When the previous Hamilton County Commission discussed redistricting last fall, following the 2020 census, suggestions were made from keeping the number of districts the same at nine to doubling the then-current number to 18. Eventually, commissioners ended up with 11, an increase of two.
It just so happened there are 11 seats on the dais in the commission room in the Hamilton County Courthouse.
Our memory is the discussion that ensued following the adoption of 11 districts was that the county mayor and the county attorney who occupied seats on the dais would no longer do so. They would likely sit adjacent to the dais where officials such as Hamilton County Clerk Bill Knowles, Hamilton County Administrator of Finance Lee Brouner and former Mayor Jim Coppinger's chief of staff, Mike Compton, sat.
It made sense to us.
"The 11 [districts] would achieve a lot of things we wanted to achieve," former Commissioner Sabrena Smedley said Monday, recalling the issue. "It would keep all the municipalities together, and we would not have to renovate the dais. We would not have to spend taxpayer money."
Last week, the new commission decided otherwise.
The new 11-member board approved a resolution to spend $49,000 to construct an additional seat that would allow new Mayor Weston Wamp to sit on the dais with the commission.
Our feeling was such an expense was excessive and unneeded. To county governments with budgets in the hundreds of millions, the amount may have been piddling. But to the average resident in Hamilton County, where the per capita income is slightly less than $35,000, according to the U.S. Census, it was a lot.
On Monday, after discussion with Commission Chairman Chip Baker and other commissioners, Wamp vetoed the resolution, according to a statement from his office.
"Chairman Baker and the entire Commission were gracious in offering to accommodate both the larger Commission and the County Mayor on the dais," he said, according to the statement. "After several meetings with the finance team, it's clear we have some challenges ahead. With that in mind, I would prefer to direct the nearly $50,000 allocated for this project to more impactful priorities."
Smedley noted that Chattanooga Mayor Tim Kelly does not have a seat on the Chattanooga City Council dais. In fact, he, like previous Chattanooga mayors, doesn't always attend the body's meetings.
Wamp, who sat in the seat of Commissioner Joe Graham, who was ill, during his first meeting, said he could participate in County Commission meetings from the well as he could from the dais.
"As an ex-officio member of the County Commission," he said, "I will regularly attend meetings and always speak to issues important to the citizens and the county. My staff and I are looking forward to working with this new Commission as the County faces both unprecedented opportunities and challenges."
Knowles, the county clerk who has been in office since 1974, told this page Monday before the county changed its form of government in 1978 the old Hamilton County Council met on the first floor of the courthouse. When the nine-member mayor/commission form of government was adopted, the current room on the fourth floor was outfitted for the commission, the county mayor and the county attorney.
He said both the mayor and the county attorneys generally have attended most meetings. If the county attorney is out or is in court, he said, an assistant attends in his place.
Knowles said there is plenty of room for the new mayor to sit where the aforementioned other county officials sit, and that the county attorney had relocated last week to an area in front of the dais where other members of the county staff sit.
Wamp, when he was running for mayor in the May primary, called himself "the most conservative candidate in the race."
If Monday's action is any indication of his track record going forward of spending -- or not spending -- taxpayer money, he will be appreciated by constituents, whose current paychecks are robbed by the inflation scourge active in the country.
We believe constituents are willing to see money spent when it goes to big-ticket items in the county where everyone benefits, such as schools, jail, water treatment facilities, etc., but want to see the mayor and commissioners hold the line as they must on their own budgets when it comes to excess.