(soft music) - After eight years of leadership under Mayor Andy Berke, Chattanooga has an opportunity to select a new mayor.

What are the priorities for our city?

And who has the experience to lead Chattanooga for the next four years?

We'll talk to candidates for Chattanooga mayor.

Coming up next.

Support for this program is provided by viewers like you, thank you.

(soft music) (upbeat music) Welcome to the second of our Mayoral Forums.

I'm your moderator Ray Bassett, host of Scenic Roots on WUTC 88.1 FM.

The following organizations have partnered to create this series of forums; United Way of Greater Chattanooga, The community Foundation of Greater Chattanooga, The university of Tennessee at Chattanooga and The Chattanooga Area Chamber of Commerce.

WTCI and WUTC are the media partners in this endeavor.

We appreciate the work from each of these organizations that has gone into making this series of forums a reality.

We'll be focusing on three main topic areas during these conversations.

The local economy, cradle to career education and our civic infrastructure.

Now, I'm happy to welcome our candidates for this forum and to have them introduce themselves to you.

Mr. Cartwright, you first.

- Oh yes.

I'm Lon Cartwright and I would like to be mayor, because I see a lot...

There's a lot right, with Chattanooga but there's a lot that could be improved on.

I think I have the head and heart for this position.

I was on the crisis response team.

It doesn't get more stressful than being on the other end of the line.

Someone has got a gun cocked to their head and wants to blow their head off, okay?

So I've dealt with such situations before, and I'm the first one in my family to go to college.

I've got a bachelor's degree and a master's degree in counseling.

And I feel like I would be a fit for the job.

And I think a lot of people that know me, they would echo that opinion.

So I'm 69 years old running as a Democrat.

I'm able to reach across the aisles- - Mr. Cartwright, Mr. Cartwright.

Thank you.

We need to move on to the other candidate.

Mr. Dahl.

- Yes, I'd like to start off saying thanks for hosting this forum.

And I'd like to say I'm 38 years old and I consider myself a Chattanooga native.

I was born in Shelbyville, Tennessee and I moved here because my mom or my family was displaced by an apartment fire.

I spent a few of my childhood years living in Gurnee, Illinois with both of my parents.

There I attended Christian school at a young age and would go out and minister to my community in Zion, Illinois.

My parents ended up splitting up.

My mom brought me to my grandmother's house for a bit Nashville.

Then we soon moved to Soddy-Daisy with my grandparents.

When I lived in Soddy-Daisy I attended two different elementary schools there.

I later moved to the Highway 58 area, where I attended Lakeside Elementary, Bess T. Shepherd Tyner Middle School.

For some time I was also homeschooled during that period.

After that I attended CSLA and then decided that I wanted to go move with my dad to Illinois.

- Thank you, Mr.Dahl.

Mr. Kelly - Thanks, Ray.

I'm Tim Kelly, I grew up right here in Chattanooga.

Born and raised here, other than four years in college in New York, I've been here my entire life.

Certainly for the last 32 years where I built my businesses and raised my family.

Most of Chattanooga knows me as the founder of CFC and a small business person, but I've also spent 30 years in the nonprofit world here.

I've served on the boards and volunteered for 15 different nonprofits, roughly.

I was the chairman of The Community Foundation in (mumbles) most recently.

I don't have any future political ambitions and I don't have any party affiliations.

I am only interested in moving Chattanooga forward and doing what's best for Chattanooga.

That's my only ambition.

And I don't think it's a small ambition.

Chattanooga needs a mayor that can throw political caution to the wind and simply move Chattanooga forward for the best interest of Chattanooga.

- Thank you, Mr. Kelly.

Mr. Bruell.

- Thank you, Ray.

My name is Monty Bruell, and I want to be your mayor.

I am a native Chattanoogan.

I grew up in Alton Park in East Chattanooga, and I've lived all around the United States.

And when I moved back to Chattanooga 10 years ago, I was struck by the amazing inequity that exists in our community.

We have people who we are leaving behind every day and it is simply not all right.

And so I wanna be mayor because I wanna make Chattanooga a city that is wonderful for everybody, no matter what your zip code is, no matter what your neighborhood is, we've got to provide equal opportunity.

And so if you will elect me your mayor, I will be your champion, I will fight for you every day.

- Thank you, Mr. Bruell.

Mr. Oglesby.

- Thank you very much, Ray.

And thanks WTCI for hosting this forum.

I am Erskine Oglesby and I am currently the City Councilman for district seven here in our great city.

And I've been associated with Chattanooga since the seventies, when I was introduced to it by my girlfriend now my wife, Cheryl, who grew up on Lookout Mountain and is a proud graduate of Howard High School.

