Times Editorials - Chattanooga Times Free Press

Opinion: Affordable housing needs still real for Budgetel refugees

The Chattanooga Regional Homeless Coalition is now covering the cost of 18 hotel rooms for families displaced from the Budgetel Inn.

By Pam Sohn January 23, 2023

Staff file photo by Olivia Ross / Ruby Williamson, a Budgetel resident who was 30 weeks pregnant when the Budgetel in East Ridge was closed by court order, is shown here holding a sign outside of East Ridge City Hall in mid-November. Some of the families still have not found permanent affordable housing.

Opinion: Our know-it-all Tennessee lawmakers poised to fail us again with ‘implicit bias’ bill

Cue up Tennessee Republicans to stomp their feet and bigfoot school, parental and individual rights or decisions — again.

By Pam Sohn January 21, 2023

AP file photo / Tennessee lawmakers gathered for a special session in 2021 at the state Capitol in Nashville and passed a ban on teaching critical race theory. This year they will consider banning sensitivity or 'implicit bias' training.

Opinion: Don’t want your student’s class too big? Call your Tennessee lawmakers

File this under the heading of "another Tennessee bill packaged under the guise of helping education but actually giving cover to another Tennessee failure."

By Pam Sohn January 20, 2023

Staff File Photo by Carmen Nesbitt / Brainerd High School students work quietly on their assignments during class Sept. 29. Tennessee Sen. Jon Lundberg, R-Bristol, said he filed a bill to leave decisions about student-teacher ratios, class size maximums and class size average to local school districts after talking with teachers and education leaders in rural school systems.

Opinion: Is there finally a fissure in the Taylor/Wamp/Hamilton County lawsuit dam?

Is the dam breaking on the Hamilton County Commission after three months of stubborn stonewalling with new Hamilton County Mayor Weston Wamp?

By Pam Sohn January 19, 2023

Staff File Photo by Robin Rudd / Commissioners Warren Mackey, left, and Ken Smith confer during the Hamilton County Commission meeting Wednesday.

Opinion: Re-imagining Chattanooga’s Broad Street has promise

Here we are again in Chattanooga "re-imagining" something. This time, we're re-imagining Broad Street as "a park with a street" running through it.

By Pam Sohn January 17, 2023

Rendering by Dover Kohl / This vision of Broad Street shows two-way traffic on one side with the other side lined by a supersized sidewalk with park-like features for pedestrians, dining and bicyclists.

Opinion: Will we have micro-affordable housing or micro-affordability?

Affordable housing has become the one of the buzziest buzz phrases of our time here in Chattanooga. And it should be. We have a growing problem here.

By Pam Sohn January 16, 2023

Contributed Rendering by Post Pro Capital / A rendering shows planned micro-homes, which are to go in Eastdale if the project wins approval from the Chattanooga City Council.

Opinion: TVA’s ongoing fossil fuel plan shows TVA is the fossil

Even as climate change is supercharging weather extremes and driving record years for billion-dollar disasters, and even as concerns are raised repeatedly by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and environmental groups, the nation's largest federal utility is planning once again to just trade one fossil fuel for another. TVA is merely trading coal for natural gas.

By Pam Sohn January 14, 2023

Ron Schmitt/TVA via AP / The Tennessee Valley Authority's Cumberland Fossil Plant near Clarksville, Tenn., is shown in 2002. TVA plans to convert one unit from coal to natural gas.

Opinion: Long live Chattanoogans’ good-natured ‘guerilla urbanism’

We won't deny it. The punk artsy homemade bench painted red and white with the big sign reading "This bench is illegal, but shouldn't be" brought us a big smile and warmed our heart.

By Pam Sohn January 13, 2023

Staff file photo by Matt Hamilton / A painted wooden bench sits in Phillips Park, put there by a group calling itself the Chattanooga Urbanist Society after the city removed benches in the fall to discourage homeless people from using them.

Opinion: The IRS needs billions to make trillions

Regardless of how you feel about the Internal Revenue Service — it's dysfunctional, it's underfunded, or both — there's a basic point that's hard to refute: The current system to ferret out wrongdoers is terrible.

By Alexis Leondis / Bloomberg Opinion (TNS) January 13, 2023

File photo/Patrick Semansky/The Associated Press / A sign outside the Internal Revenue Service building in Washington, is shown on May 4, 2021.

Opinion: What if our Hamilton County clown show was a TV sitcom?

Think of this as our Hamilton County Clown Show, saga 14: The Sequel and The Prequel.

By Pam Sohn January 10, 2023

More in Times Editorials, page 82