Good afternoon.

I'd like to call to order the Chattanooga City Council for Tuesday, February 3rd.

Please join me in a pledge of relations and invitation with council members.

And to the republic for which we stand.

Okay.

There are, I see, like a few little seats spattered in.

So if you're standing, or if we've got anybody out in the hall that's looking for a seat, know that we do have a handful, and I'm sure everybody would be willing to scooch to the middle.

I believe Darren's going to uh set us up for that.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair, Madam Vice Chair, member of councils on November eighteenth of twenty twenty-five.

This council voted to grant emergency funds to the Chattanooga area food bank.

And as a follow-up to how those funds were utilized for the benefit of our community, I would like to introduce to you, Melissa Blovens, President and CEO.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, everyone.

Thank you so much for a few minutes of your time.

I will be very brief.

So first and foremost, thank you for your time.

Thank you for the commitment in Q4 of 2025 for the investment during the federal shutdown and the snap disruption for many of our neighbors.

Even before the shutdown, cuts to federal nutrition programs have impacted our ability to meet the basic human need of food for many of our neighbors and continues to weaken the safety net for families experiencing hunger.

Because of your support, um, thank you to you and the mayor.

We were able to respond in real time to the highest needs basically overnight.

Uh we were able to open our food pantries for later hours and extended distributions.

We're able to put extra food on every cart.

Um, and we were able to support the local pantries across the Chattanooga footprint in addition to the Foxwood Food Center.

We invested uh a 25% of the funding from the city directly into those food pantries across our communities.

So what we also know today is food insecurity remains elevated anywhere in a in and across Chattanooga and Hamilton County.

60,000 of our neighbors may not know where their dinner is coming from tonight.

Um that includes 15,000 children, so we've got a lot of work to do.

Um we know that food costs have gone up 25 percent since 2020.

We expect food costs in 2026 to go up again another three to six percent.

So that's gonna continue to impact us at the grocery stores as well.

So here's what I really want to conclude with is when federal safety nets falter, our local community came together, our local leadership stood up and said, not in our community, we're not letting our neighbors go hungry.

Your local leadership matters.

We're so grateful for that.

Thank you to the city council and the mayor.

Your actions during the SNAP disruption demonstrated Chattanooga chooses to be a supportive, responsive community in meeting the needs of those facing hunger.

Um and I want you to know you have our commitment.

We will continue to be uh the network of community partners and volunteers and supporters to meet the needs of any family facing crisis today or any crisis that our community faces in the future.

Um so finally, I just want to thank you for showing up.

Many of you came out to volunteer as well.

Thank you for showing up and giving a gift of your time.

And um, I would invite any of you to come back if you've got any time.

Um, City Council plus all those in the audience.

We need every volunteer weekend to make sure our neighbors are served with dignity, compassion, and respect.

So that is all I have unless there's questions.

Councilman Elliott.

Thank you, Mal Chair.

Do you guys have any numbers of the surge of folks who came for assistance during that time?

In the four in the 13 days that SNAP disruption was occurring, we saw 40% surge.

Okay.

Okay.

That's all I'm sure.

Do you have any other questions?

I have I have one.

I appreciate uh first thank you so much for for all that you do, and I appreciate this document that you've provided to us with the Chattanooga Area of Food and Security Estimates.

Looks like that one.

Um I have a zip code in my district that I'm not seeing on this list.

Um it's one of the things that makes district two super cool.

Lepton City has its own zip code.

It's 37351.

Um, and I would really love to know the numbers there as well.

Um you bet.

Can I follow up with an email?

100%.

Yes, thank you very much.

Okay, council.

It looks like we don't have any other questions.

Thank you very much for coming back and sharing that with us.

Okay, council.

Later on today, we will have um a presentation from the air pollution control board.

So if you've got questions about that item, we'll come back to it.

We will have planning and zoning committee as well today.

So taking a look at our agenda for today, we have some ordinances on final reading.

As usual, please hit your light if you've got any questions or comments.

Um councilwoman burrs, last week we did uh we were able to get the alternate version read in.

And um, so those those are added there.

The um condition was added.

Uh we have a final read and item in uh district eight, excuse me.

And then we have um a couple items um under planning in district eight under first read.

Councilman Harvey, I see you've got your light.

Madam Chair, I want to just briefly go back to our uh committee reports.

We have asked for the legislative committee to be delayed for two weeks.

Yes, thank you very much.

If that is okay for that to be done.

Yeah, okay.

No problem.

Okay, very good.

Thank you.

So we will plan on having that legislative committee with a conversation about zoning ordinance amendment for landscape plans in two weeks, Mr.

Attorney.

February the 7th, that's fine.

Okay.

Okay, super.

Got it.

Okay.

Vice Chairwoman Null.

Thank you, madam chair.

Uh, it is my intent for the 3014 Dodge Avenue on the first reading.

Uh, that's 2025 through 017 6th to approve that with conditions.

Okay.

Um, and it also my intent for uh 8B to be deferred again until um February the 17th.

And it is because of the weather.

So the neighborhood association had to council the meeting.

So the next meeting is February the 16th, and I will bring it back before us on February the 17th.

Okay.

Thank you very much.

Okay, Council, we have some resolutions for economic development related to Habitat for Humanity allocation.

And we have two public works items.

