Chattanooga City Council Meeting - September 23, 2025
Chattanooga City Council Meeting - September 23, 2025
The Chattanooga City Council met on September 23, 2025, to conduct regular business including ordinances on final and first reading, resolutions for funding and contracts, and purchases. Key actions included passing budget amendments to comply with state law, approving eviction prevention funding, and approving infrastructure change orders for the Walnut Street Bridge. Several items were withdrawn or deferred.
Consent Calendar
- Approval of minutes from previous meeting.
- Resolution D: Extension of data-driven LLC agreement for police software ($150,000 over two years).
- Resolution E: Amendment to designate River City Company for Riverfront Parks Framework ($2.2 million).
- Resolution F: Change order #2 for Walnut Street Pedestrian Bridge Repairs ($5,085,828.55 increase, revised total $40,874,964.63).
- Resolution G: Change order #3 for construction administration services on Walnut Street Bridge ($435,343.032 increase, total $1,331,485.25).
- Resolution I: Authorization to apply for THSO grant ($275,000) for DUI enforcement.
- The nine purchases were approved as recommended, including kitchen equipment at James A. Henry Head Start ($141,795.55), forklift ($85,494), Scenic City Arborist renewal with 19% increase ($198,730), and others. (Note: Purchase list was approved en bloc with discussion only on Scenic City Arborist increase.)
Discussion Items
- Agenda Overview: Chairwoman Hill noted two budget-related ordinances on final reading requiring roll call votes. Councilman Harvey indicated he needed to speak with a developer regarding a postponed item.
- Resolution C (Eviction Prevention): Councilman Elliott questioned Deputy Chief of Staff Megan about the HEB board funding. It was clarified that $500,000 from the Affordable Housing Trust Fund goes to the eviction prevention program, separate from additional rental assistance funds.
- Item B (Head Start Collaboration Contracts): Councilman Henderson asked why it was added late. Critza Jones, physical manager, explained that the notice of award from NOAA was late, requiring expedited approval to avoid payment pauses for existing business partners.
- Item H (Water Reuse Implementation): Administration requested withdrawal for value engineering; council voted to withdraw.
- Purchase Discussion: Councilman Elliott asked about funding gaps for the James A. Henry Head Start project related to lost grants. Staff promised to provide estimates. Councilman Clark questioned the 19% increase from Scenic City Arborist; Debbie Tally explained the review process and that the increase was approved by the department.
- Committee Reports: Councilman Elliott noted an economic development committee meeting next week. Councilman Davis announced Parks and Public Works Committee meeting with Trust for Public Land; wastewater presentation postponed. Councilwoman Noel thanked Karen Rennick for a successful neighborhood watch meeting.
- UAW/Volkswagen Resolution: Councilman Elliott announced that the authors requested withdrawal of the resolution (item nine on next week's agenda). Councilman Clark supported withdrawal, stating council should avoid involving itself in private business matters.
- National Night Out: Announced for October 14, council meeting moved to 2 p.m. that day.
- Settlement: Attorney announced a $100,000 settlement in the case of Phyllis Kahn v. City of Chattanooga.
- Councilman Harvey: Thanked administration for successful International Bluegrass Music Association event.
Key Outcomes
- Ordinance 7A (amending city code to comply with Public Chapters 494 and 458): Passed 7-0 (roll call).
- Ordinance 7B (amending FY25-26 operations budget to comply with dismantling DEI act and reallocate appropriations): Passed 7-0 (roll call).
- Planning Item A (rezoning Mintom Drive): Approved with conditions.
- Resolutions A, B, C, D, E, F, G, I approved; Resolution H withdrawn.
- All nine purchases approved.
- Sole source purchase for fingerprint identification system (Idemia, $31,103/year for 3 years) reported.
- Future action: UAW resolution to be withdrawn on September 30.
Meeting Transcript
City Council of Chattanooga, Tennessee is in order for Tuesday, September 23rd, 2025. Like to invite Councilwoman Dotley to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance and invocation. And to republic one nation on the individual with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Council, can I get a motion on the minutes, please? Thank you. We're gonna take a look at our agenda for this afternoon. We will have two budget-related votes with our ordinances on final reading. And uh we will do a roll call vote for those. Uh which was postponed for a couple of weeks. Councilman Harvey, are you gonna be good to go on that one tonight? I have not been able to uh connect with the developer. Is the developer here by chance? There he is. Get with me afterwards. Okay, so we all talk between the resets. Okay, all right. Looking at resolutions, council. We have some resolutions under uh early learning, economic development information technology. Hit your light if you have any questions about those. Councilman Elliott. Thank you, Madam Chair. Uh I have questions about the resolution for the H E B board. Uh somebody from how item is that what letter is that? Uh the C. Okay. Yep. Uh Deputy uh Chief of Staff Uh Bear and Left will try to help me with this one, so I do appreciate you, sir. Um Megan, can you help me understand how we is running the program for rental insurance and what does that look like? Yeah, so this is funding that was included in the FY2526 budget was allocated to the Affordable Housing Trust Fund for the eviction prevention initiative, and that's money that's basically going to cover kind of the ongoing EPI program that we have. Um legal aid of East Tennessee. They're doing an access to council program. Is that the same uh pot of money uh the administration set aside for additional rental insurance? No, that's different. So this is the one that was from the kind of original budget that was passed earlier this year. Where are those funds gonna go? And how's that gonna be? We're working through that right now. Okay, thank you. That's fine. Okay. All right. Council do you have any other questions related to resolutions? I believe we have um some feedback from the administration on item H for wastewater. Mark, would you like to share with us? This is the resolution related to water use reuse implementation project. Yes, we'd like to withdraw that uh at this time. We're gonna do some value engineering on that project. It'll probably take a little bit of time because we have to coordinate with uh the state on the scope of that work, and once we get that finalized, we'll hopefully bring that back to to you. Okay, so we'll be looking for a motion, council to uh remove that from the agenda.
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