Since being here, I have been actively involved in a lot of civic and community activities.

I've worked as chairman of the or Erlanger Community Health Boards.

I've worked with the 100 Black Men of Chattanooga.

I've worked with the Minority Health Fair, and I've worked in Workforce and Community Development through the Southeast Tennessee Development District, regionally.

I'm excited to be here and run to be your next mayor, because I believe I have a vision and a passion for moving our city forward based on being in the nonprofit, for-profit and educational rim over the course of my life.

I'm a graduate of Tennessee State University, Meharry Medical College.

Thank you.

- Thank you, Mr. Oglesby.

Now to the questions, first, the local economy.

What should the city do to foster a more inclusive economy for all Chattanoogans during this pandemic and beyond?

A more inclusive economy for startups, for small businesses and for communities that remain chronically underserved despite the city's growth and potential.

We'll start with Mr. Cartwright.

- Yes, well, I think we need to get more African American businesses in the community.

And downtown I've noticed there's two different kinds of restaurants; high and higher.

And we have a poor population who lives in or near downtown.

And I would wanna bring more budget type restaurants to downtown.

Also, the parking is really bad.

That's not gonna help our economy.

Most medium-sized cities have free parking for their downtown library, we do not have that in Chattanooga.

A friend of mine, she had her car impounded and she was poor, she didn't have enough money to get her car out of parking Impound.

And I helped her so she could get her car out of impound.

But there's a lot of inequity in Chattanooga, City of Chattanooga.

- All right, all right, Mr. Cartwright, thank you.

Mr. Dahl.

- Yes, you know, we do have an equitable issue, it seems like here in the city, if you look at the number of minority business owners downtown that has dwindled over the past five years, I think it's down to only maybe one or two now left.

So we have to look at reevaluating what's going on, not just only downtown, but across the board.

Because it seems like we focused on the city just being the downtown area, but it's not.

I think that we need to look at creating a gift economy.

We got to realize too the city of Chattanooga is not a business, it's a government, which is supposed to be a service.

So we need to look at, you know, trying to spur a bit minority businesses through the economic community development.

And not just African-American businesses but Latin businesses, as well as Asian businesses and even other minorities that we have here in the city.

We have a diverse culture that's not being addressed here in the city, which is concerning.

So I think that we need to look at, you know, creating new ideas, like a gift economy.

I know the city has been working on an entrepreneurial ship economy, so appreciate it, but those are some things that we can do to, you know, get things back on track.

- Mr. Dahl, Thank you.

Mr. Kelly.

- Great.

Thank you, Ray.

Yes look, we've got two Chattanooga's unfortunately currently the racial gap in household earnings in Hamilton County is 30% greater than that in the nation as a whole, which is already too broad.

And net worth is something like 10 to one.

So we really have to be intentional about creating.

We need to build back our middle class generally, but we need to build back our black middle class in particular.

I think that starts with home ownership, which is the nest egg for every family in America.

And we've got too many barriers in terms of access to credit, to convert renters to owners.

And we need that aggressively, discourage absentee landlordism and slumlordisms, so that's where it starts.

Relative to COVID, we've got create a one-stop shop for small businesses and entrepreneurs to get them restarted.

I'm an entrepreneur.

I know how to do that.

And we need to support MBEs and particular to fill in gaps where the ecosystem doesn't have a minority-owned vendor or contract.

- All right, thank you, Mr. Kelly.

Mr. Bruell.

- If you look at poverty in Chattanooga, you will see that two thirds of all households in poverty are headed by single women.

The reason that we've never put an end in poverty in Chattanooga, is we've had a series of affluent white men as our mayor, and they have never prioritized the needs of single mothers, their kids and their families.

History does not indicate that electing another affluent white man is going to be the solution to the problems of poverty in the urban core.

So we've got to really lift up single moms, their kids and their families.

We've got to do job skills training and workforce development in the neighborhoods where they live.

We've got to recruit companies to go into those neighborhoods, not out at Enterprise South, not at (indistinct) where it's a two hour one-way bus ride just to get there.

And we've got to address childcare, not just quality childcare during the day, but there are people who work in the evening and work overnight, and they need childcare too.

It's not about doing one, two or three things, We're going to bring an arsenal to bear, to eradicate poverty in this city and lift up single mothers in particular.

- All right, thank you, Mr. Bruell.

Mr. Oglesby.

- Thank you very much, Ray.

One of the things that we have to do is create a system, where we bring the financial institutions, private entities, philanthropic organization and government together to make sure that those small businesses, particularly in minority areas, underserved areas has the tools and the resources to be successful.