All right, seeing no questions about that, let's take a look at our purchases for today.

Please, Council, we have four purchases.

We do not have any renewals, RFPs, emergency purchases, or single source.

Please hit your light if you've got any questions about purchases for today.

All right, seeing none, we're gonna take a look then at our two-week agenda.

On our two week agenda, we will have a budget and finance committee.

Under first reading, we will have the air pollution control bureau ordinance, which we will come back around to, and we have some items under planning, which we will be discussing in our planning meeting today.

So if you've got any questions on those, please hold your questions for planning items.

Councilman Clark.

Thank you, Chairwoman Heel.

Have you reached the portion to public works?

Um, I am looking at uh no, I have not reached public works yet.

I'm got planning, and now we would be looking at resolutions.

Um do you have a question and resolutions?

Uh no, ma'am.

Okay.

Councilman Elliott.

Yes, ma'am.

This is under resolutions item G.

I want to know if um public this is public works item G.

Yes, is this appropriate time?

Are we there?

It is perfect.

Jay, could you go for a little bit more information about what this one is?

So this is the resolution authorizing administrator uh public works to enter into an interlocal agreement with UTC.

Is this the one for UTC?

Yes.

Friar branch.

Good afternoon, Council, Chairman Wood, administrator of public works.

How's everybody doing?

Great.

Awesome.

So this is a joint endeavor that um the UTC campus will be looking at providing oversight on research into Friar Ranch to see what the watersheds and the urban growth and how they're disturbing each other, so that we can see what we need to recommend to make changes or build something or create more drainage, things of that sort.

Is this what the research institute or do you okay?

Will we be needing to put any funds towards it?

I do not believe so.

Okay, good.

That's all.

Okay, that's the boundary.

All right, thank you.

Councilman Davis.

Yes, thank you, Chairwoman.

So I'm on page five.

Um, this is resolution 9D under economic development.

Um I'm sorry, nine E.

No.

Hold on.

I'm all mixed up.

It is nine F, Parks and Outdoors.

All right, now we're in the right place.

Um, and so this is uh in reference to a grant that CPL um is giving to the city um to help fund trails at Province Park, and I was notified this morning from April 1st, our Parks and Administration um administrator, uh, parks and outdoors administrator that um they have in turn received a grant from athletic brewing company um to help fund their grant to us.

So just wanted to give recognition to Athletic Brewing.

Um they're a company that uh specializes in making non-alcoholic beer, so interesting um interesting company and uh certainly thankful for their support of this parks project.

Terrific.

So a $30,000 grant to TPL to the city of Chattanooga for Province Street Park.

Wonderful.

Okay, council.

Do we have any other questions on uh resolutions for our agenda our two-week agenda for our next week?

Councilman Clark, did we get your question answered?

We did.

I was confused.

It was it was in reference to the public works question.

Got it.

Okay, great.

Okay, well, let's take a look at future considerations, council.

Got quite a lot coming up.

Please hit your light if you've got questions.

Councilman Harvey.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I am extremely excited to announce uh that District 4 will be getting a new park, and uh myself and our residents are very very excited, seeing as we only have one park uh in a pickleball court currently, but we are very very excited uh to see this come through.

This park is being funded by an $800,000 grant from TDEC, a grant that was given to us in the matching city funds of $800,000, which were already in the parks uh capital budget.

So we are very excited as we are a National Park City to add another park.

More green space.

That's great news.

Wonderful news for the people of District 4.

Councilwoman Dotley.

Yes, thank you so much, Madam Chair.

So thank you so much, Madam Chair.

Uh, on the plan and items A and B are for a uh special exceptions permit for a new liquor store at 4107 Dodge Avenue.

I didn't mention this in strategic planning, but I'm going to read the exact statement, so it'll be read into the record.

Based on a review of the crime statistics within a one-hat one half mile radius of 4107 DOS Avenue and the standard set forth in Chapter 5, Section 5-109 C2 of the Chattanooga City Code.

I cannot support approval of a local store at this location.

Uh and I want to thank first of all uh the Chattanooga Police Department for helping me uh well actually not helping me for actually pulling his data for me.

According to data provided by the Chattanooga Police Department, there were 265 indexed criminal incidents and 3,468 calls for service within a half mile radius of this site over the past year.

Wow.

Notably the area experience experienced 51 drug offenses, 29 aggravated assaults, 27 burglaries, nine weapon offenses, and seven robberies, along with 22 narcotics related calls for service and 20 drug overdose calls.

This level and concentration of criminal activity demonstrates an area already under significant significant public safety strain.

Um, and as uh a person who lived two blocks from this store, I can attest to those things.

Chapter uh chapter five, section five-109 C2 requires the city council to consider whether a proposed liquor store is consistent with the intent of the ordinance to promote public health, safety, morals, and general welfare.

In my judgment, introducing a liquid store at this location within the area experiencing elevated drug, violent crime, and disorder related activities is inconsistent with that intent.

The addition the addition of a liquid store presents a reasonable likelihood of exasperating existing public safety challenges rather than alleviating them for these reasons and in consideration of the surrounding neighborhood's existing condition, and mind you, within that half-mile radius, there is uh a school.

There's also our at very own East Lake Community Center.

