- Tonight, we'll talk about experience, priorities, and the future of Hamilton County with Democrat, Matt Adams and Republican Weston Wamp.

Candidates for Hamilton County Mayor.

- [Announcer] Support for this program is provided by viewers like you.

Thank you.

(upbeat music) - Welcome to this forum between Matt Adams and Weston Wamp.

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

The following organizations have partnered to make this possible, United Way of Greater Chattanooga.

The Community Foundation of Greater Chattanooga, the League of Women Voters of Chattanooga, the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, Chattanooga 2.0, and the Chattanooga Area Chamber of Commerce, WTCI, and WUTC are the media partners in this endeavor, answers to initial questions will be capped at two minutes.

The other candidate will then have one minute to respond.

We'll begin with a brief introduction from each candidate.

We flipped a coin and we'll start with Weston Wamp.

- Thanks, Ray.

It's good to be here.

I'm Weston Wamp, I'm the Republican nominee for Hamilton County mayor in the first open race that we've had in this community in 28 years.

It's really an incredible opportunity to talk about the future.

Talk about the role of county government, my wife, Shelby and I have been together for 10 years, married for nine, we've got four beautiful children, and this is home.

It's been home my whole life grew up in Hickson, lived in Lookout valley, had an opportunity outta the University of Tennessee to go to work with some of the great entrepreneurs in our community at Lamppost and later launching the dynamo project, investing in a logistics companies, both here and around the world, and then started a nonprofit focused on fiscal stewardship, good budgeting, taking care of taxpayer dollars and have the wonderful privilege of serving on the board of Regents, serving our state's two year and one year technical colleges and community colleges as an appointee of governor Lee's and look forward to a conversation today about the future of our county.

- Thank you.

And now the introduction from Matt Adams.

- Yeah, I'm Matt Adams and I'm the Democratic nominee for Hamilton County Mayor.

My family's been here for seven generations here in east Tennessee, and we've always worked really hard to get by and to make sure that we had met our needs, food on the table and light bills were on.

But because of that, my family always instilled in me a strong work ethic and to give back my time to the community.

And so from a very young age, that's exactly what I did.

I dedicated my life to public service.

And at 17, I enlisted in the army where I served eight years on active duty.

And I worked as a paralegal working national security law, criminal prosecution and criminal defense.

I believe that it is the role of the county mayor, similar to that of a commander in the army to set a culture and a precedent for county government and municipal governments across the county.

And if I'm given the opportunity to be the next county mayor, that's exactly what I hope to do is bring my experience and my work ethic to the table to make sure that we set a precedent and a culture of progress and change for the county.

- Thank you.

Now, to the questions starting with economic development first to Weston Wamp response then from Matt Adams, how do you factor the sharp rise of inflation into your priorities for infrastructure necessary for economic growth, roads, waste water treatment, energy capacity, and broadband access.

And if inflation keeps rising as fast as it has, what is one priority you would have to scale back or even shelve for the time being.

- Well, everything costs more.

It's a reality across the country.

It's a reality across the global economy.

Already as it stands county government, which is really a provider of essential services within the context of state government.

You'll hear me say this probably a few times today, that county government really is state government at a local level.

We should focus on priorities.

Inflation is gonna pinch an already very tight county budget.

You're gonna see, I think, beginning now in the last month of Mayor Carpenter's leadership, formal investments, you've heard a lot of talk about the federal funds, some of the federal funds flowing during COVID being used towards some of our waste water issues.

Those are issues that are really serious.

They get really ex you know, they border on very gross when there's a lot of rainfall.

So we shouldn't take any shortcuts there.

I'd say realistically, there may be some road widening projects that if costs continue to rise, they're the kind of projects that you could wait a couple years on, but you do have to set priorities, 'cause it's a tight budget every year.

It may raise, it may go up.

We've assumed for a period of time that it would go up.

It's not guaranteed to go up.

And I think among those priorities, we should fund education fully.

And there's some things like roads that if things continue to worsen, you could wait a few years to invest in.

- Thank you, Weston Wamp, Matt Adams response.

- Yeah, I think that if we are serious about economic development that we need to be investing in the whole of the community, the fact is that there are certain projects in Hamilton County that have had to be shelved over the recent years because of rising inflation being at a 40 year high.

But we also need to make sure that we're taking care of the residents at this county, a huge project that I wanna make sure that we take on is public transportation.

And I think we can do that by investing in Carta.

And that will ease the burden of inflation on our residents long term, because it's significantly cheaper to take public transportation than it ever is going to be to utilize your own vehicle.

And so if we want to ease the burden of inflation on our residents, that's certainly one way we can tackle it.

Long term I do believe that we also need to tackle our wastewater treatment facilities and if necessary, we do need to make sure that we are shelving extraneous projects of infrastructure.

- All right, next question.

We'll start with you, Matt Adams.

Let's talk about the South Broad Redevelopment Project here in Chattanooga.

And the proposed new stadium for the Chattanooga Lookouts.

Both of you have raise questions about the details, financing, timing, and transparency.

If you had been county mayor during the negotiations, what would you have done differently and why?

