(upbeat music) - [Announcer] You're watching highlights of the Chattanooga City Council meeting, a production of WTCI PBS.

(upbeat music) - Tuesday, October 4th.

Special time for our City Council business agenda.

I will now call the meeting to order.

We have no special presentations this evening.

I will entertain a motion on our minutes.

- Seconded - Minutes are motioned and seconded.

We will accept those without objection.

Madam Clerk ordinances on final reading, finance item A, please.

- In order to amend this operations budget, ordinance number 13840 known as the fiscal year 2022 through 2023 operations budget.

So it's to appropriate $1,382,573 from general fund contingency to various departments.

Amend sections 5 and 5A to reallocate appropriation between departments in Section Seven.

Pay plans to correct the narrow and amend section 7D to reallocate positions- - Oops, sorry.

- In order to amend the capital budget ordinance number 13841, known as the fiscal year 2022 through 2023 capital budget.

So as to appropriate $1,500,000 to the Chatanooga Neighborhood Enterprise from the Affordable Housing Trust Capital Project.

- Thank you Madam Clerk.

Dr Berz?

- Move of approval sir.

- Motion of approve?

- Seconded.

- Have a second to that motion.

Questions, comments before we vote?

All those in favors say aye.

- Aye.

- Opposed?

- No.

- Have one item no.

Or one vote no.

Madam Clerk?

- Yes.

- Thank you.

Resolutions, Economic Development.

Madame Clerk item A, please.

- A resolution confirming the surplus of approximately 14,863 square foot portion of tax mount number 135016 located on the southeastern corner of the Moccasin Bend Wastewater Treatment Plant at 455 Moccasin Bend Road and being adjacent to Moccasin Bend Golf Course.

- Councilman Henderson?

- Move approval.

- Have a motion to approve.

- Second.

- Have a second to that motion.

Questions, comments before we vote?

All those in favor say aye.

- Aye.

- Opposed?

Item carries under Mayor's office.

Madame Clerk, Item B please.

- And resolution rename and dedicating the Brainerd Community Center Complex located at 1010 North Moore Road to the Chris L. Ramsey Sr. Community Center.

- Councilman Hester, please.

- I wanna move to prove this and I have a comment to add.

- Yes sir.

Let's get a second to that motion and we'll get it on the floor.

I do hear a second to that motion.

It is on the floor.

Go ahead with your comment.

- I wanna thank Tony Sammons, everybody who are involved with this far as renaming the Brainerd Community Center... for Chris Ramsey and I knew him ever since my family moved back to Chattanooga.

He dedicated his life for the betterment of all Chattanoogans.

Not just minorities, but all Chattanoogans.

And we're blessed to, and I'm honored to have my name associated with the dedication to the center for Chris Ramsey.

Thank you Mary and all your staff.

Appreciate that.

- Thank you.

Councilman Hester.

- Thank you Tony.

- Councilwoman Coonrod?

- Thank you, Chair.

It was a pleasure and an honor to work with Tony Sammons, his department, LaDarius Price and Shannon always simple to get this done.

Chris Ramsey, he was a catalyst in the community and he worked tireless, like you said, Councilman Hester said with everybody in our communities to improve their lives.

We were church members and we miss him dearly at church.

So it most definitely, again a pleasure.

Thank you Tony Sammons for putting up with my mouth (laughs) and my emails every other week it seemed like.

But I wanted to make sure that this was something that didn't lay on deaf ears and I wanted to make sure that it was a continued conversation cause it was, it's very important to our community.

Thank you again.

- Thank you Councilwoman.

I'll just add before we take a vote, I look forward to the ceremony date for the dedication coming up very soon, Tony.

All right, fantastic.

I do have a motion on the floor.

The motion has been seconded for approval.

Questions, comments before we vote?

All those in favors say aye.

- Aye - Opposed?

Don't see where that would happen.

Thank you.

It's item E, Madam Clerk.

- A resolution authorizing the administrator for the Department of Public Works to renew professional services on call blanket contract for resident project representative RPR services contract number E20011401 for year three of five to the 12 consulting consulting firms listed that's submitted qualifications in five different categories per their qualification package.

