- Back in October, Hamilton County Mayor Jim Coppinger announced he would not seek reelection to the office he's held since 2011.

Tonight, we'll talk to two of the three Republicans vying to replace him.

We'll talk about experience, priorities and the future of Hamilton County with Sabrena Smedley and Weston Wamp next.

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

Thank you.

(gentle music) (bright music) - Welcome to this forum with Sabrena Smedley and Weston Wamp.

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

The following organizations have partnered to make this possible.

United way of Greater Chattanooga, the Community Foundation of Greater Chattanooga, Venture Forward, University of Tennessee of Chattanooga, Chattanooga 2.0 and the Chattanooga Area Chamber of Commerce.

WTCI and WUTC are the media partners in this endeavor.

Because this is the only contested primary in the race, we asked the three Republicans vying for the nomination to join us for this forum, Matt Hullander declined the invitation.

Answers to 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 Sabrena Smedley.

- Thank you, Ray.

And thanks to WTCI and all the organizations that partnered to let us share our vision this evening.

In going through this process, I've had folks tell me that it's really important to them that the next mayor has a business background, while others have indicated that government experience is important.

I say, why not have both?

I've raised three kids as a single parent.

I current only run two successful small businesses, and I've earned an MBA.

On the local level I fought to stop forced annexation.

And for the last eight years, I've worked right alongside our Mayor, Jim Coppinger, and we've done many great things together.

I'm currently in my second term as chairman and we've applied conservative principles, we've achieved great things like increasing pay for our law enforcement officers.

We supported funding to start a veteran services office.

We've maintained a triple A bond rating and created over 11,000 jobs.

That's pretty phenomenal.

But after this race, we're gonna have so much turnover.

This election is so important.

I cannot stress that enough.

We will have a new county mayor, a new sheriff.

We have a city mayor who's still fairly new, a new chief of police.

We have a new school superintendent.

We will have six new county commissioners, three new school board members.

Who knows how many new judges, maybe a new DA.

I'm the only one qualified with eight years of experience to go in there day one and bring stability to county government at a time it will need it.

As my big sign says, I'm ready for the job, I'm running for the right reasons, and I look forward to this forum and sharing my vision.

Thank you.

- Thank you.

Weston Wamp.

- Ray, thanks for having us.

It's an honor to be a part of the conversation with Miss Smedley.

It's a big moment for our county.

It's the first time we've really ever had a competitive race for county mayor.

And the role of county mayor is gonna change in the next years, probably more than it has since 1978 when the state legislature created the position of then county executive.

To know me, like any parent raising four little kids, you'd have to know that Shelby and I are every morning, waking up looking in the face of the future of our county.

And so that is where so much of our heart comes from into this campaign.

Very passionate about public education, passionate about the future of the community.

Ultimately, I think that's what this conversation ought to be about in the next few weeks.

The voters are gonna hire us for the next four years, not for the last 5, 10, 15 years.

And so a conversation that Ms. Medley and I have engaged in several times about our different visions and where they may be similar about the future is really what these type forums are valuable to voters for.

I think my experience has prepared me uniquely.

I had the wonderful opportunity right outta college to go to work, started actually on Russell Boulevard as an Access America employee for a few months as we were launching Lamp Post Group.

Led the transition from Lamp Post Group to Dynamo, which was at the time and still remains the largest startup investment fund in the history of our county.

I named it, started it, saw the vision there, and really believe we should be doubling down in the logistics industry.

But then the formative experiences in my life for the last few years, I think are what have encouraged me, moved me to run.

That's fighting wasteful government spending in Washington where our country's challenges are endless, but also working as a Governor Lee appointee in our technical schools and seeing how competent government at a local level where it's engaging with students, how competent it can be here at home.

That divergence is really a story of American politics right now, and we ought to focus on what's closest to us.

The next county mayor's gonna have an extraordinary opportunity to serve students and families well, and I wanna be a big part of that.

- Thank you.

Now to the questions.

Starting with infrastructure.

Improving infrastructure is key for Hamilton County's future.

How will you as county mayor help guide the county forward on many projects at once?

Roads, wastewater treatment, energy capacity, broadband access, all projects necessary for economic growth.

First to Weston Wamp.

- Yeah.

Well, the county mayor's job is a leadership position more than it's a management position.

And that's not an opinion as much as it is statutorily the case in Tennessee, where we're a little unusual, in the first place that we have mayors everywhere.

And so county government, and I think this even goes to the point that Sabrena makes about turnover, the county mayor doesn't run all the facets of government.

You've got civil servants and department heads who make a lot of these decisions.

And the county commission has ultimate authority on many of the issues related to growth.

What we've not done well, I think at times, Mayor Coppinger has been really frustrated at his inability to get the commission to work with him on long-term planning.

I don't think we've planned generationally well.

And this is the part of running for county mayor, whether you're running in a Republican primary, whether it's gonna be us talking to Matt Adams in the general election, where it's the tough work of local government.

There aren't easy answers.

Wastewater is not fun.

When you talk about new construction in areas of the county where there is high growth and inevitably will be high growth, with that comes traffic.

It's the reality.

There aren't other modes of transportation that are gonna get you through the ridge cut.

And so I think what's really gonna be incumbent on the next county mayor is just to be honest, to level with voters about the fact and citizens, once we're in office, to be candid that there are trade offs and that growth is gonna come with some non-ideal consequences, but that ultimately one of the ways that you keep taxes low and we've got the millage rate that at its lowest in 70 years.

One of the ways you keep it low is you do allow development in a careful, thoughtful way.

