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Questions linger about Hamilton County’s decision to pull funding from Sankofa, Urban League

Staff Photo by Robin Rudd / Commissioners, from left, Greg Beck and Lee Helton confer during a meeting of the Hamilton County Commission in 2022. Beck was the only commissioner to vote against a resolution brought by Helton on Nov. 15 that diverted funds originally set aside for two nonprofits.
Staff Photo by Robin Rudd / Commissioners, from left, Greg Beck and Lee Helton confer during a meeting of the Hamilton County Commission in 2022. Beck was the only commissioner to vote against a resolution brought by Helton on Nov. 15 that diverted funds originally set aside for two nonprofits. Staff Photo by Robin Rudd / Commissioners, from left, Greg Beck and Lee Helton confer during a meeting of the Hamilton County Commission in 2022. Beck was the only commissioner to vote against a resolution brought by Helton on Nov. 15 that diverted funds originally set aside for two nonprofits.

By David Floyd 9 min read


At the end of the board’s regularly scheduled business meeting Nov. 15, Hamilton County Commissioner Lee Helton, R-East Brainerd, introduced a late addition to the panel’s agenda: Clawing back $850,000 in federal pandemic funds previously set aside for two local nonprofits.

“This resolution addresses something we worked on last year and had some pretty heated discussions on,” Helton said during the meeting.

Commissioners received paper copies of the resolution, and several members initially said they would prefer to wait a week to more thoroughly examine the proposal.

“I just think it’s for us not a good practice to bring this up cold,” Commissioner Chip Baker, R-Signal Mountain, said during the meeting Nov. 15. “I support this, but I would have no problem waiting a week and doing it in our recess meeting just because it’s fresh. … I do not think bringing it up at the end of a meeting is where we should be. I think we’ve got a process. It works. Let’s stick with it.”