One, ASA Engineering and Consulting, INC. Two, Barge Design Solutions, INC. Three, Console Engineering LLC Four, CTI Engineering, INC. Five, D. Martin and Partners, LLC Six, Franklin Associates Architects, INC.

Seven, RaganSmith Associates, Inc.

Eight, S&Me, Inc. Nine, Southern Environmental Technologies, INC. 10, Thompson Engineering 11 Volkert, Inc. And 12, Woods Environment & Infrastructure for a total amount of $2 million.

- Council will entertain a motion.

- Second.

- Thank you.

If I have a motion to approve, I do have a second to that motion.

Questions or comments before we vote?

All those in favors say aye.

- Aye.

- Opposed?

Item carries, thank you.

Madame Clerk item G please.

- In resolution authorizing the administrative for the Department of Public Works to accept a non-competitive American Rescue Plan grant from the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation Water Infrastructure Investment Program for Storm Water and Wastewater Capital Projects at Wet Weather phase six, Hixson Pump Station one and Dartmouth/Five Points Watershed Storm Water Improvement Project for a total amount of $16,667,052 and 2 cents.

- Motion to approve.

- Have a motion to approve.

- Second.

- Have a second to that motion.

Questions, comments before we vote?

Just a special note before we take our vote.

This is a ARP grant of almost 17 million dollars going towards infrastructure repair.

I know we noted that at 3:30 or our 2:30 session today, but this is really important.

It allows us to move forward on some other critical infrastructure improvements.

So thank you.

All those in favor say aye.

- Aye.

- Opposed?

Thank you council.

That concludes our resolutions and ordinances for this evening.

Purchases, Mr. Goldberg?

- I have six long purchases.

- Yes you do.

- I shall go.

- All right.

- The first one is from Fleet Management Division in Public Works.

This is a request to increase the contract for fire apparatus repair and maintenance services to cover repairs on fire apparatus through November 5th, 2022.

They increase at $60,000 for a new annual amount, not to exceed $115,000.

Next is our new nonprofit agency contracts for Economic and Workforce Development.

These will be four year contracts, 10 proposals were received.

Total award of $400,000 goes to three agencies with annual amounts not to exceed as follows: Co.Lab $100,000 Launch, Inc. $100,000 Project Return $200,000.

The third item is the new nonprofit agency contracts for community arts programming.

These will be four year contracts.

13 proposals were received in the total award of $450,000 goes to five agencies with annual amounts not to exceed as follows: Arts Build $270,000, Bessie Smith Hall, $90,000 Chattanooga Symphony and Opera, $52,000 Contemporary Performing Arts, $12,000 Creative Discovery Museum, $26,000.

The fourth item is new nonprofit agency contracts for early learning partnerships.

These will be four year contracts, seven proposals were received.

The total award of $500,000 goes to four agencies with annual amounts not to exceed as follows: Chambliss Center for Children, $205,000 Girls, Inc. of Chattanooga, $45,000 Montessori Elementary at Highland Park, $150,000 Signal Centers, $100,000.

Next is the agency contracts for social services.

These will be four year contracts.

17 proposals were received in the total award of $1,220,000 goes to 10 agencies with annual amounts not to exceed as follows: AIM Center, $110,000 CADAS, $80,000 Chattanooga Area Food Bank, $80,000 Chattanooga Room in the Inn, Inc., $25,000 Chattanooga Cares DBA Cempa, $105,000 Helen Ross McNabb Center, $50,000 La Paz de Dios, $100,000 Partnership for Families, Adults and Children, $80,000 Signal Centers, $535,000 Speech and Hearing Center, $55,000.

And lastly, we have the nonprofit agency contract for homeless support services.

This will be a four year contract.

Nine proposals were received.

The award goes to one agency, Chatanooga Regional Homeless Coalition with the annual amount not to exceed $820,000, including a required sub award of $70,000 to the Community Kitchen for operation of a cold weather shelter.

- Have a motion to approve honor purchases this evening, with a second to the motion.

Questions or comments before we vote on purchases?

Seeing none.

All those in favor say aye.

- Aye.

- Opposed?

Purchases are approved.

- Thank you sir.