Otherwise, what you're gonna see is you're gonna see young families, particularly as the cost of home ownership and interest rates rise, they're gonna bail out to surrounding counties, come here to work, but we'll lose the property tax revenue.

So we've gotta allow ourselves to grow, but we've gotta be thoughtful about it.

And we need politicians who'll be honest about the challenges ahead.

- Thank you.

Sabrena Smedley.

- Ray, thank you for the question.

Leadership is stewardship.

And I do have a plan, I'll be rolling that out Monday, very excited, but looking into the future and planning today for that growth is imperative for the next county mayor.

We have a real opportunity.

What we are dealing with right now in Hamilton County when it comes to wastewater is 50 years of neglect.

And we are being told that rates will double to the consumers if we do not invest now.

We have a prime opportunity with this one time money coming from the federal government through the ARP funds or the COVID relief funds, the county's receiving a total of $70 million.

We really have to invest a lot of that money right now in our wastewater while we have the opportunity.

I'm so proud that the county commission several weeks ago, did approve funding to invest over $20 million in our wastewater.

This will help us lift a moratorium that's currently in place in Soddy-Daisy, as well as put in other needed infrastructure, but there are other moratoriums across Hamilton County.

We have one on Signal Mountain.

We have one also in Ooltewah, and we have to continue to invest so that those areas can experience growth as well.

- Sticking with infrastructure.

What are your trip wires and tipping points for assessing whether long term infrastructure projects are moving forward as they should, especially when changing economic conditions as we have seen during the pandemic, and now inflation can rapidly change the price tag for infrastructure?

- That's why it's imperative that we invest now.

We invest now while we have this one time money.

It's imperative, and that we look to the future for responsible growth, but we have to invest now in order for Hamilton County to remain competitive.

As I was saying, there are moratoriums across Hamilton County.

We need to invest in our wastewater now so that these areas can experience growth as well.

We can't have all the growth just in the Eastern part of the county.

And so Signal Mountain, that community I'm sure would like to experience some growth 'cause following growth, you usually get improvements.

So I think that that is a tremendous focus for the next county mayor.

We have already mentioned broadband.

I'm very proud that the county commission has already voted to expand broadband.

We're doing that in the Ooltewah, Georgetown area, as well as the Sale Creek area.

We found one thing COVID taught us more folks are working from home, and with students having to learn from home as well through Zoom, it's so important that everyone has access to broadband.

And I think the next mayor has to continue making sure those investments are in place.

In terms of roads, we've done a pretty good job in Hamilton County of maintaining our roads.

We have 800 miles of roads that we have jurisdiction over.

What I would like to do as the next mayor is do a true assessment of our roads so we can figure out which roads need immediate attention, and then address those in orders of priority.

We need to have a plan in place to do that as well.

- Thank you.

Weston Wamp?

- Well we're living in unusual times.

I don't think any of us could ever have imagined that a pandemic would lead to federal money that could be used to solve a wastewater challenge that's many decades in the making, and it's one that Mayor Coppinger and his chief of staff, Mike Compton worked for years to prepare for a full treatment facility that would've solved the issue for a generation.

The commission in recent years shot that down.

And so now in a strange way, we're able to say, "Oh, well this federal money we should put into waste water."

What a horrible waste of money.

Almost everything that's happened in the last couple years has been from Washington.

Common sense said that that was gonna lead to inflation.

And so now you've got really an untenable situation where sure, we are going to be able to put a bandaid on the situation because of this federal money, but you're right.

Any real true long-term solution is now gonna cost way more than it would have because of the strange set of circumstances in the last couple years, inflation set in because all the money was sent down.

Now we're gonna use the money.

And I think in a lot of ways, it's a shell game.

You need long term leadership.

- Thank you.

Next question.

On economic development, first to you, Weston Wamp, and then a response from Sabrena Smedley, Weston Wamp, Hamilton County has seen huge economic growth in the past decade.

What are your ideas to keep growing jobs that create the opportunity for all county residents to secure employment at a living wage?

- Yeah.

I would say we've seen job growth.

I don't know that we've had really explosive job growth that are high-end really well-paying jobs.

We've done well in manufacturing, we've done a really poor job, actually recruiting so-called white collar jobs into our downtown core.

If anything, I think the concern right now is that work from home is gonna steal some of the enthusiasm and energy of the city, which matters even in a county mayor's race because it is our economic engine.

My insights here are deep.

They span my entire career.

I mean, what we were doing at Lamp Post was recruiting entrepreneurs here, encouraging them to grow their companies.

And then as we transitioned to Dynamo and had more capital to invest, we were trying to get larger companies to come to Chattanooga.

What our campaign is all about is explaining what I just deeply believe to be the case that economic development, workforce development, education, and crime and crime, they're all four totally interwoven.

They're not distinct disciplines, particularly not as it applies to this job, they're all totally connected.

And so if we want companies that are here to grow here and we want companies that aren't here to come and make an investment, we already check the box as a state and as a community that we're a low tax environment.

We check the box that it's a wonderful, beautiful place to live, but then it becomes a question of workforce.

Our workforce is mediocre because your workforce is a reflection of K12 education, and K12 education here is not strong.

In some parts of our county, it's frankly just a total failure.

I measure that by the state standards.

60% of our high school graduates in this county aren't ready to go to college and aren't ready to go to work.

And using the leverage and the leadership role of the county mayor, what I would love to see, and I'll go into middle schools and make the case as young people are transitioning, I'd love to see our school system refocus itself on preparing productive citizens for lives of honest work, rather than obsessing over sending everybody to a four year college.

