We don’t live on Lookout Mountain or have a stake in Rock City, so we have remained mum so far on the tourist attraction’s desire to build a gondola to ferry people up the mountain from Chattanooga Valley.
However, a definitive vote on the project is coming up soon for the Lookout Mountain City Council, so we thought we’d have our say.
(IN THE NEWS: Rock City says anti-gondola group misstated facts, made inappropriate requests)
› Votes by planning commissions more often than not are rubber-stamped by the county and municipal governments that have the final word. But not always. The Lookout Mountain Planning Commission voted 5-2 in June to deny an amendment that would alter the city’s zoning to permit a gondola. The anti-gondola folks think “no” should mean “no.”
› The anti-gondola folks recently posed 14 questions to Rock City owners about the proposed gondola, and they answered most of them fairly definitively. The answers to some questions could not be known until permission is given for the gondola, and the owners said the answer to a question about financing was a private matter.