Uh, I cannot support a liquor store at 4107 Dodge Avenue as it does not adequately advance the public health safety and general welfare of the community as required by city code.

So I wanted to read that into the record and I'll read it again once it makes it to the uh agenda, but I wanted to make sure that that was stated up front that I will not be supporting that and uh due to all of the things you read.

3,468 calls for service is ridiculous in a half mile radius of this store.

So wanted to note that and make sure it was on the record.

Bill, was that okay?

Yes, ma'am.

All right, all right.

Thank you.

It's on the record.

Thank you.

All right, thank you, Madam Chair.

I appreciate that.

Thank you, Council.

A tremendous point.

Thank you for sharing that.

Councilman Harvey.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'm uh forgot the most important part of what I was supposed to say is my thank you list.

Uh so going back to the the new park in District 4.

I want to thank former councilman Darren Ledford, who's now our deputy chief of staff in the mayor's office, uh, for all of his hard work that he did while he was on the uh the city council uh to get this park and make it a reality, uh, as well as April 1st and uh everybody at uh you know in the city who made this happen.

So um wanted to make sure I got my thank yous out there.

And I was told this morning that that uh acreage is 15.62 acres.

Yeah, so it's gonna be a wonderful size park.

Significant, terrific.

Okay, council.

Do we have any other questions about future considerations?

Okay, we have a lot of work ahead of us.

So seeing no other questions, I am ready to turn the floor over.

Well, actually, no, I'm not gonna turn the floor over just yet.

I'd like to welcome up um the air pollution control board representative to speak to us briefly about uh the changes that you are requesting.

Mr.

Drummond, Mr.

Drummler, thank you.

Good afternoon, madam chair and councilman members.

My name is Ron Drew Miller, and I'm the executive director for the Air Pollution Control Bureau for Chattanooga Hamilton County.

The sole purpose of us being here this afternoon is to discuss the approval needed for our bureau to have an increase in the emission fees that we charge.

The last time we had a fee increase was back in 2017.

A summary in the red line copy of these changes were submitted to Phil Knoblett, Chris Anderson, and Kevin Rogue last November for their review.

This is basically a 25% increase to what we charge now to all non-part 70 sources, as well as a presumptive minimum for the nine part 70 major sources we recommended by the US CPA.

We had a 30-day public comment period in October, and there were no comments submitted to us.

We also had a public hearing on November 5th, but no one attended by the public.

We then had a board meeting on November 10th, in which the board voted to approve the fee increases on a revised air pollution ordinance and asked that the city and the county and all its municipalities enact them in order to maintain local jurisdiction.

Okay.

This way, local facilities can plan for an increase instead of being surprised by a larger increase every eight to ten years.

The other three local air agencies in Tennessee have the same structure implemented for part 70 sources.

So with that, I'll hand it over to one of my managers and they'll go he'll go over a short PowerPoint point presentation for you.

And as I saw Rick come up to the podium, can everybody hear?

Okay, I got some feedback that it was hard to hear us last week.

Okay, we've got a thumbs up in the back.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

Yep, thank you.

Uh my name is Togo Kentrell, I'm the air monitoring manager, and I just want to give you guys some uh visuals for uh what Ron just uh presented.

Um so just a quick history of our fees.

Um we have roughly raised our fees about once every 10 years, um, and uh that includes our um major source fees, which is our uh largest industries here in Chattanooga, as well as our non-major source fees, uh which can be anything uh like burn permits or asbestos fees, um, and we also uh have our minimum fees um for the major sources.

Um and so, like Ron said, we are looking at a 25% roughly across the board uh fee increase this year, um, and then essentially doubling our uh major source minimum fee.

Um and we're gonna do it in a uh slightly different way to um help uh us be a little more fiscally responsible with the way that we uh manage our money.

And so here um what I have is uh the top row is how much we charge per ton uh for all of our major source fees.

Um so on the left is what we currently charge, which is $30 a ton.

We're looking to raise that to 3821 a ton.

Um and as you can see, that is still uh significantly lower than the other regulatory agencies here in uh Tennessee, including TDEC.

Um and we're also instituting a uh uh late penalty that will uh be more in line with um some of the other agencies as well.

Um the summary of what we're doing here is um that the fees will be raised for our major sources um to the EPA's presumptive minimum, which roughly comes out to the 25 percent uh uh fee, and the presumptive minimum is essentially the EPA's recommendation for what we should charge for our minimum fees.

Um, and then our non-major source fees, like I said, uh it could be anything from burn permit to asbestos fees, things like that.

Um, those will also be raised um this year in line with the uh the presumptive minimum.

Um, and then also uh we're looking to um institute a consumer price index uh uh fee increase um that will be possible to us every year.

Um, and this is something that a lot of agencies already do because it is a lot of work.

Uh, you know, we only do we've only done fee increases about once every 10 years because it is a significant amount of work.

And so in doing so, that allows us to um remove a lot of the uncertainties that uh businesses here in Chattanooga may have that fees could be raised at any time at any for any percent.

And uh it also allows us to a uh fiscally responsible way to uh give ourselves financial relief in times like uh where we have high inflation, like we've seen from 2020 to now.

Um, and so to put some numbers um to that, or some visuals, I suppose.

Um we uh I created an index here of uh going back to 2010.

So you can see um the the left and right uh graphs are are the same numbers, just presented a different way.

