Ron Elliott, a former city staff member who works with a nonprofit looking to bolster democratic engagement, has announced his plans to run for the Chattanooga City Council seat now held by Demetrus Coonrod, of Eastdale.
“Chattanooga has grown and changed, but we have to ask — who is it changing for?” he wrote on his campaign website. “I see families struggling with rising housing costs, paychecks that don’t stretch far enough, unsafe streets, and the lack of basic needs like grocery stores in our neighborhoods. This is why I’m running for city council in district 9. This isn’t about politics — it’s about people.”
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Elliott grew up in West Nashville, where he played football for 14 years and attended McGavock High School, the largest high school in the state, he said by phone.
“I did a ton of community organizing in and around my high school, but I hated politics,” said Elliott, who was class president.
That changed when he met then-President Barack Obama, who came to speak at his high school and took a surprising amount of time to talk with Elliott, who was responsible for introducing the president that day, he said.
“There is a way you can do this and be human,” he said he realized. “There is more to public service and politics than what you see on TV.”
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Elliott said he was torn between going into law or medicine when starting at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. But he eventually graduated with a degree in public policy and economics, going straight into a community engagement job with the city’s office of family empowerment under former Chattanooga Mayor Andy Berke.
“My mom was a single mom who put her dreams on hold to make sure I had what I needed. My dad, a police officer, stepped into my life and raised me as his own,” Elliott wrote on his campaign website. “They taught me that the strength of a community comes from working together for something bigger than ourselves.”
Later, he worked on Tim Kelly‘s 2021 campaign for mayor and spent three years working in his administration as manager of legislative affairs and operations and then project manager of operations. In 2023, he also became president of the Tennessee Democracy Network, a nonprofit promoting civic participation across public and private higher education institutions statewide.
If elected, Elliott said he wants to address rising housing costs, in particular, by expanding the criteria for the senior tax freeze to ensure long-term residents aren’t priced out of their homes. He said he also wants to expand violence prevention programs under the city, as well as community patrol initiatives, and redesign roads to slow down traffic for safety reasons.
“We take pride in our communities, and it’s time Chattanooga invests in the people and places that strengthen our neighborhoods, from increasing neighborhood beautification projects to investing in our roads and sidewalks,” he said on his campaign website.
District 9 includes East Chattanooga, Eastdale, Glenwood, Missionary Ridge and Ridgedale.
Contact Joan McClane at jmcclane@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6601.