Old and bad habits die hard
The more things change, the more they stay the same – at least when it comes to the Hamilton County Commission and the Hamilton County Board of Education
The first sentence of a Times Free Press front-page story Thursday was: “Some Hamilton County school board members are concerned about recent attempts to discuss funding for special projects with Hamilton County commissioners before the school board has even gotten a look at next year’s budget.”
Do you smell back-room politics? Maybe.
The Thursday story notes that county Mayor Jim Coppinger and schools Superintendent Bryan Johnson met last week with two commissioners and two school board members (there are nine commissioners and nine school board members) after Chairwoman Sabrena Smedley asked commissioners to submit a list of priorities for each of their districts.
Some board members said they didn’t know about the meeting, though to be fair, the meeting was briefly announced at the Feb. 20 county commission meeting. But no other public notice was given, and it’s little wonder some school board members were in the dark: Commission meetings are held in the middle of most people’s work day, and the meetings aren’t live-streamed like most 21st century government meetings. It’s true that Hamilton County does tape record the meetings and later post the recordings on the county’s web site. But the sound is often muddy at best, and you’re largely on your own to keep track of who’s talking. (We’d like to point out that we’ve been told for months now that live-streamed meetings are coming.)
The upshot of the small commission/board “committee” meeting is a lopsided list of priority school projects placed on the table even before the school district gets the results of a nearly $500,000 facilities audit to be completed this spring.
The list from the started-but-not-started budget talks is predictable: a new press box for Ooltewah High School’s stadium, a cushioned surface for a special-needs playground at East Brainerd Elementary, replacement windows at Lookout Valley Elementary, lights for Loftis Middle’s sports complex and second road entrance into Signal Mountain Middle/High and Nolan Elementary.
Gosh, if you thought that list largely reflects a specific racial and socioeconomic slice of our community, would you be imagining things?
The commission and the school board originally had a joint budget meeting planned for March 11, which was rescheduled for March 18. It has been rescheduled again, and now it is unclear when or if the meeting will happen.
Taxpayers, hold these school board members’ and commissioners’ feet to the fire for the pledges of transparency and fairness they all made when they were seeking your votes.
Thank you, commissioners
On a vote of 6-2, Wednesday, Hamilton County commissioners approved the expenditure of $100,000 to complete the funding goal of about $500,000 for the Ed Johnson Memorial project to honor a black man who was wrongly lynched from the Walnut Street Bridge by a mob in 1906, despite a Supreme Court stay.
The memorial also will honor others hanged on the bridge. Importantly, it has the potential to help explain and heal some of our local African-American and civil rights history while also adding another tourism point to Chattanooga’s growing list of must-see and must-visit sites.
Good job, commissioners.
Paying forward cultural respect
Greg Vital, co-founder of Morning Pointe Senior Living and the owner of hundreds of acres of farmland around the Georgetown area, may have lost his federal court fight against TVA’s eminent domain bid to build a massive power grid line across his property, but his land’s ancient history may yet reroute that grid.
Earlier this week, TVA confirmed that its own hired archaeologists have found what may be Native American artifacts on property in southern Meigs County where the utility wants to extend the power line to a planned $300 million power control center near Georgetown. TVA spokesman Scott Fiedler said the finding could cause TVA to change part of the proposed 5.25-mile route for a $26 million transmission line to the facility TVA will put on 167 acres quietly acquired in 2017.
The utility kept the project a secret until shortly before it launched the eminent domain process. TVA says it needs the new facility for upgraded security against terrorism and other threats to the electric grid. The current power control center is in the basement of the Missionary Ridge building in downtown Chattanooga.
Vital, a longtime supporter of Native-American culture in the region, including Friends of Moccasin Bend and other endeavors, said TVA informed him they had discovered sensitive and potentially sacred artifacts on his property – something he had long suspected, given the Meigs County site’s historical connection to Native American tribes and the Trail of Tears.
Vital told Times Free Press Business Editor Dave Flessner that the fight has now “moved from an eminent domain issue to a respect for Native American culture As a property owner, I have tried to honor and respect the heritage of this land for the past 10 years with Native American blessings on my property and the buffalo in this area,” he said.
It would seem that both the land’s previous inhabitants and Vital have paid it forward.