- So, first of all, I think that the suggestion that this has been too hasty is a little misguided.

The fact is that this the site has been undeveloped for close to 20 years now.

I think that if we were going to go back in time, which obviously we can't, a lot of decisions have been made and there will be decisions that need to continue to be made.

So I think it doesn't serve anyone a whole lot of good to play what if politics, but if we are going to go down that rabbit hole, I would suggest that we use more community input into the process and into the project.

I think that we need to look long term at the investments that this will bring from the county, but also the return on investment for the entire community.

I think that we need to make sure that there are details that will be fleshed out.

And that was certain would have been certainly something that I would wanted to have done.

Had I been county mayor when this project was initially suggested not least of which would be public transportation to and from the site, which I've spoken to a number of people in tourism here in Hamilton County, who have said that that's going to be a hindrance on a lot of future endeavors when it comes to tourism.

If we don't expand public transportation properly.

I'd also wanna make sure that we have a solid plan, not just a list of suggested plans in place for the current Lookout stadium site and make sure that that site is being used properly for the whole of the county and not just for the pockets of certain investors.

- Thank you.

Response, Western Wamp.

- Yeah, I'd say it's at the least hasty.

I've described it as haphazard.

Matt hasn't lived here very long.

In fact, I don't think there's been a public meeting about that site since he's even been a resident.

So, I mean, I think we both would probably enjoy attending a public meeting to air out some of these questions You talk about inflation.

I guarantee at 9% inflation whatever they think that stadium's gonna cost now, four years from now five years from now, when it's out of the ground, it won't be the same cost.

How would I have negotiated differently?

I talked to taxpayers all across the county who are completely dumbfounded that the Lookouts negotiated a deal where they put not a single dollar in front.

Up the road in Knoxville, the private owner of the team put 5.8 million in upfront as a contingency.

They also successfully pursued $13.5 million of state funding.

Right now that project only has a sketch kind of a watercolor, no plants.

I would have made a second pass in the next legislative meeting in Nashville at $13.5 million for this project to de-risk it for local taxpayers.

- And we'll stick with this topic and we'll stick with you Weston Wamp for the next question, if elected as county mayor, and if the new stadium is effectively locked into place by a local government before you would take office, what realistic steps would you consider beyond what you've already mentioned?

What realistic steps would you consider taking as the incoming county mayor to weigh in on this project and its implementation?

- Well, we can talk about things as if you lock 'em in and then the next week we're attending Lookouts games on the Wheland Foundry site, but this is at least a four or five year project.

I was with developers yesterday, who said, they'd be really surprised if there's baseball played on that site.

Even if the expedited political timeline is met, if baseball's played before 2026.

So there's gonna be a ton of stewardship.

I mean, I'm not sure baseball will be played there before one of the two of us is running for reelection, same true for the city mayor.

It's a long slog.

One of the questions that hasn't been answered to my knowledge hasn't even been addressed publicly is a question of infrastructure.

That's a site that has virtually no infrastructure, in Knoxville there was an additional $14 million between the city and the county that was committed to, I think $80 million is just the start.

This is kind of getting your foot in the door, get locked in as you said, and then taxpayers are stuck with the project, whether that means $10 million of infrastructure cost or there's a similar site, just north of the Wheland site that estimates their infrastructure cost just $150 million.

I think realistically that's what the 150 to $200 million is the total infrastructure cost of the Wheland site.

Is the city gonna pay for that?

The private developer gonna pay for that?

We know a lot less than we should know to take any serious steps.

Let alone you look at the timeline that's been laid out with the city and the county.

It's clearly a political rush to get the thing to a vote as fast as possible.

And that's where I think there's the most significant pushback.

I'm a huge baseball fan.

I live five minutes away from that site.

I would in theory, love for there to be a public private partnership.

Right now it's really just a publicly funded stadium proposal.

I'd love for it to work, but everywhere I go all across the county, people don't understand, even if they're supportive of it, I hear from people who just don't understand the rush.

- All right, thank you, Matt Adams response from you.

- Yeah, I mean, I do think that again, there are details that need to be fleshed out with this project.

And I certainly think that it's going to be a long term project for the betterment of the entire county.

I think that the funding structure, as it stands, could be done with a little more care.

And I think that certainly we could make sure that we are taking into account more public input to this project.

I think that the reality is that, that the Lookouts pay a higher rent, a higher lease than any other team in the minor leagues.

And we need to be taking that into account.

The fact is that they are going to be paying a significantly higher lease moving forward to this new stadium than any other professional team in the state.

And so it's going to be a long-term investment into our community, but I do think that we need more community input before we move forward.

- All right, thank you.

We'll stay on the topic of economic development.

Matt Adams, this next question you first.

How would you apply your views on economic development as you have expressed them here on the stadium to other projects in Hamilton county, for example, the McDonald Farm near Sale Creek.

- Yeah, so community engagement is paramount to the long term success of any government at any level in this country.

If you're not engaging with your community, then you are doing what you believe is best without actual input from your residents and from your neighbors.

And so long term, we need to make sure that we are getting input from our neighbors.