It hasn't served our students well, many of whom have different sets of gifts might thrive in the skilled trades.

It also hasn't allowed us to prepare a great workforce.

- Thank you.

Sabrena Smedley.

- Thank you, Ray.

In my opening remarks, I touted that we have created 11,000 new jobs since I've been here, but for the next mayor, there has to be a focus on workforce development.

I am proposing putting a task force in place.

I've already identified individuals who I want to serve on that, but this is an issue.

If we are attractive and we attract the businesses here, but we can't provide the employees for those businesses, Hamilton County will not remain competitive.

]And in meeting with different business owners and going through this process, they've all shared that they're all facing the same challenge, and that's attracting and retaining talent.

We have so many opportunities in place right now but those can be expanded upon.

We have our co-ops, our internships, our apprenticeship programs.

We have our work-based learning programs like our future ready institutes.

I think there's a prime opportunity to expand those programs and to connect more students to more employers.

I think that that is so important.

And on top of that, there to be a focus on providing a robust pipeline to our employers.

- Thank you.

We'll stick with this for the next question.

First to you, Sabrena Smedley.

How would you as county mayor try to spur and sustain economic growth for all so Hamilton County remains competitive while coping with the challenges such as gentrification and disparities that undermine diverse and underserved populations, urban and rural alike?

- By providing opportunities to all.

And the way you do that is we know that every student's not gonna go to college, but having additional vocational trade school opportunities is one example.

I have met with our school superintendent, there's opportunities to repurpose a couple of our schools that are grossly under capacity right now, and repurpose those into two additional vocational trade schools.

And I think that we have to keep looking for those types of opportunities and understand that everyone's not gonna go to college, but to give them an opportunity to develop a skill and make a livable wage, I think that that is so important.

But when we talk about education, if we really wanna get it right here in Hamilton County, we have to go back to the very beginning where we're really missing the mark.

And that would be early childhood development.

Only 30% of the students that enter kindergarten are ready.

Then we find that these children get pushed through the system.

By the time they get to third grade, only 36% of our students read on grade level.

It's proven statistically that children that cannot read, they're not proficient in reading, they are four times less likely to graduate high school.

So there needs to be a focus.

I want to partner with the superintendent to make sure we are putting the resources where they need to go with the focus on literacy.

He has shared with me that the curriculum that is being rolled out right now, which is fairly new, does have a focus on literacy as well as additional teacher training to make sure our teachers know how to teach literacy, but teachers need the autonomy to teach too.

Whether it be balanced reading or phonics or whatever, teachers need that autonomy in the classroom to be a proficient teacher.

So this is where the focus now needs to be.

'Cause we can offer all this post-secondary opportunity, but if a child can't read or student can't read the manual, it's a mute point.

So there has to be a focus on going back where we're really missing the market.

If we can take that 36% to 40% or 42%, we will transform this community.

I believe that.

- Thank you, Weston Wamp.

- It's no secret that early childhood reading unlocks a lifetime of learning.

We're beginning to better understand that early childhood reading points all the way back to the most formative experiences that going through with our youngest right now, where you begin to interact and the degree to which a parent has the time to interact actually has as much bearing on early childhood reading as whether they go to Pre-K.

There's a huge study out in this state that shows that if you went to a public school Pre-K versus students who were not accepted into a public school Pre-K, you actually perform worse as a student if you did go to Pre-K.

This is extremely complicated.

What we've focused on over the years is early childhood reading.

You go back to (indistinct) Ramsey.

He started a program in mid 2000 saying, "We're gonna get every kid reading on grade level."

We've made no headway in the last 20 years.

What we have to do is say what we mean, and we actually have to go do it.

We've gotta go and aggressively invest in vocational opportunities, and they don't have to be post-secondary.

They should be in high school.

We should bring back Kirkman.

You gotta break the cycle by getting young people into honest work, good paying jobs.

That's where they'll have the family stability to love on their kids in a way that's gonna create a generation of readers.

- Thank you.

Next question.

Sticking with economic development.

Now that Hamilton County owns to the McDonald farm near Sale Creek, what are your ideas as mayor to develop the site?

How would you pursue those ideas with sufficient public input and transparency?

Weston Wamp first.

- Yeah.

Thanks.

I think one of the really interesting aspects of my service as county mayor if I'm given the opportunity, is that I'm probably the most transparent person who's pursued political office in our community.

I'm accessible on a 15 minute basis on almost any social media platform.

I hosted a radio show locally for six or seven years.

It's one that I've talked about going back and hosting again on a weekly basis if I got elected.

I'm all about community input.

And frankly, the reason that Sabrena and I are here today is 'cause I think we both are open to as many conversations as we'll be invited into.

And so, as it applies to this incredible site, it's a rare site in the country, given its proximity to a midsize city.

We've got extraordinary opportunities, but I think we ought to be cautious.

And I preach patience.

I grew up, so to speak on that side of the river, have a lot of family between Soddy and Bakewell, even up to Sale Creek.

And the quality of life is distinctly different.

It's not just high, it's distinctly different in that corridor of our county.

And I think we oughta respect that enough, that we're very methodical in our planning.

I'm frank with people in the north part of the county on this issue that for the first time, at least in my lifetime, a core part of our campaign is a commitment to term limits.

I only intend to serve as county mayor for a term and then a second term if voters will have me again.

So I don't intend to be the county mayor for more than eight years.

And I'm not sure that in those eight years we ought to be doing a ton of development.

We ought to open that side up for recreational use.

We ought to lay the infrastructure.

