So the advocacy groups and labor unions object to illegal migrants being housed in ICE facilities and even hotels. So where are they going to be housed?
Oh, I have an idea: The only other place for them to reside would be in the personal homes of these special interest groups.
Jeffrey Wilson, Ooltewah