We need to make sure that we have a highly accessible commission meeting each week, which we don't right now.

I wanna make sure that we have a director of community engagement for the office of the county mayor to make sure that that is a priority for my office and the entire county government, because without community engagement, we cannot wholly say that we're doing what's right, and what's best for our community.

I believe that it is the responsibility of the county mayor to make sure that, that happens.

I know that a lot of projects, a lot of things have been done over the last several years in Hamilton County and in Chattanooga and across the county that hasn't gotten the necessary community input.

So I wanna make sure that that's what we're doing.

With regards to McDonald Farm.

I've talked to several folks across the county from the furthest south of the furthest north to, and who have told me that in the Indian interim,(indistinct) before we develop it into anything, whether that be industrial commercial, residential, we need to look at developing several hundred acres of it into green space.

That's a very small burden on the budget to put in necessary infrastructure, whether that be sidewalks or community event spaces, to make sure that it is something that we can all use as a community until long term, we are developing into something that we can get a return on investment and provide betterment for the wellbeing and health of everybody.

- All right, thank you.

Weston Wamp response.

- The McDonald Farm project is, and even the opportunity of that site is gonna be a lot of fun for the next county mayor.

And I think for the young people, like my children who are growing up in this county, we don't have to be in a hurry with what we do with the property up there.

It's one of the beauties of real estate.

Most real estate investors are just fine holding onto a beautiful piece of land like that.

So open it up for recreational use is an obvious first step, but I was at Mayor Coppinger and Commissioner Fairbank's community meeting in Sale Creek a few months ago.

And I'd actually point out it's a real juxtaposition with the way that the stadium project has been handled.

The mayor and the commissioner were there, and they took a lot of questions, some of which were softballs.

And then some of 'em were really intense questions from community members who had long term concerns.

None of that is happening.

And by scale, the stadium project is actually a lot bigger and certainly a lot riskier.

- [Ray] All right, Weston Wamp will stay with you.

As we shift to education, as county mayor how would you ensure that all children from birth through career receive quality education opportunities?

What targeted efforts would you favor to address decades of disparities in education, urban and rural alike?

- If you go and spend time in our public schools, which I have all across the county, I'm a product of one of our finest public elementary schools.

You'll find that the job is being done well in almost all circumstances.

In some cases, teachers have a more challenging set of circumstances in the classroom than in other schools.

You had a TA, you know, student teacher ratio, one rural school that may look very different than at an urban school.

A lot of our challenges, even in early childhood reading are just deeper than something that can be addressed in a first grade classroom.

And that's where I think the county is uniquely positioned.

Under state law, we oversee, we run a large health department that I think has a unique opportunity to partner with parents from birth on.

To talk to 'em about the importance.

Obviously I've got a unique perspective here having and being right in the middle of raising four little ones.

But I think we've got an opportunity to speak to parents about the importance of engaging with your child.

What happens in those earliest stages of development?

We know it's not my opinion.

It's now all types of scientific research have revealed that the earliest experiences that we have in our life are formative to our long term educational success and anything connected to that.

There's a legacy program within county government called Reed 20, that goes back to Claude Ramsey.

And if Shelby and I are elected, then I think we'd enjoy traveling the county and talking, not just to students, but to parents about the importance of reading and being a standard center for parents in engaging with their children and reading to 'em 20 minutes a day, if you can find the time.

- All right, thank you.

Matt Adams response from you.

- Yeah, so a couple of months ago, I had the opportunity to meet with the board of directors for Reed 20.

And I told them, I said, I didn't personally go to preschool, but my mom taught me the importance of reading because she herself was a preschool teacher and taught me how to read at an early age.

And that set me up for long term success.

But the fact is, that we have a lot of parents in Hamilton County that don't have the opportunity, whether that be for work or what have you, be to take that time with their children.

A lot of our issues stem from the system itself.

And when we tackle three major issues in our education system, infrastructure, both digital and physical, teacher pay and discipline.

I think that we will see a market shift in the long-term success of our students here in Hamilton County and a market shift in the quality of life of every resident.

- All right, Matt Adams will stick with you for the next question on capital needs.

The capital needs for Hamilton county schools are extensive and expensive.

How would you as county mayor work with the superintendent and the school board in meeting those needs?

- Yeah, so I think that going back to what I've mentioned before and what I've said, this entire campaign process, community engagement is important.

And to me, that community doesn't stop at just neighbors that we have, but it also extends to other county officials, superintendent the school board, and making sure that we can input what the teachers need, what the administrators need and what the students need.

I think that for far too long, we have been reactive to issues that we face in our county.

We've been reactive to issues that our education system has faced.

And what ends up happening as a result of that reactionary process is look at Tyner Academy.

That's a $70 million project that didn't have to happen if we were able to tackle that and be proactive much earlier on.

So making sure that we are working in lockstep with the school board and the superintendent to be proactive, to solve issues before they become issues, we need to make sure that we are investing in new schools.

We have schools that are falling apart here in Hamilton County.

And that's not me trying to be, to trying to fear monger the voters.

That's a reality.

We have schools that are falling apart and we need to be investing in them.