We ought to dream the dreams as a community, but the highest and best use of that land.

I don't think we should jump to assume that we know what it is right now.

Couple thousand acres adjacent to a mid-size community is rare.

It could end up being an experimental and really wonderful opportunity for this whole region.

And I think we ought be careful before we just take the first investment opportunity.

- Thank you.

Sabrena Smedley.

- Well, in terms of transparency, there's no one more transparent and accessible than I am.

Since I've been elected in 2014, I've held quarterly meetings within my community.

Regarding the McDonald farm, I had the opportunity to go out to the community meeting that Jim Coppinger had.

And I listened to the folks that lived in that community.

And what I heard is that agriculture was very, very important to that community.

And I think there's an opportunity.

I hope to donate back a certain amount of acreage to that community that they can use for festivals and different things that they were sharing that they wanted to do.

But in terms of the McDonald farm and what will go there, I do think we have to take our time and get it right.

I really do wanna see a very slow methodical process and plan for that.

And I wanna sure that we get it right, and that it is something that creates a lot of thousands of jobs and opportunities for Hamilton County citizen.

But I also, I think we have so much to offer here in Hamilton County.

I don't want us to give a lot of incentives away to get someone here.

- All right.

Thank you.

You've both talked about education.

Let's talk some more about education.

Next question.

First is Sabrena Smedley.

Education, as we all know another key to Hamilton County's future.

Talk more about how you as county mayor would use your role on the county commission to ensure that all children from birth to career receive quality education opportunities?

- Well, I think there's a real opportunity for the mayor during budget time when those meetings are occurring behind closed doors with a superintendent to make sure that those funds are being allocated where they need to be.

I've already talked about literacy.

There needs to be a focus on literacy if we're really going to transform this community.

And it starts early in the third grade.

And I also think there's an opportunity for the county mayor to partner with our city mayor who ran on early childhood development, and nonprofits.

I have spent time talking to Leslie with the United Way.

I know they just finished their strategic plan.

And part of that plan was a focus on early childhood development.

I think there's real opportunities for the next county mayor to partner with the city mayor in these nonprofit organizations to really address early childhood development.

But I will say this, the next mayor when he comes to the department of education and what we're dealing with, the next mayor has a huge task in figuring out what we're gonna do about this $1.4 billion price tag that we're dealing with in deferred maintenance.

I look forward, the superintendent and I have already had several discussions about addressing this and really us partnering together to make those decisions.

Do we repurpose a couple of schools to where they can be additional vocational trade schools?

Will there be some consolidation?

Will he propose shutting down some schools?

I don't know, but these are tough conversations and decisions that wait ahead.

And this is where leadership is really gonna be tremendous and really matter, but we've gotta get it right.

And we've got to figure out what the plan is because when we talk about education, we want the students to be in a safe environment.

We want when a student goes into these schools that it's a nice environment, it's a good cultivating learning environment.

We don't want there to be mold and schools falling down.

If you recall, the county inherited a lot of these problems when the City of Chattanooga decided to go out of the school business, and we inherited those city schools.

So this is a huge challenge.

You don't hear a lot talk about it, but I understand end that it's gonna be one of the greatest tasks for the next county mayor.

- Thank you.

Weston Wamp.

- I think when you talk about the role of a county mayor in education, the clearest and most obvious role is in financially supporting, but also just the direct bond financing of new construction, but also major renovation projects.

And that's what draws the county mayor directly into a visioning process, which we really need to go through because we run 74 public schools that are very diverse geographically, but also many of 'em are failing structures.

And a lot of that's a result of a merger.

My experience and perspective here is distinct and different.

I grew up the grandson of one of our county's great school architects, spent a lot of time on job sites thinking about how great schools work.

And then as a member of the Tennessee Board of Regents, I am in the weeds on an almost weekly basis dealing with how do you get high school students while they're still in high school, into dual enrollment opportunities.

That is gonna have to involve a rethinking of the infrastructure, the physical footprint of the school system.

- Thank you.

We're going to stick with those capital needs for the Hamilton County schools for this next question.

They're well documented and they are not cheap.

Superintendent, the school board, they have their role to play.

You both have acknowledged these needs and there needs to be a process.

What specific ideas would you bring to that conversation?

First, Weston Wamp.

- Well, it doesn't have to be as expensive as it has been.

In fact, if we continue to use the old model, I mean, you look at this you just got a sticker shock of what the new Tyner High School is gonna cost.

And then you add the era of inflation that we're all living through.

This is not the right way to build schools moving forward, or to think about schools moving forward.

I mean, I drove by Ivy Academy yesterday up in Soddy-Daisy.

It's an example of a different feel, a different, and for that matter the feel of the school is different because the purpose of the school is different.

Some friends of mine run out of legacy box over on Holtzclaw, a small academy tied to Eastridge High School and tied to Brainerd High School, giving students who aren't thriving into traditional setting the opportunity to finish their diploma while actually working in a job setting in one of our great companies.

We ought to expand on opportunities like that.

The acquisition of the Cigna property to expand East Brainerd Elementary is a beautiful example of us thinking differently about what the future of education looks like.

I am a huge proponent that we get back to the city of Chattanooga taking pride in education.

I think there's a role for the City of Chattanooga to bolster education, to work alongside county government and to make investments in public education.

I've been very clear that I think we ought to bring Kirkman back, but I think we should be even bolder.

I think we effectively ought to look for an open enrollment city high school type opportunity.

It could have an attached Kirkman vocational option.

That would be, in my opinion, the single most transformative economic development.

