The runoff for the District 8 seat on the Chattanooga City Council is this Thursday, and candidates Marvene Noel and Marie Mott are making their final pitches to voters in an election that administrators expect could have fairly low turnout.
Council members appointed Noel, a resident of Orchard Knob, to the seat in March after former Councilman Anthony Byrd stepped down to accept a position as City Court clerk. Mott, a local activist, secured the most votes during the Aug. 4 election for the seat, but she did not attain a more than 50% majority, which triggered the runoff. The winner will serve the remainder of Byrd's four-year term.
According to certified results, Mott received 46.7% of the vote, Noel 28.7% and a third candidate, Malarie B. Marsh, 24.6%. Only the top two vote-getters, Mott and Noel, are proceeding to the runoff. Marsh has since endorsed Mott, and Chattanooga Mayor Tim Kelly has endorsed Noel.
Noel spoke to the Chattanooga Times Free Press on Monday about the issues she believes are important to constituents.
"What I am hearing is pretty much the same thing that we've been hearing for a very, very long time," Noel said by phone. "And that's for safer streets, that's housing, that's transportation."
Staff photo by Matt Hamilton / City Council member Marvene Noel listens to a speaker during a Chattanooga City Council meeting on Tuesday, Aug. 9, 2022.There also continue to be concerns about a large number of overgrown lots and a lack of access to healthy food in her district, which Noel said is in a food desert. Without a grocery store, Noel said, residents without reliable transportation often depend on less nutritious options, such as fast food.
She would like to bring business leaders from places like Dollar General to the table to see if there are ways to improve offerings.
"We suffer with a lot of hypertension, diabetes, arthritis, obesity," she said.
Many residents are also living in older, subpar housing, which may need new roofs, insulation and upgrades to make them more energy efficient. Without those improvements, electric bills can become unaffordable. Although she said the city has programs that can help, residents often find their income is slightly higher than the allowable guidelines.
"It's absolutely knocking probably about 90% of the individuals that need it ... out of the game because they're making too much money, which is not a lot of money," she said.
Staff photo by Olivia Ross / City Council candidate Marie Mott speaks during an interview on Aug. 16, 2022.Reached by phone Monday, Mott declined a request for an interview.
"I don't have any input except I'm focused on the issues, and we'll see what the outcome of this crooked election is going to be," she said.
Mott fended off criticism on Twitter last week after an anonymous account posted a 35-second clip in which she stated Jews were among those who owned slaves in the United States and fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War. The clip was pulled from a longer 30-minute video posted in 2020.
In a two-minute video posted Sept. 9 on her Twitter page, Mott said she's more concerned about why local children are underperforming on standardized tests, what the city can do to reduce gun violence and why leaders haven't found a permanent solution for housing the homeless, among other issues.
"I'm concerned about the future of everyone in my district, and I want to take us from here to there," Mott said in the video. "A better future where our children, our elders, our families, immigrants, refugees and people in every ZIP code can thrive."
Nate Foster, assistant administrator of elections for the Hamilton County Election Commission, said by phone Monday that officials are already seeing lighter voter turnout for the runoff than they did in August.
(READ MORE: Chattanooga City Council candidate defends remarks about Jewish slave owners)
During the early voting period that ended Saturday, 228 people cast votes in the runoff, Foster said, short of the estimated 350 voters who cast early ballots in advance of the Aug. 4 election.
"We've already noticed a decrease, so we expect there to be a more or less equivalent decrease on election day," he said.
Foster said 1,324 ballots were cast in District 8 during the August election, which is about 16.1% of the 8,193 eligible voters. Ahead of the runoff, Foster said, the election commission has been making a proactive effort to ensure voters know whether they're eligible to participate.
Because of the timing of the redistricting process and the way the Chattanooga City Charter works, Foster said, the newly drawn district lines the council approved earlier this year won't go into effect until the next regularly scheduled city election in 2025. As a result, the commission is using the District 8 lines adopted in 2011 for the Thursday runoff.
The polling places involved are Alton Park, Avondale, Bushtown, Courthouse, Downtown, East Chattanooga, East Lake, Eastside and Ridgedale.
Voters should verify whether they live in the district by checking their voter registration card, Foster said, which includes the City Council boundaries from 2011. In March, Foster said, election administrators sent out a brand new card to active voters in Hamilton County, totaling about 235,000 people.
If they don't have a card, voters can check their eligibility by accessing an online tool on the commission's website, elect.hamiltontn.gov, or by calling 423-209-8683.
Contact David Floyd at dfloyd@timesfreepress.com or at 423-757-6249. Follow him on Twitter @flavid_doyd.