Rich Bailey
American flags and a dotted white line denotes the area where the Charles H. Coolidge Medal of Honor Heritage Center would be located in Coolidge Park.Living in Chattanooga since 1991, I've joined in a lot of public participation and community visioning meetings, from ReVision 2000 to design charrettes for specific areas to meetings about children's and senior services. Last week's public meeting at the Chattanooga Theatre Centre about the proposed use of land in Coolidge Park for a new museum was a pale shadow of those meetings and an insult to Chattanooga's history of civic engagement.
A few weeks ago, the question of whether to lease a piece of Coolidge Park to a private group that wants to build a new Medal of Honor Museum - at $1 per year for 99 years - began drawing opposition after getting several approvals. Eventually, the City Council put the brakes on - but only partially, voting 9 to 0 to authorize the mayor to negotiate a lease but reserving final approval - and called the Aug. 3 public meeting.
Despite having some of the trappings of public participation, this wasn't the kind of honest public engagement where an idea is presented and members of the public are invited to look at it from all sides and make suggestions for improving it or doing something different to achieve the same objectives.
We saw a sales pitch, with no opposing viewpoints, and then were invited to write our opinions and suggestions on three-inch square Post-Its. How far we've come from the days of Chattanooga Venture and Vision 2000.
To Mayors Andy Berke and Jim Coppinger, members of the City Council and County Commission - Chattanooga deserves better. This kind of meeting should have happened at the beginning of a public thought process, not the end.
Let's honor Chattanooga's history of community visioning by starting this process over with a blank slate and asking, "Where would be a good place for this museum?"
Let's not dishonor the legacy of Charles H. Coolidge, a man who fought for democracy, by subverting our own history of inclusive democratic participation to push through a museum in his name.
Let's not degrade the quality of the world-class park that honors him already by destroying any of the open green space that makes it great.
And let's not ugly up the park with faux Greek temple architecture that looks like Washington, D.C..-lite and blocks the view of the Walnut Street Bridge.
To retired Generals B.B. Bell, Bill Raines and Charles Coolidge - I honor your service and your dedication to this project. You make a good case, and the museum deserves to exist, but it needs to be somewhere else.
I appeal to your military histories as defenders of civil society. As worthy as this project is, as right as it seems to you to put it in this place, I urge you to act as public servants, not generals. This is not the time to get the job done as fast as your city and county allies will let you. This is the time for servant leadership. Please listen to all the people, not just your tribe.
Coolidge Park is the best place in Chattanooga because it belongs to all of us, welcomes all of us. Please don't damage it by shoehorning this building into it or ramrodding a project that deserves to be developed with true public participation.
You point out, rightly, that the city's 60-year-old promise to honor Charles H. Coolidge hasn't been fully kept. With this project as it stands now, you're asking the city and county to break the promise made 20 years ago to the entire populations when Coolidge Park opened to the public, the promise of a beautiful green oasis, a place to relax and enjoy the freedom Mr. Coolidge fought for. Don't do it.
Rich Bailey, former president of the North Chattanooga Neighborhood Association, writes often about urban design and technology startups.