It's education impact would be enormous, but it would be the most incredible economic development investment we could make because for the first time in a generation, when we're bringing companies, when the chamber of commerce is bringing companies to Chattanooga trying to sell them on this community, if we had an amazing world class middle school and high school that served both a college track and a vocational track, it would change the sales pitch that we make.

- Thank you, Sabrena Smedley.

- Yes, I'm very proud to say that since I've been serving on the county commission, we have voted to invest over $278 million in capital when it comes to our of schools.

But I do think that there's opportunity as I already stated for the next mayor to partner with the superintendent, to look at repurposing some schools that are grossly underutilized.

And I think that that is a real opportunity.

I also think there's an opportunity in meeting with businesses that are not using office space and repurposing those empty office spaces into future ready institutes and stuff like that.

I know US Express is looking to do something like that right now, but I think that there will be more and more opportunities for doing stuff like that.

And as buildings become empty, repurposing those, I think that that will be an opportunity that we have in the future.

And you have to have someone with leadership and vision, and I have that.

- Thank you.

Let's talk about public safety.

First to you Sabrena Smedley.

As county mayor, what would be your overall strategy to improve public safety in Hamilton County, in partnership with the Sheriff's department and area law enforcement and others?

- This is a great question.

So I'm the mother of a law enforcement officer.

So this is very, they work for Hamilton County Sheriff's department.

So this is very near and dear to my heart.

I've also been a victim of property crime.

But we have to be really honest about what's going on in Hamilton County.

First of all, we have gang problem.

Anyone who does not admit that they've got their head in the sand.

So what we need is early intervention.

Kids are getting exposed to these gangs in elementary school.

They're joining gangs by the time they go into middle school.

We need early intervention in our elementary schools.

There's two great programs.

One's called great, one's called grit that have been proven to be effective.

In addition to early intervention, we need safe schools and safe rec centers.

And as the next county mayor, what I will work towards.

Helping our sheriff identify those school resource officers and hiring them, and making sure that our rec centers are safe.

I also believe that the next mayor needs to support our new sheriff, work alongside our city mayor and also support our new chief of police in coming up with a dedicated gang task force, where we can identify these gangs and drive them out of Hamilton County.

If you recall, we used to have a dedicated gang task force years ago.

Boyd Patterson was running it outta the DA's office.

It was very effective.

What happened?

New administration came in, it got disbanded, funding got cut.

I believe there needs to be another dedicated gang task force that's made up of county and city officers, as well as local state and federal agencies to really target these gangs, one by one run 'em out of Hamilton County.

Also property crime is rampant.

I've been a victim of it.

I've came into my real estate office on a weekend to find that it had been broken to, all my computers had been taken.

I was working out at the YMCA out off Shallowford Road, and came out my car been broken into.

So these problems in the crime is not exclusive to the inner city.

This is occurring in the suburbs as well.

And as the next county mayor, I will be tough on crime, and I will give our law enforcement officers the resources they need and make sure that any gaps in services are filled.

- Thank you.

Weston Wamp.

- Yeah, I mean, Sabrena and I have been very clear that we intend to fully fund the sheriff's department.

And to be honest, I mean, the sheriff's department, the IBPO, the police union that represents, I think a majority of the sheriff's department endorsed Sabrena in what was a relatively close vote that only included the two of us.

I mean, I think law enforcement confidence is certainly in the two candidates who participated in this forum, but in terms of direct involvement in law enforcement, the county mayor doesn't really have a role.

We have a countywide elected sheriff.

This really becomes a question of given the fuller purview of county government, where can the county mayor bring additive leadership?

And I think I've identified exactly the area.

It's pretty shocking when you realize we have 300 dropouts in our school system a year, 300.

So in three years, nearly a thousand dropouts.

Our former police chief David Roddy will tell you that the majority of crime is committed by a fraction of our citizens.

We've got to pursue aggressively our dropouts and try to get 'em back onto a GED path, a diploma path, or into a technical college, which is my real passion.

- Thank you.

We'll stick with public safety for this next question, giving you both a chance to expand on some of the things you've already said.

With a new sheriff coming on board, what specific changes beyond what you've already talked about would you advocate for the department in policies, programs, or budget?

Weston Wamp?

- Yeah.

Well, I think we've gotta continue to be advocates for our deputies being paid well.

We've made some headway there and entry level pay, particularly in the environment that we live in.

Police officers, sheriff's deputies, as it applies to county government, they work often thankless and certainly extremely dangerous jobs.

And the last couple years made recruitment efforts really difficult.

And so I think a county mayor who signals and is vocal in their support for law enforcement can establish in much the same spirit that Governor Lee has done with state troopers, and Ron DeSantis has done in the state of Florida, you can signal that this is a place where if you come and work within county government as a sheriff's deputy in that sheriff's office, where we both have family members working, that is gonna create an environment where sheriff's deputies or people interested in law enforcement may choose to come work in Hamilton County, knowing that elected leaders have their back.

But to be honest again, the other candidate who's not here will go around the county saying that public safety is his top issue.

He should have been running for city mayor.

I've always told people that in a word, city government, in this community, city government is crime, and in a word, county government is education.

And those are just basic reflections of the budget.

So this really becomes a question of how do we use our public education system, where we've got a captive audience of 45,000 young people.

And we know with really a sad degree, a tragic degree of accuracy where the children who are in all likelihood gonna end up on a criminal path where they're going to school.

And then we have information about it, we know who our dropouts are.

It's not like they just completely disappear, but we programmatically don't do anything in this community.