Because right now we're going to be in a retooling effort based on the number of businesses that we've lost due to this pandemic.

And by doing so, we need to make sure that these small businesses is out in the communities, because that's one of the ways that through community revitalization is that, we have these what I call diverse small businesses in communities, and I'm not talking about ethnic diversity.

I'm talking about the kind of professional businesses that need to exist to create wealth that grows the revitalization of communities.

And with the revitalization of community, you began to keep people in those communities.

Because one of the challenges that I see that people are moving out of the community, because they don't have the amenities and the resources.

So focusing on developing small businesses in our communities is a way to go to create that wealth.

- And now we move to a question from Janice with CALEB.

- My name is Janice Wallin, I'm with CALEB, Economic Mobility Task Force.

My question is this, for the past year CALEB has been doing research about our current tax incentive programs, and how they could be better used to promote living wages, equitable transit and affordable housing.

Over $24 million in city and county tax breaks were given to corporations 2019 alone.

However, many of the companies receiving these tax breaks do not pay a living wage, and some rely heavily on temporary workers.

So if you are elected, what would you do to help ensure that companies receiving tax incentives are actually benefiting every day Chattanoogans?

- All right.

There's a question.

And a reminder to all the candidates to keep your answers brief.

We will go around again, starting with Mr. Cartwright.

- Well, I would keep corporations honest by having them submit their records and making sure that they're paying a fair wage to their employees before they get that tax incentive, tax break.

It's a lot of inequity, I wanna see more equity with taxes, fees and fines.

It should be based on income, you know, just like Luke 12:48 says, "Too much is given much will be required."

If you're making $300,000 a year by golly you should be people be paying more in taxes.

You know, it's not fair that the poor and the middle class pay so much in tax and the rich get away with not paying, and not doing their fair share.

Their feet need to be held to the fire.

And if I'm your mayor, I'll do that.

And I'll make sure that they do right by their workers and by the city Chattanooga.

- Thank you, Mr. Cartwright.

Mr. Dahl.

- Yes, the first thing I would do is start cracking down on the corporate handouts.

For too long do these decisions get made through places like the Chamber of Commerce, before they're even brought forth to the city or the City Council to decide upon.

And so you know, the public's left out of a lot of the decision-making.

Also, I don't think that we need to be brokering deals with companies that offer wage discrimination or promote wage discrimination.

If they do, we need to look at having our city attorney reevaluate that agreement that we have made with them.

If you look at a lot of the tax agreements, the wording in them is really shoddy, where it says the companies can consider doing what is proposed of the agreement.

So you know, I could consider doing something all day and all until I feel like I want to.

So you know, we need to crack down and then we need more accountability and transparency that comes with these tips.

A lot of times, once they're handed out, there's no way to ensure that these companies are abiding by those guidelines or stipulations of those agreements.

Yeah, I appreciate it.

- All right, thank you Mr. Dahl.

Mr. Kelly.

- Well, thank you, Ray.

Listen, I understand I've been on the Chamber of Commerce Board.

We have to use economic development incentives to get companies here.

But having been at that table, I can tell you we need to focus on recruiting the right sort of companies, the companies that share our values.

And if we're gonna do pilots and tips and use public money, than it needs to accrue to the public benefit.

So I'm a big fan of community benefit agreements, so that we require them to use the local labor and local contractors and local vendors.

It doesn't make sense to use public money to have people driving in here from out of town?

I'm a Localist at heart, and I believe in the conservation of local capital.

I would also say we need to enforce our callback agreements.

We've had a series of these agreements, that have a provision to punish companies that don't live up to their agreements.

And they are very rarely if ever enforced.

So we we've got to also enforce those callback agreements.

- All right, thank you, Mr. Kelly.

Mr. Bruell.

- Thank you, our city currently gives away incentives in the form of pilots payments and lieu of taxes.

Like it's candy at Halloween.

There is a secret black box, a way that they go about doing things.

There's no transparency.

There is no accountability.

That needs to change.

We need to have clear criteria that we use to evaluate whether we're going to offer a pilot or an incentive or not.

And you know, if you look at Enterprise South, 35% of the workers there don't even live in Hamilton County.

So our taxpayers are subsidizing the employment of people who come from North Georgia, Bradley County, Meigs County, all around.

We've got to do a better job of negotiating on behalf of our people.

And so that starts with transparency, a clear set of criteria and holding people accountable and calling back the money when people violate the agreement.

- Thank you Mr. Bruell.

Mr. Oglesby.

- Yeah.

Thank you very much.

Yeah, this does need to happen.

Serving on the city council, I've been very intimately involved in that.

And over the past, say three plus years I've been there.

There has been a commitment to this particular concept to do everything that we've just heard around the table.