And um we have the last time we raised fees was 2017, and so you can see every time um we raise fees, then we slowly start to diverge from those rising costs of salaries, benefits, um, just cost of us operating.

Um, and the three ways that we essentially collect these uh our um revenue is that we get city and county funding, um and that is fixed every year.

We uh generally don't uh ask for an increase unless it is something uh a dire situation or something like that that we may need it.

Um we also get EPA grant funding, which is also fixed, and uh as um you may know the uh those are not always guaranteed, and um administrations can come in and take things away or cut them, things like that.

Um and then our last uh source is the fees that I previously mentioned, so our major and non-major uh source fees, and those vary from year to year.

Um some years we get a lot, some years we don't get as much.

Um, and so being able to raise it based on the consumer price index on a year on a yearly basis if needed allows us a little bit more flexibility in the way that we're able to operate and not be uh not put ourselves in in a dire situation going forward.

Um, and yeah, like I said, you know, the Bureau's expenses they tend to rise relative to inflation with salaries, benefits, um, taxes, fees, things like that.

Um, and so here is just a um this is kind of a summary of all of the uh fee changes.

Um you should all have a copy of this, and I'm happy to get any of you um a copy that may need it.

And uh if anybody has any questions, I'm happy to answer them.

Councilman Elliott.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Um, thank you guys for this presentation.

What are these who and what are these fees dedicated to like explain these a little bit more?

Um yeah, so we uh so we call um so we permit all the facilities here in Chattanooga, so uh Volkswagen, for example, um they we give them a certain amount of allowable emissions um and we track that and permit that and uh that amount of uh emissions is what we um charge the fees based on.

So it'll go from the $30 per ton um to 38-ish uh per ton.

Okay, I think I'll follow.

So these are pretty much environmental protection.

Yeah, it yeah, it's um it's yeah, it yeah, essentially.

What are how come our fees are significantly lower than these other cities?

Um we have historically um offer we offer a discount because we permit in a slightly different way than a lot of the other agencies.

Um we permit on allowable rather than actual, and um there's a um whole other uh talk, but um it it allows the a the um facilities that we permit a slight discount, and it allows us to have a little more predictability in the um emissions that they have and also the the fees that we collect.

So pretty much you give them a cat as to you can go up to this amount.

Essentially, yes.

Are those is that cap transferable to between companies within a no regulation?

Uh no.

Um, and I'm uh I would uh point to Alan, our engineering manager.

He he's a lot more I do kind of the high-level um details, but he could definitely get you some uh specifics on things like that.

Okay.

Um that's all.

Um I may reach out to you guys individually.

We have more questions, but glad to know where help me maintain the missions.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Councilman Harvey.

Yeah, I just want to say uh thanks for what y'all do.

Um, you know, uh, no matter what uh political ideology you are, I think we all can agree that we want clean air and we want clean water.

Um we want a clean city.

I mean, there was a time that um Walter Cronkite, I think, said that we were the dirtiest city in America, and thanks to you all, uh we're no longer that way.

I mean, my grandparents on Signal Mountain remember a time when you could drive to the bluff and you couldn't see the city of Chattanooga because of the smog.

So I think this is something extremely important um, you know, as we continue into the future, and and we do want to plan for uh industry and those kinds of things, but doing it in a responsible way.

So I just want to say thanks.

Yeah, thank you.

I do have one.

Um we don't we don't get to chat with you all very often, and uh we know what what the goal of the agency is, but can you actually help us understand how what you do helps control air pollution in our city?

Yeah, um yeah, so um, you know, we have uh two main um ways to control and track um the air pollution in the city.

Um so this portion of it um more strictly falls under the engineering side where they go and permit and they track uh the individual industries and facilities.

Um I'm the ambient air monitoring manager, so I run the monitors that tracks uh particulate matter and ozone in the air.

Um so we provide uh continuously continuous hourly data that's available at airnow.gov.

Um we also um use this to track our uh attainment versus non-attainment status, basically saying whether we have clean air or not, um, and provide that to the EPA and to other agencies, and we work uh closely with TDEC as well to um uh to track our air pollution.

So to unpack that just a little bit, so you permit and track facilities.

How does that help uh control air pollution?

Um if we didn't have uh um, we'll go ahead and have that.

So these facilities have uh air pollution control equipment.

So by doing annual inspections, they make sure that our engineers make sure they go to the facilities, make sure the air pollution uh control equipment is operating properly, they're doing everything they're supposed to be doing, all their maintenance checks and things like that.

They do uh they monitor and observe stack testing, make sure that excess emissions is not coming out of the oxidizers or stacks, for instance, the Volkswagen plant, those type of things.

So, in accommodation with the engineering side of the monitoring the facilities and the plants, then we have Tyler and his team where they are monitoring, making sure that we're staying in compliance with PM 2.5 and ozone.

Okay, thank you very much.

That was very helpful.

Okay, do we have any other questions?

And we're also uh happy to be part of the uh contributor to the national park city as well.

So we're happy to help with the what did you have out?

It helps with our odors too.

And it helps with our odors, says the attorney.

Thank you very much.

Okay, council.

Um we are ready to move into uh the planning planning and zoning committee.

So I'd like to turn the chair over to planning and zoning chairwoman Jenny Burse.