Next, RFP format.

This is requesting approval to issue an RFP, non-approval to awarding contracts at this time.

The Department of Economic Development is seeking proposals to increase the supply of decent and affordable housing through the renovation of city owned properties to create owner occupied duplex housing.

An RFP is needed because approach is more important than price and there is more than one solution for meeting the objective.

- Thank you Council.

You've heard our request for an RFP this evening.

I have a motion to approve.

I do have several seconds to that motion.

Questions or comments before we vote?

All those in favors say aye.

- Aye.

- Opposed?

Thank you Mr. Goldberg.

- Thank you.

And lastly, we have a sole source procurement to report to council.

The Regional Planning Agency has completed a sole source procurement for annual maintenance and support for GIS based software.

The vendor is Wood Environmental and the annual amount is $35,000.

Wood Environmental is the original developer and sole provider with the capacity and technical confidence to provide the services needed.

- Thank you Mr. Goldberg.

- Thank you.

- That will conclude purchases for this evening.

We will now move into committee reports and we'll start with Councilman Henderson.

- Thank you Mr.

Chair.

I would like to remind everyone that next Tuesday, October the 11th at two o'clock we will have an ad hoc committee for short term vacation rentals in our council conference room.

- Thank you.

- Thank you, sir.

Councilwoman Hill.

(speaking off mic) Thank you ma'am.

Councilman Smith?

- No reports - Councilman Hester?

- We met today and I would remind everybody as we move toward the one Chatanooga the words of Frederick Douglass, "No struggle, no progress."

I just continue to move forward.

- Thank you sir.

Councilwoman Coonrod?

If you'll hit your light for me.

Thank you.

- Thank you, Chair.

We'll be hosting a walk and talk in the glass form area on October the eighth from 9:00 AM to 12:00 PM The starting location will be at 2901 Taylor Street.

So if you live in that area, please come out cause we wanna hear from you, that area, what you would like to see in the community and address any key issues that prevent that community from moving forward.

- Thank you for that notice.

Councilwoman Noel?

- No report.

- Dr. Berz?

- No reports.

- Thank you, Vice Chair?

- No report.

Very good.

That ends our community reports, other business Madam Attorney?

- We have a Certificate of Compliance for a liquor store, which is actually going to be a Scenic City Wine store in St. Elmo.

And it has the required signatures.

- Very good, thank you.

We now come to the point in our meeting where we recognize persons wishing to address the council.

So if there's anyone wishing to address the council, if you'll start to make your way forward, Madam Attorney will read the public speaking rules for council.

- Each speaker wishing to address the, the council shall be recognized only at the microphone provided for that purpose.

Each speaker may address the council only upon matters within the legislative and quasi-judicial authority of the council.

Please limit your remarks to three minutes, unless permission is given for additional time.

You may not be permitted to use any vulgar, or obscene language.

The use of the floor by persons addressing the council should not be used to personally attack or denigrate others.

The chairs prohibited from recognizing any person, neighborhood association or organization to speak during the non agenda matters portion more than twice in the 30 day period.

And persons wishing to may address the council only once per day.

- All right.

Please sir, if you don't mind, if you'll tell us your name and what district you live in, that would be fantastic.

- Okay.

My name's Jerry Finkel and I'm a lifelong resident of Chattanooga.

I live in the East Brainerd area, but I own a property on Dodds Avenue and that's why I'm here this afternoon.

I bought my building at 1526 Doddss Avenue in 1993 and my sewer lines function properly for about 20 years.

But then around 2012, 2013, not exactly sure of the year I had sewer backup.

Over the next six to eight years, I attempted to correct the problem by using Roto-Rooter, Metro, Chase Mechanical, Rooter Man, and finally Best Plumbing, the company that brought to my attention that I was on a communal sewer line.

This costs thousands of dollars, $6,000 to $10,000.

And I was told that I was on a sewer line with several others.

Who knew, you know, who would even know to ask such a question.

You might have enough awareness when you buy a property to ask if it's on septic or if it's on sewer line, but nobody would ask, "Are you on a communal sewer line?"

And of course those lines have become obsolete.

So here's the thing.