In North Georgia, there's a a very wide charter school network.

I think we ought look to an innovative charter model that specifically pursues dropouts, and I think we may blown way at the long-term impact that just that single solution regarding dropouts would have on crime.

- All right.

Thank you.

Sabrena Smedley.

- Well, I have been endorsed by the law enforcement officers, as well as our Chattanooga firefighters.

The reason is because I have an eight year track record of putting public safety in the forefront, and I will continue to do that.

I'm so happy.

And I said this in my opening statement that the commission voted to increase law enforcement pay.

In some cases, there was a 14% increase, but I definitely would like to see their pay increase further.

And I hope we get an opportunity to do that when we go through the budgets very soon.

But I have a track record.

I've given them the resources they need to do their job.

And as county mayor I'll continue to do that, but do it in an even greater way and partner with our new sheriff and our new chief of police and our city mayor.

Because if we're really gonna cut down on crime in Hamilton County, it will take a true partnership, a focused true partnership.

- Thank you.

Let's talk about housing.

Question first to Sabrena Smedley.

What role should the county play in developing more affordable housing across the county, partnering with city, state, business, nonprofits, other stakeholders?

What ideas would you support?

Changes in zoning laws, incentives for builders, relocating funds?

- Again, if we're going to be able to provide housing, I think that there has to be a tremendous focus on investing in our wastewater right now.

And things have changed.

I know it was brought up about the wastewater treatment plan in Ooltewah, but we do have a new director over the WWTA who came before the commission many weeks ago and agreed that that particular site was not the ideal site for a wastewater treatment plant, but there are things we're doing right now.

We're investing in needed infrastructure.

We're getting moratoriums lifted, which is what we need to continue to do so the other areas across Hamilton County can grow so that houses can be built.

In terms of incentives for developers, when there's an opportunity, let's say a developer's going into a blighted area where they're taking on significant risk.

Those are the opportunities that we should even consider some type of incentive because... And if you look at what the developer's paying in terms of land, in terms of labor, just materials, the prices continue to soar up, and owning a real estate company, I see this up close and personal every day.

As we are working with first-time home buyers, the ability for them to even buy a home is getting beyond reach because they can't compete with the cash buyers that are in our market.

And what's happening, we have an influx of people moving from all these other cities.

They've chosen Hamilton County to come live, work, and play, and they're bringing cash, and first-time home buyers can't compete with that.

Someone getting a loan cannot compete with that.

So for sure, figuring out this housing piece and investing and lifting moratoriums where other communities can grow, looking are there opportunities in blighted areas where developers can go in, and maybe we incentivize them to offer affordable housing.

Also, there may be opportunities with buildings, as we mentioned earlier, offices that are no longer being used for work.

Could those be repurposed into apartments, condos?

These are things we have to look at.

- Thank you.

Weston Wamp.

- I think generationally, some of the trends are changing, and a lot of the pushback in particularly parts of our county to there being more density, which allows for more affordable housing.

I think a lot of that's gonna go away, especially in parts of the community where I'm a middle-aged millennial.

And I think there's not as much interest in having a huge yard that has to be mowed.

And I think there are gonna be opportunities just for developers, if county government will hold them accountable and the county mayor doesn't have a direct role here.

I mean, you appoint people to the Regional Planning Commission and with the RPA, you have recommendations that come to the county commission where those decisions are ultimately made.

But I think the county mayor can be the person who just talks honestly and openly about the trade offs.

You're not gonna have affordable homes in a community like this unless you get creative, unless you allow in some places where it's appropriate, where there's a reliable enough fire service for there to be more density.

But just to be candid with the public about what this looks like, particularly in an environment where interest rates are rising on the heels of values soaring.

- Thank you.

Next question, homelessness.

What should Hamilton County Government do to help the county's growing homeless population?

Steps that municipalities and community groups can't take because they are already struggling with capacity.

Should the county fund a low barrier emergency shelter with property tax revenue?

Weston Wamp?

- Yeah, I mean, so much of our community's homelessness issue is concentrated in the city.

And I think there's an opportunity here for, and frankly on a lot of the challenges that our region faces moving forward for the county and the city to just openly tackle some of these issues together.

And I know this is in many ways the bane of the early months of the Kelly administration because it is a difficult issue, and homelessness is both tragic.

It interrupts life and what we always used to describe as our kinda shared living room downtown.

It's become a real mess and an untenable situation.

I'm not gonna commit county taxpayers to...

The truth is we run a real tight budget.

And so for us to sit up here and commit that we're gonna go and fund something beyond what the budget allows for would be irresponsible.

I think there is an opportunity for leadership in ways that we've not explored.

And in our Hamilton first agenda, one of the most unique proposals that we make is for a Hamilton County volunteer core.

The concept there is to bring communities of faith who in this county specifically have this incredible legacy of generosity internationally.

I think they have a heart for our community, but they've not necessarily been led to specific opportunities where they can invest.

I think homelessness, I think early childhood reading, I think particularly student hunger are all areas where the city and the county and maybe other municipalities working together can provide specific opportunities.

I was talking to the leader of one of the largest foundations in our community yesterday.

And he said, "Sometimes I sit in these meetings with the other foundations.

I'm not sure that what we're doing really matters because I don't feel like we're being given the very specific opportunities that often, only government knows about or can facilitate where we can lean in."

And I do think in this extraordinarily generous community, we'd be crazy not to ask communities of faith to partner with us on huge issues like homelessness.

- Thank you, Sabrena Smedley.

- Thank you for the question.

This is a problem that has escalated to a point we should be very concerned about.