Thankfully, we've gotten funds from the state through Esser to be able to pay for about half of the new Tyner Academy, but we need to be looking long term at the budgetary issues for those infrastructure needs, for teacher paying needs and see where we can allocate funds from the COVID relief package from the state and federal governments, but also from within our own budget to make sure that, again, we're being proactive and not reactionary.

- All right, thank you.

Weston Wamp response from you.

- This is probably the most direct role that the county mayor plays as it relates to education, just given the structure and the legal authority that the structure of government legal authority that accounting mayor has to speak to where we're gonna make capital investments and ones that likely and have been in the past bond funded.

I think we've gotta rethink and reimagine what is still physically a merger of two school system.

When I was a kid in the late 90's.

And so we've gotta go and continue to find efficiencies.

We've done this over the last decade and we need to do it more aggressively.

I think we need to be willing to entertain, particularly in our high schools, that some high schools are bigger and that you can customize education in unique ways when you have a larger, more robust school.

I think we gotta be willing to take some big bets.

I mean, obviously this, you know, the politicians in this community, the community don't agree as much, but the politicians are willing to make a big bet on minor league baseball.

Boy, you know, if I'm elected county mayor, we're gonna make big bets in public education.

- All right, we'll stay with you for this next question in education, Chattanooga and Hamilton County are always in competition with our larger Metro areas here in Tennessee.

How should we compete to retain the high school and college students who graduate from here not only for more education and more training, but also to start and build careers?

- Well, I think we are doing this exceptionally well compared to how it was done 10, 15, 20, 25 years ago.

And this is where we've actually got a lot of momentum.

The quality of life in this community speaks for itself.

And so, as long as we continue to recruit great companies here and we've built momentum there, I think part of what you have to do in a midsize city is really major in the majors, focus on what you're good at.

The logistics industry is one that I've been involved in.

It's one that I've advocated champion as a member of the board of Regents, that we would train young people out really in high school, but certainly in post-secondary to be ready to take the jobs of the future in that industry, in this community, don't try to be all things to all people.

This is not Chicago.

It's not New York City.

It's not even Miami.

I think we, you know, with two or three focus areas, we could certainly provide great jobs for those young people who may go off to college, but wanna return here because the quality of life in Chattanooga I don't think you could say this with a straight face 25 or 30 years ago, but in Chattanooga and surrounding communities, you've got quality of life that's almost unrivaled.

You know, you drive around town, you see California license plates.

They're not people who are driven through they're people who've moved here and they haven't changed their tags yet.

So we're now magnet.

We're gonna be a magnet back for young people.

I think part of it, we Lamppost we were part of this.

The Brickyard guys in the investment business are carrying on a lot of the work that we got started 10, 12 years ago.

And that is kind of reviving, re inspiring the entrepreneurial spirit that made Chattanooga what it was.

Man, we, we all, I wonder sometimes if we fully appreciate the degree to which we benefit from the entrepreneurial efforts of Chattanooga's going back a century ago.

So let's re inspire that and encourage young people, maybe they go off to a great school to get educated, but to come back here and start a company.

- All right, thank you.

Matt Adams response from you.

- My family is not unaccustomed to leaving the region and making their way back.

The first time that happened was the gold rush.

My great, great grandfather couldn't find any gold and made his way back to this region because it is home for us.

And I think that we have an obligation to make it home and for future generations.

And the way we can do that is by making sure that we are investing in projects like public transportation, investing in projects like affordable housing and partnering with developers and nonprofits to make sure that those happen.

As it stands, a lot of folks who may have grown up here, may have went through K through 12 here in Hamilton County, end up moving to north Georgia or Bradley County or some other surrounding county to live and work here or to live there and work here.

And so we need to make sure that we are doing our best as a county to be more holistic in our approach, long term, and also partnering with those corporations to make sure that we are saying, hey, we are doing everything that we can, and we're doing right by our citizens to make this the best place to live in the stay.

- All right, Matt Adams will stay with you for one more question on education.

The stresses on our students in the past few years here in Hamilton County have been severe, before, during and beyond the pandemic, even with the best of opportunities, school for many of today's students is another world from school as any of us here experienced it.

As county mayor, how would you confront the challenges and consequences of the world for today's students as it is?

- Yeah, so I've talked to several teachers across the county administrators, school board members, and the two biggest things that have caused world class teachers to leave the borders of Hamilton County have been teacher pay and discipline issues.

What happens when we are reactionary to discipline issues here in our education system is we teach a child to feel like a criminal from an early age, instead of getting to the root cause of these issues.

Recently, the Orchard Knob Middle School saw a 50% decrease in suspensions after introducing a restorative justice practice.

And instead of sending these kids to suspension or sending them to detention, they got to the root cause of these issues.

So when we treat our students, as though they are students and they are children and not criminals, then they don't grow up to be criminals.

They don't grow up to feel as though they have done misdeeds from the beginning.

And so we need to really take again a more holistic approach to the way we educate our children here in Hamilton County.

I think when we do that, not only will we set up these students for success long term, but we're also being able, we would also be able to retain these world class teachers that are otherwise leaving for other parts of the country.