All the problems I was having were, because the sewer line I share with other properties is broken about 80 yards beyond my property line.

Nowhere inside of my property line do I have a leak.

Any presence of sewage or any break in my sewer line, the integrity of my plumbing has always been and remains intact.

But then your public works department got involved and suddenly I'm being cited for illicit discharge and illegal dumping.

The ordinance they say that I'm in violation of is designed to totally put the onus on its citizens.

So I was cited to appear in Judge Paty's court where representatives from public works along with the plumbing inspector.

And based upon this ordinance, the judge and the city attorneys summarily dismissed me and my attorney under the duress of threatening me several times with condemning my property.

And they determined that the sole responsibility falls on me to repair this problem.

This whole situation was created by the city of Chattanooga.

There was total absence of compassion or any empathy from the court or the public works department for a problem, not of my making, but by bad engineering some 80 or 90 years ago by the city of Chattanooga.

I was given time restraints to comply or my very nice property would be condemned.

So the result of the court order is a life altering amount of money, $35,000.

And I'm expected by the city to bear the entire cost of this to fix a problem caused not by any irresponsibility or negligence on my part, but caused totally by the city of Chattanooga.

You know, just because government creates an ordinance or a law doesn't automatically make it fair or right.

I have two last points to make if I may.

- Sir.

I apologize, but we set the time limit at three minutes.

Can you please email us your information and everything that you've written down so we can get with public works?

- I just had one more paragraph.

- We- - I'll follow the rules.

We've been, I apologize, but we've been, we've been accused of not holding to the rules and I need to hold to the rules.

But I do appreciate you if you'll send us that information.

Evening, sir.

- Hey, John John, District nine.

You guys almost got me with the time change.

I was on my way to my workout, but I figured it out last minute.

- I apologize.

- That's totally fine.

I wanna talk about the importance of third places.

A third place is somewhere that isn't work and isn't home.

Cafes, clubs, churches, even bars and libraries count as third places.

This concept was coined by Ray Oldenberg, who described them as anchors of communities where relationships are formed through spontaneous conversation, art and interactions.

In the U.S. we've almost completely lost third places.

In his book Bowling Alone, Robert Putnam, the sociologist, noted this has been on a steady decline for decades.

Dropping club memberships, church attendance, et cetera.

But the reasons for these are complex as a society we're not as homogenous in our religious beliefs anymore.

There's a role technology is definitely playing, but there's also a role largely, this is largely perpetuated by car dependent urban sprawl.

All cities, big and small, used to have densely populated downtowns.

People experienced chance encounters.

Euclidean zoning segregated housing from shopping.

Those places slowly died out.

Companies tried to fill this void with malls as the new town squares, but online shopping has actually taken that to task as well.

We've lost many gathering places.

And third spaces we do have are now car dependent.

They're convenience chains like Starbucks, which are mostly consumer centric businesses modeled after the on the go identity we've become.

Good third places that encourage people to spend time and hang out for hours are hard to come by.

But when you legalize mixed use housing and zoning with housing and commerce together, foot traffic can support these places.

These places often encourage organic events like block parties, yard sales and barbecues.

Technology has changed the way we view community, there's no doubt about that.

But I don't think anything can replace the need for organic in-person connections that we get from these third places.

I'm excited for the Broad Street project.

I'm excited for the third places we have right now, like Ross's landing.

And I'm excited every time you make a decision towards UGC zoning because I see that happening.

But we need to change the default setting.

Let's get rid of mandatory parking minimums.

Let's make mixed use zoning the default.

And those who wish to exclude and segregate, they should be the ones having to apply for special conditions and permits.

Without walkable communities, third places cannot thrive.

And third places are where people from different social strata interact.

And having strong relationships with someone in a higher social strata from you is one of the best pathways out of poverty.

That was my pathway out of poverty was friends and families in my church and in my community.

So I'm here today just to encourage moving forward, opening up the idea that mixed use should be the default and parking minimums should be considered to be done away with.

Thank you very much.

- Thank you sir.

- I'm Sharon Drag from Collegiate Court district seven.

I wanna thank you all for the matter you all looked into for us last week.