I actually went with the church several weeks ago and we took care packages down to the homeless.

And I got to see up close and personal.

And what I realized is that there are different groups of people.

We need to identify who's who.

Who are those that are down on their luck that really need help and need a hand up rather than a taxpayer handout?

Hand up, get them the help they need.

Who's the mentally ill?

We need to get them the resources they need.

But who are the criminals?

There's a criminal population down there.

They need to be locked up and sent back where they came from.

One thing I can tell you, the majority of those folks down there in these homeless camps are not from Hamilton County or the city of Chattanooga.

I've met with our EMS department.

And they have told me that those folks are being bust in.

And it's where the Greyhound bus stops.

We need to figure out who does not belong in Hamilton County and send 'em back where they came from.

These other mayors across, I know there's one in South Carolina, I'm being told he's giving 'em a one way voucher saying, "Go to Chattanooga.

You can get the resources you need."

We do not need to be a haven for the homeless.

- Thank you.

Next question.

We'll circle back to federal COVID relief funds, which we talked about earlier.

Sabrena Smedley first to you, how should Hamilton County spend federal COVID relief funds still on hand or still in the pipeline?

- Again, we need to continue investing in our wastewater.

We are dealing with 50 years of neglect.

We've got EPA, a consent decree.

We've got Mike Patrick who's head of the WWTA.

I trust him.

He knows where the investments need to be made.

He's working on getting moratoriums lifted as we've discussed, putting in needed improvements.

And then we will have to look into the future where our wastewater treatment plant will go.

And that's gonna be something that we have to figure out.

I've had a very close private conversations with him.

There's ideas now where that would go, that are much more idea than was the previous location, but we have to continue making those investments.

In addition to that, we have approved funding through the COVID relief funds to upgrade our emergency management center, which was needed.

God forbid we have another devastating tornado, like my community experienced.

We need to be prepared for that.

So we've put those upgrades in.

We've also, as I said earlier, invested in extending broadband access.

We've gotta continue to do that so that everyone across Hamilton County has an opportunity to have broadband.

But again, that critical infrastructure, that wastewater, making sure that other areas of Hamilton County can grow and we can build housing.

There's a great need for housing as we all know, and these other areas need to be able to experience growth as well.

- All right.

Thank you.

Weston Wamp.

- I think where you get a return on investment where you can pay it forward, it's wise for us to use these unusual federal once, hopefully once in a lifetime dollars for those purposes.

I think volunteer fire is another example of an unmet need.

In perpetuity, it's gonna feel underfunded, I think moving forward, just 'cause so much of the new development in our county is in unincorporated non-municipal parts of the county, where they rely on volunteer fire service, pretty extraordinary public service that people, volunteers working a full-time job, there's a fire, they wake up at 3:00 AM.

We gotta make sure that they are fully funded and in some parts of the county where there's a lot of growth, we need to entertain that they may need to compensate volunteer firefighters part-time.

It is actually a shame that we have to spend this once in a generation money on wastewater.

We only have to because politicians have kicked the can down the road so far.

Ideally any excess money beyond what we have to do in wastewater, I would wanna put straight into schools because that really is our biggest challenge from an infrastructure standpoint is the infrastructure of the school system that educates our children.

- Thank you.

Let's come back to something else that we talked a little bit about earlier.

As Chattanooga and Hamilton County as a whole continue to grow, which services between the city and the county would you, as county mayor, be open to combining in some way, and why?

Weston Wamp?

- Well, there are certainly opportunities that exist.

I mean, whether it's a library, we ought to treat the region, at least certainly the county, as interconnected as it is.

I mean, as a person who's, I've been a city of Chattanooga resident my whole lifetime.

I don't have a problem with the fact that I pay a lot in city taxes that affords people who aren't from the city to come in and use our services, but I think we ought to blend those two.

I think we probably have a very unique opportunity in the recreation departments, the county properties.

In many cases and you go look at, we've got some of the most incredible bass fishing opportunities in the Southeast, but it's not a real beautiful setting.

We've not taken care of some of our county parks.

I think parks, the city does better than the county does.

And that's probably a funding issue, but I don't know that we should be running two different recreation departments.

Maybe we could do those together.

I actually believe that education, while it ought to be run by the county, I think the next county mayor ought to lean on, not just encourage, but ought to lean on the local municipalities, all of them really in the same spirit of the way that Signal Mountain has rallied around its public schools to invest in public education.

About a year ago, I had lunch with Brian Johnson while he was still our school superintendent, and I asked him in the middle of that city mayor's race, "What does a great city mayor look like for the public school superintendent?"

And he made a great point.

There's nothing that prevents the city mayor from investing in public education in an additive way.

And that's why we've made very clear that our proposal that we have an open enrollment.

Downtown, middle school and high school, they would have a vocational component.

It'd be open enrollment 'cause our whole school system is open enrollment so you could come from anywhere in the county, but I think it actually ought to be funded in a combination of county taxpayer dollars.

And then I think it'd be a powerful statement for the city of Chattanooga where public education really is failing to make an investment in public education.

I think it would usher in a new day in the confidence parents could have in public education.

- All right.

Thank you.

Sabrena Smedley.

- Before I answer your question, I do wanna give a shout out to our volunteer fire department 'cause that was brought up.

We did approve additional funding for them last budget, and I hope we get an opportunity to do that as well this budget.

But in terms of consolidating services, what I'm proposing is if I'm elected to be the next Hamilton County mayor, I wanna do a true assessment of county government.

What is running efficiently?

Where can there be improvements?