Hello, council members.

Um, before we get into the meat of this meeting, can I get a motion to accept the minutes from last meeting?

Well move second.

Okay, seeing a proper um motion and second, the minutes will stand as noted.

All right, council.

You have a three pager, actually a two pager in your packet about planning items, and there's only one that Karen identified as having some opposition and potentially some additional conversation.

It's from district four.

Are there any other items on the list that you'd like to hear about today that haven't been highlighted?

Uh Councilman Elliott, followed by Councilwoman Dotley.

Yes, can I hear both of the items in my district?

I think that's item E and I think that's three, excuse me.

No.

Just E and F.

E and F.

Okay.

Sorry.

All right.

Wonderful.

Councilwoman Dalton.

Okay, thank you, madam chair.

I also would like to hear briefly on uh the item in District 7 2026 000 one.

Um got it.

Okay, I think we've got E.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

All right, uh uh Councilman Harvey.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I would like to hear both cases in my district, please.

Oh, okay.

So we've got uh 0013, and then of course she was planning on talking about uh 0181.

Okay, all right.

I see no other lights.

So anything else before we get started with Karen's presentations.

Karen, if you'll please join us.

So the goal here um is to go over the basic reason for the request for rezoning and talk about any issues that the planning commission that the um the RPA identified and then any opposition and then answer you all's questions.

So um we've talked about there's five new zoning cases.

We did have a very robust January Planning Commission.

Um Patent Parkway, the rezoning for Patent Parkway was um withdrawn, but if anyone's um watching, just a reminder, and then we had quite a few cases that were deferred, so um next month might be a big month.

So I think it might be wise if we actually put that as part of the minutes here, the request to withdraw the patent parkway issue because that did have a lot of publicity, but we'll we'll get that as well.

Okay, and we do have the official withdrawal for form for that, so I can pass that along to possibly be attached to the minutes.

Yes.

Thank you.

Yes, thank you.

Um so it looks like there's interest in um all the new cases, so I will uh move through them somewhat quickly, but feel free to stop me and ask a question.

Um the first one is on Jenkins Road, um, and you've already heard um kind of the highlight, a little bit of the highlight of this case.

The request is to rezone from RN16, which is kind of that standard single family residential zone.

Um, and there were several renditions of a possible zoning too.

Um it ended up with a rezoning to TRN2 for the entire site.

And the proposals for 47 unit town home development.

So during from when this was applied for and heard of planning commission, it was deferred a couple times.

The site of the vacant or the proposed park that Councilman Harvey spoke to is next door.

And so the that did come up during the rezoning process.

So the staff recommendation did change.

The Area 11 East Brainerd plan identifies this as a suburban residential area, but notes that townhomes are identified as a secondary use.

And one of those use criteria is proximity to a new park.

We're trying to support moderate density, encouraging housing near and community amenities.

So the um that did um kind of unfold as the um project went forward.

There was opposition at Planning Commission concern about traffic and the neighboring property owner did not want home homes behind their property.

Um but it was determined planning commission determined the request is consistent with the plan, zoning precedent, and then supporting that future investment at the neighborhood park.

And it comes with a recommendation for uh the TRN2 zone limiting the development to 47 residential units, and that condition is in the the ordinance.

Um any questions?

Councilman Harvey.

Yeah, thank you, Karen.

Um I've talked to the developer uh a number of times on this, and I do plan to make some conditions on this, but I'll I'll be glad to get with you offline on that.

I will.

Um but yeah, we we've been talking about that.

So that's all.

Seeing no other lights, um, we will move on to item C.

Okay.

Um, and this is the next uh the next case in the um East Brainerd Road, and so it's a rezoning from RN16, again, kind of that standard um residential zone to the CC commercial corridor zone.

And the proposed use is a parking lot expansion on East Brainerd Road and to kind of help you orient, it's getting near the edge of the um Chattingga City limits.

Morris Hill is to the east, and then Graysville's identified to the west.

So it's on that East Brainerd Road corridor.

The animal hospital next door, East Brandon Animal Hospital is rezoned to commercial use with a condition of veterin office only in 1997.

Um there's been a rezoning to more recent rezoning in 23 to an office zone to the west.

The site's surrounded by a mix of residential and commercial uses, and the requested um staff noted the requested convenium CC corridor commercial zone presents permits higher intense uses, such as amusement facilities, gas stations, and hotels that may not be compatible with that adjacent residential.

So again, the CC zone showing there kind of talks about um com accommodating commercial development.

Staff rec is recommended the CTMU transitional mixed use commercial zone, and you'll see the same chart and the same reasoning for the case in Councilman Dotley's district.

And so staff recommended the transitional mixed use commercial zone.

Again, the purpose of that zone is to serve as a transition area between neighborhoods and more intensely developed commercial or mixed use areas.

And when you kind of look back at the map, you see those kind of a node at Morris Hill, and then closer to Graysville, so this serves as that transitional transitional zone.

Um there is um there was no opposition at Planning Commission.

Staff excuse me, planning commission recommended um the C TMU zone with a condition.

Um this is just a technical condition that these two properties be combined, the veterinary hospital and the property next door be combined because you can't have a standalone parking lot in that zone.

And so this comes with a recommendation to approve the CN2 user TMU zone with that condition, and that condition is in the ordinance.

