Pam LaddSaid openly and apparently not sarcastically by Chattanooga City Councilwoman Pam Ladd about a proposed 190-acre retail and residential development in Hixson, not far from Northgate Mall: “We don’t want them competing with each other. We want Northgate to be highly successful … We don’t want to give them competition.”
Try to get your mind around that last bit: “We don’t want to give them competition.”
Now try to grasp the fact that this was stated in a nation that became the greatest country in the world largely on the strength of free-market economics and competition.
That an elected member of the City Council in Chattanooga, Tenn., would say such a thing is mind boggling.
It is, of course, much to be hoped that Northgate is successful. That is not the issue.