And it has been extremely well.

Those tax incentives today as pilots can be very good as far as helping our economic growth in our communities, particularly the ones that deal with getting affordable housing in here.

But yeah, moving forward.

Yes.

I agree with holding, making it more transparent and it's really the process that citizens can be involved with.

And it's advertising, it's opportunity to be there, to hear and you know, be a part on the front end of this.

But from that perspective, the callback and recruiting those companies that share our value, that understand the importance of livable wages is essential to making it happen.

'Cause we really can't make them do it legally, but we can incorporate it in our agreements that that is a requirement.

If they don't follow that, then those callback clauses in there can be enforced.

- Thank you, Mr. Oglesby.

Let's turn now to education.

What steps would you as mayor take on early childhood education to ensure that all of Chattanooga's children are adequately prepared to achieve success in the classroom?

And again, a minute or less from each of you.

Mr. Cartwright.

- Thank you for the question.

I think education should not be determined by zip code or where you live.

I'm a firm believer in early childhood education.

That being said, I don't think it's a good idea to push children when they're very young, too much.

So what I would want a pre-education that would be focused on communication, proper communication, getting along.

So I think that's very important.

And so if I'm elected mayor, I would wanna keep early childhood education to do everything I can to promote that.

- All right, thank you, Mr. Cartwright.

Mr. Dahl.

- Yes, I'd like to start off by saying that, in the mid nineties, the city washed their hands of the school system.

And when they did so, they started to sell off the school building stock that they had, and when they did that, they had the opportunity to probably turn those into community centers, but they chose to sell them off instead.

What we see is a city's Head Start program that could be seemingly only being used to collect funds, because that program right now as it sits is a referral program that refers people to the Hamilton County school system.

I believe that if the city wants to address early childhood development it could do so, through partnerships in the rec centers, offering daycares and so forth.

And people who wanna offer that service to lease a spot at a low cost, that way not only is it putting money back in the community, but it's off also having a service in that community as well.

So we need to look at addressing that, in that type of fashion, because there's a lot of fraud, waste and abuse that pertains to the city and early childhood development.

- All right, thank you, Mr. Dahl.

Mr. Kelly.

- Thank you, Ray.

Look, a zip code should not determine the future of our children and too often it does now.

And I'm convinced and I'm proud that this is my number one issue, and I'm proud to know that it has a seat into everybody's platforms and everybody has taken it up as a key issue because it is a key issue.

Like your first investment in education is your best investment in education, because by the time a kid is six years old, you know, their brains are wired.

So we've got to increase investment.

Andy Burke did a great job getting us to a thousand seats, but we've got to push further.

We've got to give, but we got to expand Head Start, hopefully with the help of the Biden administration, the federal government, we'll be able to do that.

We need to give Head Start workers here arrays and we need to work with the private provider community.

Perhaps again, look at community and YFD centers to expand and expand Head Start.

There is no single issue that's more important for the long-term future of Chattanooga than having a world-class, affordable, accessible early childhood education here.

- All right, thank you, Mr. Kelly.

Mr. Bruell.

- I believe I'm the only candidate here who actually went to Head Start.

I attended Head Start at Calvin Donaldson in Alton Park, and I recognize fully the benefits of that program.

I would not be who I am today without having attended Head Start at Calvin Donaldson.

This isn't just about investing dollars though, this is about leadership, this is about innovation.

And so I've already been in conversation with people at the JB and MK Pritzker Foundation in Chicago.

They are the leaders in funding innovative early childhood development programs in the United States.

They are eager to partner with me as mayor of Chattanooga to bring innovation to early childhood development.

And we will expand the program and we will be leaders in early childhood developments.

Development, I'm sorry.

- All right, thank you, Mr. Bruell.

Mr. Oglesby.

- Yeah, this is the single most important thing that we as the city has to do.

We are totally responsible for preparing our kids for school from prenatal up until they get to kindergarten.

And that's one of the things that as mayor, our team will focus on making sure that there are the resources to do just that.

It's unacceptable to say that we're not in the school business because we are.

And it's in the preparation of our kids to get to school.

And it needs to be done collaboratively with our Hamilton County Department of Education.

So when that time comes for them to transition from early learning to the school that is seamless and then we're on track for them to pick up where they need to be at the first grade.

So it needs to be done collaboratively.

We need to make sure we have the resources and we need to make sure that we have the staff that can accommodate that, because we are a city of innovation and we have the tools to make that happen.

So it's just what we should be doing all along, is investing in early childhood education.

And that's gonna be the anchor of, should I be the next mayor of Chattanooga.

All right.

Thank you, Mr. Oglesby.

