Hamilton County commissioners sparred over partisanship Wednesday as the panel prepares to elect a new chairperson.
Commissioner Warren Mackey, D-Chattanooga, said during Wednesday’s regular agenda meeting that the commission should be conscious of partisanship when electing a new chairperson for a yearlong term next week, noting that the Republican majority tends to keep Democratic commissioners out of leadership.
“For at least the last 16 years, only Republicans have been elected chair of this commission,” Mackey, one of three Democrats on the board, said after a debate over funding school improvements. “Mr. Chairman and Mr. Mayor, I don’t know of any Hamilton County schools that are either Democrat or Republican, so that partisanship needs to be set aside.”
“This body has been rotating the chair over to the same handful of people, and that is not a good look,” Mackey said. “It may be the way that Washington, D.C., operates on a partisan basis, where either you’re with me or you’re against me, but, once upon a time, this commission was more open and it collaborated and worked better together.”
Mackey said that in the recent appointment of a new school board member, a fellow commissioner had said he wouldn’t vote for the “best applicant” because he couldn’t back the Democratic choice.