Councilman Harvey.

My active you are.

Okay, all right.

Uh thank you again, Karen.

Um, I have I've actually walked this property with the the property owner.

Um, and I I did ask him uh you know the same things was to make sure they connect.

Um the only concern I had, and and he knows this, and I'll follow up with him and and you is to uh make sure there's some sort of landscaping buffer between him and the the single uh the the home there next door.

Um and again I think he was okay with it.

Is Mr.

Liggan here by chance?

No, okay, all right.

That's okay.

Um I'll follow up with you in an email to confirm action on that.

Very good.

Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Yep, I see no other lights, so item D please.

Okay.

Um the next case is at 4412 Dodds Avenue.

The request is to rezone from RN2 residential neighborhood zone, and that's where we start to see the um two-unit um um homes coming into play to the CC commercial corridor zone.

The proposed use is restaurant office and food truck.

And the zoning, as you can tell, this is the northeast corner is the only node of this intersection at 45th and Dodds that is not zoned commercial, is commercial and manufacturing zoning on the other three corners.

So again, we have new zoning types.

And so we're we're we did the new zones to try to get away from commercial zoning to allow us kind of a more menu of options.

The applicant was seeking the CC commercial corridor zone.

Staff recommending the CTMU zone again, kind of this transition.

We have nearby residential.

We have a single unit residential property next door.

And so staff noted that the prohibits some of those intense uses and meets the Rossville Boulevard the intent of the Rossville Boulevard plan.

There's no opposition president planning commission.

Planning commission approved the recommends approval of the CTMU zone, and this does not have conditions, but it does the CM2, and I probably could have provided a handout.

And I will pass, um I will provide a handout about the uses in the CM2 TMU zone since I mentioned it a couple times.

Councilman Dotley.

Yeah, thanks so much, Karen.

I just wanted to make sure I was CNA right.

So they wanted just do like a small little restaurant and uh what else?

Just like the either office.

Yeah, they mentioned um restaurant office and food truck.

As you know, anything could be built on the site, and so I think when we checked all those uses or be able to be, um we followed up with the applicant, noted the proposed the use of the zone we were recommending, and that their uses would fit in that zone.

Okay.

So there was no um they did not express any concerns of planning commission.

Okay, and are they plan to use that existing building?

Um I should have a picture.

Are they highlighting on our site plan they're showing the um building footprints as um they have just drawn a circle or highlighted that, so I believe so, but I will confirm that.

Okay, all right.

Uh other than that, I think I'm good to go.

Thank you so much, Karen.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Okay, I see no other lights regarding this item.

Uh so moving on to item E.

The next case is at 1810 South Kelly Street, and then some additional unaddressed properties in the South Kelly and East 19th Street.

And this is from RN2 residential neighborhood zone, the TRN 3 traditional residential neighborhood zone, and just again, we um have a wider um range of um residential zones, some of which support and allow that more urban form.

The applicant's asking for a townhouse style development.

Um the application said town homes, but it is a townhouse style based on um the zone itself.

And so I did this map just to kind of orient obviously East 23rd Street to the south, Main Street, East Main Street to the north.

Um the property is the in there in the center in Kelly Street, it's got a little blue circle and a red dot.

And then the most recent case is where that blue arrow is.

That was rezoned in 2023 to UGC with conditions, residential use only, maximum building height of three stories, and um and five other conditions.

Um and so the properties you can tell the orange is at R and two, it's surrounded by that R2 residential neighborhood zone, and it's um surrounded by single-unit um residential and vacant land.

The river to ridge plan um recommends urban residential, and so that um place type supports a range of housing type with destinations of close proximity.

So the secondary land uses, and that's where it gets a little um starts to narrow in what's more specifically appropriate.

Um notes that um that multifamily type structures are appropriate, um, and and staff felt that it meets that criteria because it's 1500 feet to the north of uh Main Street, located on South Cali Street, which is a minor arterial, and East Side Elementary is 800 feet to the north.

So felt that this corridor is appropriate, meeting that secondary criteria of the um river to ridge plan.

Um sorry, um this does not um so staff recommended um the um the zone.

There was no opposition at Planning Commission.

There was um support for um the Oak Grove Neighborhood Association, they communicated their support of the rezoning with conditions.

I believe they had five conditions that were discussed at Planning Commission.

Two of them planning commission felt discussion with staff were not um able to be enforced or were already part of code, but planning commission um did move recommend to keep three conditions the maximum height of three stories, no parking from the front of the building to South Kelly and residential use only.

And so those were three of the I believe five conditions requested by the Oak Grove Neighborhood Association.

Um the applicant didn't express any concern with those, and those three conditions are in the ordinance with the uh uh rezoning to TRN three.

Councilman Elliott.

Thank you, Mam Chair.

Um I'm not heard from this one.

Um this is okay.

Uh this kind of sits on the edge of my district.

Karen, can you connect me with this applicant?

And this may be a question for you or Councilman all, because it's actually mostly your uh neighborhood association.

Yes, oh please.

Yeah, can you connect me with that president?

Just before before I lock in on any conditions.

I just want to make sure everybody's on the same page before I move forward.

Perfect.

Okay, thank you.

And I can forward their communication that they sent to us just to have on file.

Perfect.