- Let's now go to a question from Gabriela at UTC.

- Hi, my name is Gabriella Jackson Nelson, and I'm a freshman at UTC majoring in the next year.

Given recent events across the country, and in our nation's Capitol, many Chattanoogans seem deeply divided over issues that students often see in our own communities, including racial divisions, policing and economic inequality.

How do you plan to unite Chattanoogans despite so many differences when it comes to politics and policies?

- Thank you, Gabriela.

And now to each of the candidates, her question in a minute or less, Mr. Cartwright.

- Well, that's a very good question, Gabrielle.

I think we need to be more unified as a country.

Not only should the police, but high school students, middle school students should be required to take an anger management and sensitivity training course.

We need to get along together.

We have differences, yes, but you know, what would the world be if everybody was the same.

So I think the police force also needs to be more mindful of who they're putting the badge on.

I think you, you can't judge the whole police force by the actions of a couple.

That being said, I wouldn't wanna defund the police, but rather bond the police and then maybe have like a crisis management team or response team to handle nonviolent crime, other than have the police handle nonviolent crime.

- All right, Mr. Cartwright, thank you.

Mr. Dahl.

- Yes.

I believe that addressing inequality in our city, would take a multi-facet approach.

And it starts with transparency in our government and having people being able to access or being able to have accessibility to what's going on.

We also need to look as a city and how we address Title IX complaints, the department there seems to have no authority to enforce any type of complaint that is made to them.

So we need to reevaluate that.

We also need to look over our city's policies, not just our police department policy but all our department policies, our human resource policy.

And go through and make sure that our policies are reflecting you know, standards that we have in place to provide equality for everybody.

Until we can do those simple things, I don't think that we can see equality roll over into our communities, because if our city isn't setting the good example, then you know, that's not setting the good example for the community.

So we need to be good stewards.

- All right, Mr. Dahl, thank you.

Mr. Kelly.

- Well, thank you, Gabriela for your question.

Look, I'm a Localist.

I have no further political ambitions and I don't think a nonpartisan race comes with a wink and a nod.

As we say in the campaign, my party is Chattanooga.

And I think the answer to the device of populism on both sides that's torn this country apart is localism.

It's focusing on each other.

Because when you look at your friends and your coworkers and your neighbors in the eye, all that divisive stuff fall away and Chattanoogans needs to get back to focusing on what's best for Chattanooga.

Look, the idea of democracy was born in a city state in Athens, Greece, and that's where it thrives the best.

So we need to put Chattanooga first, then worry about Nashville, then worry about what's going on in DC.

And I think if people would turn off their cable news and focus on each other and devote their time and energy to their friends and neighbors and coworkers, and what's best for Chattanooga, they'll be a lot saner and a lot happier.

As for the police department, we need a police department that looks like the community.

And I would certainly make sure that was the case.

- All right, thank you, Mr. Kelly.

Mr. Bruell.

- Throughout our history, often it has been young people who have brought us the change that we have needed as a society.

When I think of my own mother, who as a ninth grader at Howard High School, participated in lunch counter sit-ins in downtown Chattanooga.

We take that change for granted, but you know, I have to thank my mother, the ninth grade student who was brave and who showed us the change that we needed.

We've got to quit marginalizing young people.

That's the first step.

Instead of telling the young people who protest, who have valid issues, that they should just go sit down and be quiet, we need to embrace them.

We need to make room at the table.

We've got to bring them into the process, because the future that we're trying to create is their future.

They need to be a part of those conversations.

Relative to the police department, I believe that the skills that serve one well in Afghanistan are not the skills that need to be brought to a militaristic policing of our communities.

We need to replace that with more mental health professionals, more social workers, and we've got to restore the trust that is broken between citizens and their city government.

Thank you, Mr. Bruell.

Mr. Oglesby.

- Thank you very much, Ray.

The whole crust of solving this is in our youth.

What I saw this summer is a lot of young people coming forward, taking the leadership to point us in the right direction that we need to go.

They started some very hard conversation that really ignited where we should be going with our country.

And in essence, going back to what Tim says, it really starts locally, because what we do here determines how we are as a city.

And to keep those conversations going and to keep the young people on the front end, getting ready to provide the leadership.

'Cause I've always said, it's not about the leadership of the generation that exists now.

It's not like being a Pope or a federal judge.

It's time for the young people to come forward and take the lead because I'm willing to do whatever I can to make that happen, but we need to keep those conversations going.

We need things like economic development, early childhood education, all that packaged up to help us get over those challenging times as it relates to that.

- All right, thank you, Mr. Oglesby.

Let's now go to a question from Reginald at the Bethlehem Center.