I really wanna thank y'all, but I'm here today on a matter of behalf of the tenants against the new project manager.

I had a lot of complaints.

He's been harassing the young ladies.

He's been out there just doing things.

He's even gotten smart with me, which I'm the vice president and takes places as the president and like I told him, you just been back here a month and I notice it's 21 people that you put out.

I know you don't have to get me the reason why, but since I'm the tenant, the vice president and the representative out there, you have to come and you know, you don't have to, but you can't come and tell me their problem.

So I've gotten 243 young ladies to signed it.

I just wanna know today, who do I need to talk to or who do I need to see?

His name is Mr. Anthony Fiers.

We had an event last week where someone gave us a washer.

I asked if we could use the dolly.

He spoke up, "No!

No!"

But that dolly was, I thought, was for the community.

So I'm not out there trying to change, I'm trying to change the community for the better.

When I don't have any help from him, that means I don't have no help at all.

And when they look at me, they come to me that it's like I'm the cheerio of the bunch.

So if you all could speak to him, or tell me who I need to send to speak to him, we need that done bad out there because all the tenants.

And he was out there before but they said he, well he's really not doing good.

He's not nothing to me, but saying no.

And I don't take no kindly, you know, when it's for the good.

- Yes, ma'am.

- So that's what I'm here today for.

- Madam Vice Chair, I see your light.

- Hey Miss Sharon, thank you.

So, hey, thank you so much for coming and thank you Jermaine and Kim for handling the issue from last week and we appreciate it so much.

And if you could wait for a few minutes after the meeting, of course you know, I don't mind chatting with you and of course, actually we have Wright she's with the Housing Authority.

She's here as well over in the back.

So we can chat right after the meeting.

- Yes ma'am.

- Thank you for coming.

- Thank you.

Good evening- - Good evening council.

My name's Helen Burn Sharp.

I'm a resident of diverse and dynamic District seven, speaking on behalf of accountability for taxpayer money.

I came here thinking this was my only opportunity to speak about proposed changes to your TIF policies because on the agenda for your next week's meeting, it shows up as that.

I was listening to your previous conversation about public expectations and I'd like to add a kind of a wrinkle to that is that things do change in government, and I completely get that, but I would hope that in the future that when the staff puts something on the council agenda, that's a resolution for a future meeting and it says that the content is attached that it should be attached.

So for about a month now, I've been seeing this topic, but no idea about what the proposed changes to the TIF policies are.

So it, maybe that's something you could, you could have some discussion about.

But however, yesterday Jermaine Freeman made a presentation to the IDB and mentioned a couple of things that I think is about to come to you once the attorney does the red line version.

A couple of comments on the fees.

We support the fee increase, the maximum term, your wording now says typically 15 years and we've done five TIFs and none have been for 15 years.

We've done 4 for 20 years and the latest one for the stadium was for 30 years.

So we need to to either follow what we have or change it.

And I propose some wording that would say that if we're going to exceed 15 years, that there need to be findings adopted, explaining why the longer period is necessary.

One of the things our policies are modeled after Knoxville.

Knoxville has a 15 year limit.

Their policy states that MTAS and its report on TIFs in Tennessee list is one of its rules to keep the time as short as possible.

So tax revenues can start flowing back into the general fund.

So another thing I think is coming forward to you is including residential projects, which currently you're not allowed to do in your TIF policies generally.

And I know we have an affordable housing thing, I think this certainly is worth looking at.

But concerns I would have, we're getting so much interest, we're probably about to get our third application this year for a regular TIF.

And I know that in the past there've been a couple of developers off of Main Street who have sort of explored a residential TIF and they've ended up doing the the projects without the TIF.

That's the ideal.

We want housing, we want development, but we also want the tax base.

And let's remember that we're in a time of abundance now with all this federal money, it's not gonna be around forever.

And when we start saying that property taxes won't be collected for 20 or 30 years, that's gonna have implications down the road.

- Thank you Ms. Sharp.

- Okay.

- Thank you.

I know.

I appreciate you so much.

I do.

Thank you.

Does anyone else like to address council this evening?

Council, I am seeing no one.

- Motion to adjourn.

- We have a motion to adjourn.

Thank you.

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