Where does it make sense to consolidate services?

To look for services that are duplicated and combine those.

And that's really part of my plan in my first 90 days as county mayor is to look for those opportunities.

- Thank you.

Next question.

First to Sabrena Smedley, let's talk about veterans here in Hamilton County.

What do you see as the most urgent need for veterans in this county?

What steps would you as county mayor want to take to meet that need?

- Thank you for this question.

So I'm the mother as well of a veteran.

My son serves in the army.

I know what it's like to have a family member overseas for almost a year at a time and not know if they're safe or if they're coming back home.

So first of all, let me just say how much I appreciate our veterans.

We are so indebted to them and for the sacrifice they pay on behalf of all of us.

And during my eight years on the county commission, every time we've had an opportunity to really put action behind just saying, thank you.

I've been very supportive of that.

When I talked about that we did approve funding for a veteran services office, and I wanna look for opportunities to expand those services to our veterans.

So many of our veterans are on a fixed income.

And helping them get resources they need, and I was just meeting with some veterans last Sunday in Soddy-Daisy, and they were having trouble just with their medical insurance.

They could not be seen by their doctor.

They're paying astronomical amounts to have insurance.

And I feel like we should provide every service we can to our veterans.

And we should make sure that they have healthcare, that they have housing, that they have everything they need because we owe it to 'em because they have paid an ultimate sacrifice for us.

And as the next county mayor, I can promise you here in Hamilton County, our veterans will know that they're appreciated because I will continue to provide resources and look for opportunities to expand resources to our veterans.

And I have a track record of doing that as a commissioner.

- All right.

Thank you.

Weston Wamp.

- A lot of folks don't realize the important role that county government does play in connecting our veteran community with often federal and in some cases, state services.

And that happens through the Veteran Service Office.

It's pretty wild that only a few months ago, did we expand our Veteran Service Office in a county of over 360,000 people to allowing for a second VSO.

This is an official designation, but the office has no admins.

So in a county that's 40 miles south to north that has all types of geography and challenges, it takes an hour plus to drive across the county in some cases, we don't even have close to the bandwidth to serve our veterans well.

And they'll tell you that in that office.

In Bradley County with a population that's about a fourth of ours, their Veteran Service Office has two admins.

Those admins, which is a proposal of, and in our platform, we've proposed adding those two admins.

It would allow our VSOs, our Veteran Service Officers to travel and do remote work across the county, meet veterans where they're at.

I think it'd be a really important statement of our support for veterans.

- Thank you.

And we have one more question here.

First to Weston Wamp.

What steps will you take to make Hamilton County government more transparent?

And how will your decision making process as county mayor involve direct citizen involvement?

- Yeah.

That's really a great question.

All right, well, thank you all for having us if this is our last question.

I'll also thank Sabrena for participating.

This is the Chattanooga way.

The fact that the United Way and UTC and WTCI and The Chamber of Commerce would all come together, Community Foundation, and host this conversation, this is the way my hometown does things.

I'm very proud of it.

Frankly, it is a show of real disrespect that the third candidate's not here, and it's a disappointment that he wouldn't... We all were together last night, we're recording this at 10 in the morning.

There was nothing that kept him from being here except a lack of transparency.

And transparency in government is more important today than it's ever been.

And that's because people are sick of politicians.

They don't think politicians are honest with them.

They think politicians are in it to make money.

And so we've made a few specific commitments that really are meant to head that off.

Shelby and I come at this from the perspective of being public school parents before, we don't want to do this forever.

We don't think that political jobs should be lifetime appointments.

We think term limits would serve our county well.

We want it because it would create accountability for us.

We've laid out in our Hamilton first agenda very specific set of proposals.

We think we can make 'em happen within eight years.

And we like the accountability.

In fact, we like the accountability of knowing that nothing's guaranteed, and we gotta do a good enough job in four years to even have that additional four years.

And then I've committed.

I think this is just very obvious that the next county mayor given the lack of confidence that people have in politicians and almost unlimited number of potential conflicts of interest, it's important that the next county mayor be totally transparent about all of their ownership.

What land do you own?

What developments are you trying to do?

If you tried, you could make a ton of money being the county mayor.

And so Shelby and I have said we're gonna go totally hands-off.

All of our investments are going in a blind trust.

We don't wanna make money.

I mean, I think it's part of the legacy I inherit.

My dad never traded a single stock in 16 years in Congress.

Public service is not about making money.

All the candidates should make a similar commitment.

It would give people confidence that the county mayor was in it for the right reasons.

- Thank you.

Sabrena Smedley.

- In terms of transparency, I have an eight year track record.

My community is very spoiled.

I hold community meetings quarterly, very engaged.

As county mayor, I'll have an open door policy.

I'll be accessible.

I'll be in the community.

It will be a full-time position for me.

I won't pick and choose what I show up at, to Weston's point.

I hope the public's really paying attention and they see who is engaged in this process 'cause I think it's critical.

But one more thing I wanna say because Weston said a lot of things we're dealing with right now is a result of politicians kicking the can down the road, I agree with that.

I'm so glad that during my tenure, that I've worked with a good leader in our county mayor, Jim Coppinger and with a commission that has the fortitude to solve problems and to look for solutions rather than continuing to kick that can down the road.

As county mayor, I'll will not kick the can down the road.

I will continue to look for solutions and look for opportunities to partnership as well.

- Thank you.

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

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

We wanna 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.

Early voting will be held in Hamilton County, April 13th through April 28th.

The primary election will be held on May 3rd.

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

I'm Ray Bassett.

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Thank you.

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