- My name is Reginald Floyd Smith II, and I'm the executive director of the Bethlehem Center here in South Chattanooga.

I have a two-part question to the mayoral candidates running for mayor of Chattanooga.

Part one would simply state, how will you address and provide access to affordable housing for Chattanooga citizens?

The second part of that is how will you balance that, with new development all around the city of Chattanooga without displacing current low income residents?

- Thank you, Reginald.

And we'll go around.

Each of the candidates, a minute or less.

First, Mr. Cartwright.

- Well, we need to get communication out there, for citizens to be able to access the ability to get affordable housing.

And I would say to balance that out, for those that would rather stay in their homes, they should be allowed to do that.

Even if their homes are maybe dilapidated or needs repair, the cities should maybe help those with their repairs if they're too poor to be able to do that.

So they can stay in their homes.

Okay?

You know, it's not good idea to kick people out of their homes if they own a home and expect, well, they're gonna to do better if they're put in a apartment.

Well, they didn't keep up their house, so what makes you think they're gonna keep up their apartment?

There's no assurance of that.

So if people wanna stay in their home, they should be allowed to do that.

And we do need more public housing and I would definitely be one who would push for public housing.

- All right, Mr. Cartwright, thank you.

Mr. Dahl.

- Yes, to address affordable housing here in the city, the first thing I would do is look to restructure that Chattanooga Housing Authority.

So that way they can provide more and better affordable housing stock.

Right now the price setting in the market, where they say that 30% of our income should be what makes up affordable housing.

Now we need to look at reevaluating that percentage, because if you're living in one of the housing projects provided by the Housing Authority, which some of them are really ran down, and you wanna move out and you get a new job.

It makes it harder for you to save, because once you get a new job, they base you know, of that percentage.

So we need to look at reevaluating that, as well as we need to look at to stop handing out corporate handouts to organizations like the Chattanooga Neighborhood Enterprise, who say that they're for affordable housing, but in reality they're a predatory lender.

So we need to look at what we're doing as a city to boost our affordable housing stock as well.

And I think a lot of it will be through, the Chattanooga Housing Authority and getting away from corporate handouts.

- Thank you, Mr. Dahl.

Mr. Kelly.

- Thank you.

And thank you Reginald for the questions.

It's the right question.

And I'll kind of address both at once.

Affordable housing is gonna be a huge issue for Chattanooga in the next four years in the next eight as we've got these gaps in wealth that are terrible.

Our average renter here makes 14.23 an hour, translates about 750 a month.

And average rents going into COVID, we've $1,100.

So we have this gap that's terrible.

It starts with making it easier for developers to build affordable housing in Chattanooga.

Right now they would tell you that they can't.

So we've got to do some code reform at the city to attract investment.

But it's also about working with the Housing Authority, with CNE, with Habitat and others, to increase the supply of affordable housing.

And look, we can attract investment from local foundations.

We can attract investment from private investors, and the city could co-invest in these, and should co-invest in these initiatives to increase the supply.

It has to be at the top of the next mayor's list for sure.

- All right, thank you, Mr. Kelly.

Mr. Bruell.

- Thank you, Reggie.

I grew up three blocks from the Bethlehem Center, spent many days there as a child.

My grandfather played Santa Claus at the Beth every Christmas.

And today my mother volunteers weekly at the Bethlehem center.

So the Beth is as an organization that's near and dear to my heart and to my entire family's heart.

Relative to affordable housing, there are many, many things that we need to do.

Just one example is the city owns something like 80,000 acres of real estate.

And much of that is vacant land or unused buildings.

We need to establish an Urban Land Trust and put some of that real estate in that trust to make it more affordable for the development of affordable housing units.

And as has noted here, Chattanoogans, particularly black, brown and poor Chattanoogans don't make enough money.

We will make housing more affordable when we pay people a livable wage.

And so we've got to focus on increasing those wages too.

Relative to displacement, we simply have to increase home ownership and we've got to stop letting outside investors coming in neighborhoods, buy 10, 12 houses and convert them to short-term ancient (mumbles) that is just driving up the cost of rents.

And we have to stop it.

- Thank you, Mr. Bruell.

Mr. Oglesby.

- Thank you very much.

Yeah, I've been saying this all along that we have to create community revitalization and stabilization in our existing communities.

We have a lot of citizens that want to stay in their community, but because of the condition of their housing and the fact that, the area around them is blight and decaying makes it unacceptable.

I would focus on existing building, existing communities, to make sure that home ownership can stay in those communities.

And that we do as a city code enforcement to help people to stay in their homes, by helping with mobilization, home energy repairs, and making communities safe and making it to the point where it's an investment.

