A former deputy Hamilton County mayor will be among the state’s appointees to the new Chattanooga Airport board — a panel that is at the center of a lawsuit challenging the Tennessee law that created it.
Cory Gearrin is one of two people who Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton will select for the nine-person panel. Sexton hasn’t yet announced the second person.
Under a new state law that went into effect July 1, Sexton, Lt. Gov. Randy McNally and Gov. Bill Lee each receive two appointments to the board of directors that oversees Lovell Field. Local officials choose the remaining three members.
Gearrin said he left Hamilton County government in May to become executive director of In the Black, a nonprofit originally known as the Millennial Debt Foundation that was started in 2019 by now-County Mayor Weston Wamp.
(READ MORE: State leaders make appointments to Chattanooga Airport board amid legal challenge)