So I think it would be in great benefit to us to make sure that we are solving this discipline problem and getting to the root cause of some of the issues that we face in our education system, discipline, low literacy rates, low test scores, high dropout rates.

And we can do that if we're, again, taking a holistic approach to the problem.

- All right, thank you, Weston Wamp, response from you.

- Will you repeat the question is that students are?

- [Ray] Say again.

- Is it about students or teachers?

Just repeat the question.

- [Ray] About students.

- Okay.

- The stresses on our students in the past few years have been severe before, during, beyond the pandemic, even with the best of opportunities school for many of today's students is another world from school as any of us here experienced it.

As county mayor, how would you confront the challenges and consequences of the world as it is today for today's students?

- Well, I mean, I think really we all owe a tip of the hat to Dr. Brian Johnson, because his leadership through the pandemic has now been revealed in data to have mitigated learning loss that really deeply injured.

I think the educational futures of students across the country, and it's just not the case here we've already made up in the most important categories, lost ground.

And I mean, I recognize that there may be some challenges within the public school system that are unique post COVID, but, you know, across the board, our public schools are inspiring places.

I think we ought to be in the corners of teachers in a way that we're not, I think teachers probably face much more criticism in this community than they do celebration and appreciation, and we ought to make it our mission to recruit great teachers to our great community.

But I think we actually owe a bit of gratitude, our teachers and leaders that navigated a pandemic very well.

- All right, and we'll stay with you Weston Wamp for this next question, public safety.

Describe your overall strategy as county mayor to improve public safety in Hamilton County, in partnership with the Sheriff's department and area law enforcement.

- You know, this is, I talked often in the primary about how the role of a county mayor in public safety is very different than the role of a city mayor.

For one, most of the violent crime in this community is committed in the city of Chattanooga where the Chattanooga police department takes jurisdiction and takes a lead.

And the police chief works at the pleasure of the city mayor.

Here you've got an elected sheriff, elected head of law enforcement and county government.

We're gonna have a brand unit.

Austin Garrett is qualified as a person could be to take over that position.

Having been both the Chief of Staff at CPD, and then also having served as Chief Deputy under sheriff Hammond.

And so it's not my role to get in his way.

I've had conversations with him about opportunities.

I think that exist within the SRO program, that the SRO program would be invested in a way that it would be maybe the most exceptional unit in law enforcement in our community.

The SRO unit certainly has an awesome opportunity both to protect our schools from potential external threats, but then every bit is important, maybe even more important, long term to build deep relationships in our school communities, where for 13 years, many of our students are there five days a week.

Most of the young people in our community are in there within the walls of our public schools, five days a week for the better part of their growing up years.

And I think from coaching sports, teams to being involved in music and theater, some of this happens, but I think to go and specifically recruit among the law enforcement community, both here and in the region, the very best of the best to come and serve in those roles.

It might actually end up long term plan, an important role in us getting ahead of a gang related crime by developing some of the relationships in our inner city community that are very difficult to develop.

- All right, thank you, Matt Adams response from you.

- I've said from day one, that the most important thing for county government, for any level of government to do is engage the community.

What I wanna make sure that we do is implement a director of community engagement for the Sheriff's department and make sure that our Sheriff's officers are engaging the community.

They're engaging our students.

They're engaging local municipal law enforcement offices.

I spoke to chief Murphy here in Chattanooga, and she said, my first priority is making sure that our officers are getting outta the car and making sure that they're engaging the community.

Nashville PD saw a decrease in almost 4% of violent crime.

Again, involvement of near decrease 3% and literacy rates go up, test scores, go up.

When they implemented a community engagement program in their Metro PD, the numbers are there.

And that's just one of several examples, but that's just right up the road of the great benefits that can come when law enforcement are properly, effectively and consistently engaging the community.

- All right, Matt Adams will stay with you for this next question.

Also on public safety, how have recent events and trends, the shootings in Chattanooga and elsewhere across the country, concerns about crime and guns and so on.

How have these recent events and trends shaped where you stand now on public safety here in Hamilton County.

And how does your outlook answer those recent events and trends?

- I think if anything, the recent trends, the recent events that have happened here in Chattanooga and despite the devastating spike in mass shootings across the United States has only solidified my view on the necessity for community engagement within the law enforcement community here in Hamilton County.

I think that we have seen a major disconnect between our law enforcement officers in the community at every level in this country.

It's not an issue that is specific to Hamilton County or specific to a municipality here.

It's an issue that is at every level.

And I think that when we see proper, effective in community engagement than in communities, we see a decrease in violent crime.

We see more folks being treated for mental health when they need to be treated for mental health.

We see folks not turning to violence, and we see that, that they are on a long term path to success.

So again, I think that if anything, these devastating events that have happened over the last several months, especially here in Hamilton County, again, have solidified my views are what we need to be doing with law enforcement long term.

- All right, thank you.

Weston Wamp response from you.

- Well, I think our community might not realize what it's been missing for eight years in having an ineffective district attorney.

It makes it difficult to bring the full force of the law against those who commit violent crimes.