People feel good when their community is vibrant and has the amenities that's needed.

As far as moving development forward, and I say this quickly there need to be mixed income development.

- All right.

Thank you, Mr. Oglesby.

And now a question from Mary Ellen from the Interagency Council on Homelessness.

- Good afternoon, I'm Mary Ellen Galloway, the director of Homeless Services at Signal Centers and the lead staff person for the Chattanooga Interagency Council on Homelessness.

Homelessness is expensive, we know.

From research and best practices, that housing and supportive services where we do (indistinct).

As a new mayor, how will you increase housing for homeless individuals and families in Chattanooga?

- Mary Ellen, thank you.

In a minute or less to each of the candidates, first, Mr. Cartwright.

- Mary Ellen, great question.

I would push for the development and construction of more housing.

And I would make sure that the homeless community had a first crack in any housing that was available.

I would make sure that the cost of the housing would be something that they could afford and if need be, try to channel some monies toward that in, for them to be able to afford housing.

There is no reason in this country, we have homeless people.

That's unacceptable.

We can't have that in Chattanooga.

- All right, thank you, Mr. Cartwright.

Mr. Dahl, - You're welcome.

- Yes, to address the homeless issue here in Chattanooga or the homelessness issue, I think that we need to look at our approach that we've been taking.

Back in 2009 the city did a study to end chronic homelessness.

And if we would have stuck by what we found in that study, we would probably not be in this issue that we're seeing today.

I know that the city has tried to come up with new plans and ideas to address these issues, but it's a lot of times giving more money to organizations instead of the city just trying to address it itself, through the Chattanooga Housing Authority.

I believe that through the Economic Community Development Center and the Housing Authority, along with partnerships that we already had in place, that we could better address these issues.

We first have to look at who are giving our money out and saying is the money we're giving out actually benefiting the people, because if it's not, then we need to stop giving that money out to those organizations and look at trying to do those services ourselves.

- All right, thank you, Mr. Dahl.

Mr. Kelly.

- Thank you for your question, Mary Ellen And look, I mean, this is a terrible problem.

It's gotten much worse since we began campaigning.

Chattanooga has the resources to solve this problem.

We need to coordinate the efforts made by the public and private and non-profit sectors better from the city, which hasn't really been happening.

It's a bit like an orchestra without a conductor.

The nonprofit world here has been working tirelessly on the problem, but we need better coordination.

It's not just about that, however, obviously this is very closely related to the affordable housing problem that we just discussed.

We have to increase the supply.

Our model and our plan is a housing first model.

It's up on our website.

It's quite detailed at kellyforcha.com.

I would encourage anybody to take a look at it.

I would also say that I'm also very encouraged by the fuse program that the County is doing, which also benefits the city.

Which specifically addresses the millennial homeless and gets them into housing co-located with mental health care professionals and then on to permanent housing.

So I'd like to see that expand as well.

- All right, thank you, Mr. Kelly.

Mr. Bruell.

- Well, I like to say that the first solution to homelessness is a home.

So we've got to increase the number of housing units that are available for the homeless population.

That includes expanding the number of low barrier shelters that we have in Chattanooga.

The University of Illinois Health System in Chicago has for a number of years, been giving free housing to people who are frequent users of their emergency room.

They find that they save several millions of dollars by providing housing.

So that's one model that I think we should take a look at as well.

There are many things that contribute to how, I'm sorry, to homelessness, including mental health and addiction.

We've got to expand mental health services and rehabilitation services for those who have substance abuse issues.

This is one of those problems that we can solve.

We do have the resources to solve them.

We just have to have the political will and the leadership from the mayor's office to actually do something.

And I'm committed to doing that.

- All right, thank you, Mr. Bruell.

Mr. Oglesby.

- Thank you very much.

One of the days, and I've been visiting a lot of these sites since I've been on council and these are really phenomenal hardworking people that just failed to this point for lack of anything irresponsible they've done, which brings the thought is, we need to look at, especially coming out of this pandemic is how do we keep people in their existing housing?

because they're potentially after this pandemic can be a lot of eviction which will add to their problem.

So as mayor, I would instruct our team to come up with a plan along with public, private and corporate partnerships to help people stay in their home as we get out of this pandemic.

And then as been mentioned earlier, just these partnerships with CHA, CNE and our philanthropic organizations to help expand the amount of housing that's available to get those individuals, particularly those citizens who wants to get off the street into those homes.

So it's really a private partnership and prevention that's gonna go a long way in helping our homeless situation.

- All right.

Thank you, Mr. Oglesby.

And to wrap up here, a question about the arts.

What role do you think local government should play when it comes to arts and culture?