Thank you so much.

You good?

Yes, ma'am.

Okay.

I see no there are other lights for this matter, so we'll move on to item F.

This is a uh rezoning at 2212 Bailey Avenue from R and two residential neighborhood zone.

As you can tell, um many of our urban neighborhoods have their R and two designation to the TRN3 traditional residential neighborhood zone to build a quadplex.

Um this um property was equivalency mapped from R2 to R and two.

That you allows two units by right in 2025, and there's a series of three pro three rezonings in the area.

Um 202 and 21 and and one in 2023, all of those were rezoned to UGC, and one of the conditions was residential use only, no more than four or five residential units and maximum building height.

If you remember the UGC zone was kind of our um urban development tool for quite a while, um, and we have a zone like the TRN three now, but that um there's been a series of rezonings in the area.

The sites surrounded by a mix of residential land use is including um one, two, and multi-unit, and uh staff noted that the quadplex um is compatible with adjacent land uses.

There was um it is compatible with excuse me, the river to ridge plan.

Um mixed residentials intended to provide kind of a wide range of housing options.

There was no opposition, and planning commission recommends approval councilman Elliott.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'm not necessarily opposed to this.

I have not heard from the developer on that, and this we can work through that.

But Karen, do we have a site plan for what they're trying to build?

We do.

This is it's the white building.

And that is um putting parking in the back.

Does not have a lot of detail, yes.

Do they have do we know this is an open alleyway or is this closed?

Um, I believe it's an open alleyway, just looking at the aerial photograph.

Okay, but I can confirm that.

Do we know if they own the vacant lot next door?

I do not know.

Okay.

Can your office connect me with this individual?

Yes.

Um if they're listening, we're gonna talk to the neighborhood association.

I don't see us having any issues, but I don't want to move forward until they talk to the community.

And I will send any um email confirmation to you on the alley being open or closed and whether they own property next door.

Just as an FY.

Perfect.

Um, that's all Madam Chair.

Thank you.

Seeing no other lights, we'll move on to the two ordinance amendments.

The there are two ordinance amendments, one regarding the board of zoning appeals and one flood hazard regulations.

The first for the Board of Zoning Appeals, um, this was requested by the um city attorney.

Um we previously had in regards the membership um and officers meetings, and then ad sign um uh sign appeals to the powers of the board of zoning appeals.

We did have the prior zoning ordinance had a section regarding the um membership and um information regarding the meetings that was not carried over to the new zoning ordinance.

City attorney asked that that be put back in.

There's just a few minor changes.

Um, some notes of the position of vice chairperson, notes that the secretary of the board shall be provided by um be staffed and then removes historic language of how the board of zoning appeals was originally set up a long time ago.

Um this also adds um sign appeals um to the powers of the board of zoning appeals.

The um there was a sign um a sign code amendment last year, and this just codifies the exist that process that was um changed in that sign ordinance amendment.

Okay, any comments on that or you get uh I'm good.

We have some litigation, this will help.

Yes.

Okay, all right.

And then um lastly, um this um amendment to um related to flood hazard regulations adds required FEMA definitions, and this is a change led by LDO.

They did do a presentation, I believe at the end of last year um regarding the required changes at that time.

There were a few more cleanup items, so this adds the remaining of the um to my knowledge of the required FEMA definitions, and I saw Darien Gilkinson here.

There is a question, but this is just required definitions to put in that section of the zoning ordinance.

Does anyone have any questions for Karen or Darien about this one?

No.

Okay, I see no lights.

Um, Karen, I want to circle back uh before you leave about Patent Parkway.

Yes.

Um I know we're gonna put it in the record that they withdrew the petition.

Would you just explain what that means when uh when someone withdraws their petition or their application, excuse me?

Sure.

It is um so as you know, someone submits an application about a month later, um, the staff recommendation goes out, goes to planning commission.

Um in this case, Patent Parkway was deferred.

Um they came back to planning commission, there was some additional public hearing.

Um, and after that meeting, the applicant sent a request to withdraw their case, um, which you can withdraw throughout the process because it is after planning commission and the legal notice had gone out.

We just wanted to be very clear that that case had been withdrawn by the applicant.

We have an official form on record for them, and so um that case has not appeared on your agenda for that reason.

And just as a um additional information, a rezoning request can happen at any time.

Um, and so we will go through the robust process to notify people of any rezoning request.

So if they decide to come back and do something, they'll have to go through the process again, they'll start the process all over again.

That's correct.

And generally the process takes about three months.

So all right, thank you for that little bit of education.

Did we need anything else from her on that?

Just briefly, uh, had there been a denial, there would have been a nine-month limitation percent to your requirements.

Right, that's right.

A denial by counsel, and so it is not uncommon for people as they go through the process withdraw a case at some point in any of those steps.

Okay.

Any questions regarding that matter from anyone?

I have one question on the agreement.

Okay, uh Councilman Clark.

Thank you, Chairwoman Burns.

This is actually unrelated, but is a zoning question uh just for general educational purposes.

And Karen, perhaps you can help me with this.

Um if residents receive a notice for a hearing at a board of zoning appeals uh for a group home in an RN 1-6.

Why it's not rezoning, but what is our over as a council?

What is our oversight capacity and how we have those conversations as it relates to that board?