When you hold people accountable who commit gun violence, it makes other people reconsider making similarly bad decisions.

And so I'm encouraged about new leadership within our criminal justice system.

And from the standpoint of a county mayor, it's more of a long term opportunity to get things right on the front end.

I mean, I see that I see what transpired both here in our community and across the country, and I can't help, but see hopeless young men.

You know, I don't think any of the young men or women who either perpetrated the crime or the victims of the crime ever imagined themselves as young people ending up in those set of circumstances.

And so I think it comes back to making sure that our school system meets young people where they're at and focuses on career training in those latter years in high school.

So that students have the ability to go right into the workforce.

- All right, Weston Wamp, will stay with you for this next question on housing.

How should Hamilton County government spur more affordable housing countywide, collaborating with city, state, businesses, nonprofits, and others?

What specific ideas would you support as county mayor that would make an impact despite rising inflation?

- Yeah, I mean, it's a tough subject and it's on both sides, you got interest rates going up and then the cost of everything, certainly the cost of residential construction going up.

I think the millennial generation is gonna feel more comfortable with density than generations ahead of us have.

And that's gonna be a solution in the county where we do it responsibly.

I like the idea of some of these conservation oriented neighborhoods where you may have real density, but then ample shared property for families to enjoy the outdoors and to preserve some of the beauty of our county so that every last piece of farmland doesn't end up becoming a neighborhood.

So we've gotta strike a balance there.

I wanna, I think there are some developers in our community, particularly some forward thinking ones who wanna develop communities more than just one off subdivisions.

I mean, there's a different mentality here and county government, even through the highway department, in terms of how some of the roads are structured in those developments county.

Government's gonna take a lead role in residential development moving forward, because already, I think 80% of the new home builds are taking place in the county.

I'm open to using some of the tools in the tool belt, like, you know, like a TIF, the county's done this a couple of times on affordable housing projects makes sense to me that we would do that.

Otherwise we're gonna price young people out of the ability to buy a home.

I mean, my wife and I seems hard to believe, we lived in a great home, six minutes from downtown Chattanooga as we were getting started with a family.

And we paid $175,000 for that house.

I don't, you know, I wonder when the last time you could buy a house in proximity to downtown, that was brand new for $175,000.

That was us just 10 years ago.

And so it's an issue I understand personally, and wanna work alongside both the RPA and then the county commission to be thoughtful, moving forward about how we are good stewards, but then also, you know, you're gonna have to fund infrastructure issues like, volunteer fire departments, if you're gonna allow for more growth in the rural parts of the county.

- All right, thank you, Matt Adams response from you.

- Yeah, so I've said from the beginning that bolstering partnerships with non-profits is going to be paramount to the long term success of any project that we take on here in Hamilton County and affordable housing is no different to that.

I think that we need to make sure that we are partnering with existing non-profits here in Hamilton County and across the state to put people on a path to home ownership that otherwise wouldn't have that opportunity that otherwise wouldn't be able to afford it.

The reality that we live in is at any given point, there are less than 30 homes available on Hamilton County that are affordable for someone making the median income or less.

That's just unacceptable because what that does, is it puts people in a cycle of renting and keeps people away from home ownership.

So we need to be partnering not only with nonprofits, but also partnering with developers and looking long term at every solution on the table to be able to provide a path to home ownership for residents that want that path, and also to be able to bring in new residents from across the country.

- All right, Matt Adams will stay with you on this next question, on homelessness here in Hamilton County.

What role should Hamilton County play to help its homeless population, urban and rural steps that only county government can take or where county government must lead?

- Yeah, so I've heard from folks that the problem of homelessness is a Chattanooga problem.

And my report to that is always been well, if it's a Chattanooga problem, it's a Hamilton County problem.

But the reality is it's not something that exists in a vacuum or a bubble in Chattanooga.

There are homeless folks up and down Hamilton County, and we've seen a rise of 182% in homelessness in Hamilton County over the last two years, almost directly attributable to the pandemic and its economic results that it had on the community.

I think, again, it goes back to bolstering partnerships with nonprofits, bolstering partnerships with developers, the city of Chattanooga has made some great investments in some great headway, into developing long term solutions for homelessness.

We need to make sure that we are also addressing the whole person we have in the army.

We have, what's called a total soldier concept, and it's, you're not looking at just the fact that they're homeless, you're looking at everything that led to that.

And then how can you make sure that you help them prevent that in the future.

A lot of things...

There are several ways that we can tackle that issue.

We can make sure that our health department is investing in both physical and mental health facilities and programs, bolstering our partnerships with healthcare nonprofits and bolstering our partnership with Irlinger and other local area hospitals, to make sure that again, we are putting these folks, these neighbors of ours on a path to long term success and not simply putting a bandaid on the issue.

- All right, thank you, Weston Wamp response from you.

- Well, I think one of the important ways to understand where county government does have touch points that are relevant is in the jail.

I mean that is a county jail and it's one that's had its fair share of problems, but I think moving forward, there's more opportunities there than there are challenges.