And how would you integrate the arts into pandemic recovery?

In a minute or less, we'll go around again.

Mr. Cartwright.

- Well, that's a subject that is near to my heart.

I've been involved with the arts.

I've used the airwaves as my canvas for playing musical instruments, singing, I've been involved with theater, so it holds a special place in my heart.

And I would definitely want to steer more art within Chattanooga.

You know, I think even with the pandemic, they perform outside there's no reason why they can't do that.

You know, if people just take the CDC guidelines into account and wear the mask, practice social distancing it would be a safe thing to do.

And so I would be a proponent of that.

I think the arts has suffered because of our stance on the coronavirus, our public officials are not enforcing the mask mandate.

You know, you can get a 10 or $20 fine if you don't wear a seatbelt, but it's perfectly okay to go in a store, cough out several thousand bullets of COVID-19 into the air, making everybody sick and then killing some people.

And that's perfectly okay.

It's all right to do it.

- Thank you, Mr. Cartwright Mr. Dahl.

- Yes, I think that the city should look at the, you know, working with what is already here pertaining to the arts.

It seems like the arts make about $172 million of our economy.

And so what the city can do is look at promoting arts events and also looking at promoting equitable art projects within the community.

We have communities right now like St. Elmo asking if they can do small art projects.

And I think that that should be provided to them through small grant programs that are just through the Economic Community Development Centers, just for those types of things for neighborhood associations to do.

But that falls onto how I want money in the community allocated, which I wanna try to keep 30 to 40% of all taxes that get collected in a certain neighborhood, in that neighborhood, just for these types of projects.

I think that art does play a big role in our city.

The city you know, has a large theatrical art community as well and we need to look at hastening all of what we do have and building upon it.

- All right, thank you Mr. Dahl.

Mr. Kelly - Look, I think arts are crucial to the identity of Chattanooga and our quality of life here.

I mean, I think they're central to who we are, sort of like New Orleans.

And we could learn a few things from New Orleans in this regard, right?

The neighborhoods need to control our artistic community, and we need to support arts in the neighborhood, particularly our storied and proud black communities that looks like and reflects the character of those communities.

So I'm a musician myself.

I'm a former ArtsBuild Board member, and I would be looking for ways to expand from public art the city to arts culture and history, and really lean in to our arts community to make it the kind of the tip of the spear for what makes Chattanooga Chattanooga.

I would expand art at the YFD Community Centers for children, I think not every kid wants to go play ball.

And I think we have some opportunities to do that there.

So I'm a huge arts guy and I put a big focus on it all the same.

- All right, thank you, Mr. Kelly.

Mr. Bruell.

- We have artists in every neighborhood in our community and we need to support art in neighborhoods.

So first of all, I want to expand our public arts program to move it out of downtown and move into the neighborhoods, so that people in every community can enjoy public art.

I want to double the amount of funding that the city gives to ArtsBuild.

It's currently $250,000 a year.

I want to double that to $500,000 a year to increase arts programs through our YFD center, that will hire local artists to be involved in those programs.

I want to expand our definition of art.

Too often we just think about the visual arts, but there's so much art that could be included in that definition, including the performing arts.

We need to support performing arts as well.

And then finally, I want to improve our percent for the arts program, where we set aside 1% of major public projects to provide funding for the arts.

And I want to add a voluntary dollar for the arts.

Anytime someone buys tickets to an event in Chattanooga, they should have the option of checking a dollar for the arts.

That's how we're gonna expand both programming and that's how we're gonna pay for it.

Thank you, Mr. Bruell.

Mr. Oglesby.

- Yeah, it goes without saying, art is an economic driver in our city and it deserves the proper respect that it gives to the city.

I'm a real proponent of arts in our YFD center because it's an educational and cultural tool.

And I can remember growing up, that whenever I had an opportunity to go to a symphony or to a museum it was a life changing experience, because it got me out of my community and it showed me what the world was about.

So I would definitely support expanding funding for the arts in the communities, because I'm chairman of Mark Making which is an art organization located on Glass Street.

And they do phenomenal programs for the kids in that community, but they also take art into the criminal justice system.

And some of the experience that that they have, sharing their art experience in art education with those young men and women goes a long way in a rehabilitation process and giving them a sense of what they can do when they get out.

So arts in our YFD, arts in our community and cultural arts festival that highlight the rich history that's in our various communities need to be uplifted.

- Thank you, Mr. Oglesby.

- Thank you.

- And thank you so much to all of the candidates for joining us for this conversation today.

We want to thank our candidates for their willingness to participate in this forum.

And we want to thank all of our partner organizations that made this series possible.

I'm Ray Bassett.

Thank you for watching.

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