The Sheriff's been incredibly wise in bringing on Kenny Smith who ran the IBWS apprenticeship program for years and years and years.

He's probably the singular workforce development skills training expert in our community because there's a real passion, not just from our current sheriff, but I think from our soon to be sheriff for reentry and for not just looking at those people who are incarcerated as, you know, many, many homeless people end up even for short periods of time being incarcerated.

I think there's incredible opportunities for us to serve those people well, as they reenter, not just dump 'em back off on the side of the road, but to connect them with local nonprofits.

I don't think the government or new government programs necessarily the answer as much as it is investing in and connecting the dots to existing nonprofits that are serving the homeless community well.

- All right, Weston Wamp will stay with you for this next question on the county's relationship with the city of Chattanooga, Chattanooga and Hamilton county are growing, where do you think the city and county may have to merge services because of our growing population in years to come and why?

- Well, the city in the county operate and have for decades with a lot of respect for each other and generally pretty good working relationship.

Had a conversation with Senator Corker or former Mayor Corker or just a couple days ago.

And he told me that his day, just to give an idea to how city and county government have worked, in the past his day when he was city mayor started at 7:30 almost every day, he would call Claude Ramsey.

It's a cool concept.

What are you up to?

What's the plan for today?

What are you working on?

How can I help you?

And so I think some of this is just about being on the same page.

At the same time, I would suggest that we're probably at the greatest divide in terms of the values of city government, and county government.

They're very different.

I mean, one is sort of perceived as progressive and liberal.

One is perceived as Conservative and Republican.

And it is, I mean, it's a very different world right now as somebody who lives in Lookout Valley, which is one of the more rural parts of the city of Chattanooga.

But as a candidate have spent time all across the county, you know, on Mowbray Mountain, the feelings about the world, the feelings about what the priorities of government ought to be are very out of step, frankly, with what City Hall thinks the role of government ought to be.

And so this county mayor's responsibility to bridge that gap and hopefully take us all in the same direction, whether you live in Birchwood or whether you live on the south side of Chattanooga, it does at times feel like two different worlds.

And I think one of the opportunities, whether you think of it is shared services or not, the city of Chattanooga public education within the city limits of Chattanooga is more challenged than public education outside the city of Chattanooga, just to paint in broad strokes.

And I'm gonna ask the city of Chattanooga, if I'm elected county mayor to invest in, certainly from a facility standpoint to invest in public education for a generation to come.

- All right, thank you, Matt Adams response from you.

- Yeah, I think that the city of Chattanooga does a lot of things really well.

Every mayor I've spoken to, whether it be the mayor of the city of Chattanooga or the mayor of Soddy-Daisy, every time I've met with them initially I've asked, what is something we can do better to make sure that we are being proactive to solve the issues that your municipality faces.

And time and again, the answer has always been, communication.

If we're communicating more efficiently and more effectively, we can be more proactive.

So I think that that's certainly a priority of mine, but with regards to combining services, I think that the long term efficiency and the benefits to the whole of the community of combining our library system here in Chattanooga with the community libraries across the county, we'll be able to extend resources to folks in Soddy-Daisy and places like Redbank that don't otherwise have a community library and be able to provide those resources and connections for the folks in the community.

- All right, thank you, Matt Adams will stay with you for this next question.

How would you make Hamilton County government more transparent, both in person and online, and what strategies would you use to actively engage residents to boost their civic participation?

- So I've said since I got into this race, that it is necessary for us to move county commission meetings from 9:30 on a Wednesday morning.

I think it's wholly inappropriate for the legislative body of the county to meet at such an inopportune time for most of our residents, moving that to the evening where most city council and town council meetings exist, whether that be Wednesday evening or another day of the week, that's going to be incredibly beneficial for long term civic engagement for our neighbors.

Ideally if we'd move it to Saturday, but anytime that it is not during the work day would be beneficial to our neighbors.

I also want to, as I've mentioned previously, implement the director of community engagement for the mayors office and his or her responsibility will be to ensure that every department head, every member of the county commission and myself, if I get the opportunity to be the next county mayor are engaging the community.

We're out there in the community, we're not up in our ivory tower at the county courthouse, but we're actually talking with folks and getting the necessary input from people who are experiencing day to day life across this county.

When we do that, we can be more proactive, but until we do that, we're going to continue to be reactionary.

So making sure that we're engaging our community, hearing from our neighbors, you mentioned online as well.

I think it's great that we have the county commission meetings posted online, but we can certainly do better about posting notices online and posting new legislative agendas online and posting proposed budgets online.

We don't do a very good job of putting out information to the public on a consistent basis at the county level.

And I certainly think we can do better with that, especially given the fact that it's 2022.

- All right, thank you, Weston Wamp response from you.

- Well, a lot of my campaign in the primary was focused around transparency.

A lot of the work that I've done at a national level is about what good government works like, how do you, and an age of rightful distrusting government bring people back to the table to look at, hopefully at least local government is the last stand of kind of decent public service.

You mentioned from a web standpoint, the other day, the stadium issue is gonna go before the County Industrial Development Board.

Good luck trying to find out who's on the County Industrial Development Board.

If you Google it, you won't find it.

Same is true for a whole lot of different county boards and different commissions.

And so there's some obvious stuff that county government needs to come into the 21st century in many ways on the internet.

And then I think there's great transparency that comes from our commitment to not just that I only intend to serve for two terms, but early on in our service, you'll see us make a move to make that statutory in our county so that new people can come into office more frequently than they have.

- All right, Weston Wamp will stay with you for this next question on veterans.

How should Hamilton County's role in serving veterans evolve to care for the veterans of tomorrow?

How would you as county mayor steer that change?

- Well, the two folks who work in our Veteran Service Office do an extraordinary job.

So we don't need to change the way that we serve our veterans.

I think we just need to give more horsepower to the way that we do it.

A lot of veterans in the east part of the county will go to Bradley County, who is only about a fourth hour size, but has a better staff Veteran Service Office.

So it was in our Hamilton first agenda from late 2021 that we would propose expanding probably, you know, in the next couple years one at a time, expanding the Veteran Service Office to provide for a couple of administrative people that would bolster the efforts of our certified veteran service officers so that they can get out in the community.

I think if you had administrators who can take the calls into the main office, for example, at the Vietnam Veterans Hall in Soddy-Daisy, there's a computer, there's a small desk arrangement that is meant to allow one of those veteran services officers to serve on the ground couple days a month in the north part of the county.

But realistically there's just too much administrative work desk work that keeps them back in Chattanooga.

It's a very simple way.

I don't think county government needs to dramatically expand its mission at the end of the day, this is a federal role, but our county's proven very competent, very helpful in administering or helping facilitate connections between both family of veterans and veterans themselves and the services and the benefits that they have certainly served and earned, served for and earned.

And so we intend on expanding that office early on if I'm elected county mayor.

- All right, thank you, Matt Adams response from you.

- Yeah, I think that we need to make sure that we are providing for our veterans.

They were the ones who laid their life on the line for the safety and security of this country.

And it is our responsibility as a community and as a county government to repay that service to our country.

And I think that one of the ways that we can do that aside from expanding the employee pool at the VSO is to make sure that we are providing adequate public transportation to and from healthcare facilities, as it stands a lot of veterans across Hamilton County struggle to get to and from the VA facility, they struggle to get to and from the doctor.

And if we are able to invest in public transportation, invest in caravan, we are able to provide that service for those folks who need it, and who have given up so much to be able to deserve it.

- All right, thank you.

Matt Adams will stay with you for our last question.

Both of you are young candidates for county mayor.

If elected, how would you balance the advantages of a generational change with the pitfalls that such a change can also bring in how, as a young mayor in Hamilton County, how would you try to instill and restore trust in civic life, especially among your generation and the generations yet to come?

- Yeah, so first I'd like to just say, thank you to all the sponsors for hosting this forum.

And thank you for moderating.

I really do appreciate it.

I think that it's interesting this particular election is because no matter who wins, we will be the youngest person on the dais at the county commission.

There are no county commission candidates that are younger than either one of us, but I think that provides an interesting perspective for the future of Hamilton County.

I know from personal experience having been in the army, as long as I have, and having been in positions where I've been the youngest, most junior ranking person to hold the positions I've held that sometimes you have to fight for a seat at the table.

The reality is the average age for an elected leader in the United States is 63 years old.

And I think that provide a new generation of leadership, a new generation for the county mayor's office can help us to bolster a springboard into the next phase of the 21st century.

We have an obligation, a moral obligation to bring new ideas to the table, to bring something that isn't just the status quo that we've been experiencing in Hamilton County.

And I know that someone who is young and someone who has a different set of experiences than a lot of our elected leaders have in the past, can certainly help that springboard and can certainly help to rally the county commission into support of new ideas, to bring prosperity and opportunity to every resident in this county.

- All right, Matt Adams.

Thank you, Weston Wamp response from you.

- Well, being here with this guy, and Matt's a real gentleman, but he reminds me of the gray hair that spread it on the side of my head.

He makes me feel like an old man.

So I recognize we both would be young in the grand scheme of things.

You know, as I made the case in the primary, I'm 35 with four children and have had a couple careers that have taught me a lot about life and the world and this community.

And I don't apologize for wanting to give some of my best years to the county.

I think often we do look at these jobs like their retirement positions.

I push back on that notion, but I intend to surround myself with people who are the very best talent I can find both to run the various departments of county government, but then also if elected to serve on a day to day basis in the county mayor's office of me, and we're gonna have, although a new or a majority new county commission, it's full of people who have extraordinary backgrounds in business and in public service and they'll serve either one of us well.

- All right, thank you.

And with that, our time for this forum is coming to a close.

We wanna thank all of our partner organizations for their diligence and commitment to making this forum a reality.

We want to thank the candidates for joining us to share their vision for the future of Hamilton County.

And of course we want to thank you for watching.

Remember early voting in Hamilton County ends July 30th and election day is August 4th.

More information about how and where to vote can be found at the Hamilton County, Election Commission website, elect.hamiltontn.gov.

I'm Ray Bassett, good night.

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