Uh I wasn't even familiar, I didn't even know that coexisted alongside our capacity and approval rezoning.

Can you speak to that a little bit?

I can speak to it, and I see Karen walked up and she can speak to some of it too.

So the Board of Zoning Appeals is a power set up in state law.

As you know, we have 300 pages or something of regulations in the zoning ordinance, and so um there's the um powers of the board of zoning appeals um are listed here.

So they can issue special exceptions.

They can grant a variance, um, they can hear zoning appeals from the land development office and also the sign code.

So um there is a um there's a kind of a strict criteria of when the board of zoning appeals can issue um, for example, a variance, and that is passed um from state law, and that is codified in our zoning ordinance.

So um, I guess variances are one thing where someone might need a change from a setback or one of the other standards in the zoning ordinance.

They also hear special exceptions request, and so um one of the approaches we took with the new zoning ordinance was to try to address items that came up in conditions um that were often conditions or concerns by council or residents.

So an example would be a drive-through because drive-throughs need to be carefully located.

You don't necessarily want them next to residential property.

It's a special exception.

And so and that's a special exception that can be heard by the Board of Zoning Appeals.

It's generally allowed in the zone that has been approved by council.

Council has approved the zone.

There's just some uses that get extra attention.

And in this case, if this is a group hall for profit, okay, that means that the council has relinquished its authority to this board to grant that special exception for a for-profit group home to exist in that residential area.

So the um the board, the council has said here are here is the zoning base.

Okay.

They have we have determined some uses need a little bit more attention.

They're still appropriate in that zone, but they might need some additional review, um, additional discussion.

And so the for-profit groups home is one, as you know, group homes that are nonprofit that meet the state definition do not even fall under city zoning powers.

The state has exempted them because we are doing the regulations allowed that we get passed through through state.

And so you know, your fellow council members might um speak to how they interact with the board of zoning appeals.

Daring might have some discussion on that, but that's where council set the zoning, only council can change zoning.

The board of zoning appeals cannot change zoning conditions, they cannot amend conditions.

That again is only a power from city council.

There are some uses that we said just need a little bit more attention, and that goes to the Board of Zoning Appeals, the special exceptions, or someone can seek a variance for relief from the board.

So for clarity, for profit group homes follow under the state statue that we could not take that out of, I guess under special exceptions for this board.

Like we cannot touch that.

If it is, if it meets a step state definition of a group home, those are nonprofits.

Those are exempt under state law.

There's some other qualifications.

Eight people?

Yes.

Less than eight people, eight people or less.

So there's the state law definition of a group home that is exempt from our zoning regulations, and we're very clear and know that that's important.

The ones that are operated on a commercial basis, they do um we do pull those out separately and have those go as a special exception in the zoning ordinance.

Thank you.

And that um in the um that is a choice we've made because over time we've noted that there's um maybe just some additional inference interest from a neighborhood knowing that's gonna happen.

Right.

Thank you.

That was very, very helpful because there's one in my district, and I'm just not that familiar with how we interact with that particular board for for-profit group homes.

I know we have a provision in the rules to where we notify them, but as far as approval, we as a council for for-profit group homes, not nonprofit group homes, as outlined by the state, we cannot overturn a board, the zoning board of appeals as it relates to for profit.

I want to be very clear, don't get this confused.

For for-profit group homes, like council cannot overturn a decision for for-profit group homes under this zoning board of appeals.

Is that correct?

I will answer two ways and then and see if and the city attorney can um so the board an appeal to the board of zoning appeals goes to court.

The the zoning ordinance is a purview of city council, as you know, you're the final decider on um ordinance amendment.

So the city council could determine that they do not want the board of zoning appeals reviewing a special exceptions permit.

If council can request staff to do something else, change criteria or do something else with that.

Uh thank you, Karen.

I answer my questions perfectly.

Thank you, Chairwoman Burst.

You're welcome.

Any other comments for Karen while she's still up here?

Okay.

We have one other uh short presentation from uh that or is it from LDO?

It is, it is.

Um, if there's no other questions, Darien, you have a short presentation for us, and I apologize, Chairwoman Hill.

I forgot to add that to the formal agenda.

Yeah, go go right ahead.

Thank you.

Thank you for being here.

Thank you so much for having me.

Um wait until the presentation comes up, I guess.

I don't think they have a presentation for you.

Oh no.

Okay.

While he's while he's working on that, I just want to um give you all a reminder that Brian Schultz did email what's coming up on the uh planning commission's meeting this coming Monday.

It was emailed to you on January 23rd if you're going back through your emails, but it was sent or searched by Brian Schultz.

So any of the cases in your district that are being heard by the planning commission will be coming up this coming Monday.

And if you have nothing to better to do at one o'clock on a Monday afternoon, I invite you to come join and listen in.

Well, in the interest of time, and while they're figuring that out, I can go ahead and get started.

The first couple of slides are a little bit more just information and me talking.

Plus, just forewarning you all I am pregnant, so breath is a little bit shorter than it normally is.

So it might take me a little longer than I would like to get through everything.

So just kind of bear with me, there might be some deep breaths and pauses in certain places.

So anyway.

Good evening, counsel.

As you have heard, I'm Darien Gilkinson.

I'm the assistant director of land use and development services.

Over the past year, the LDO leadership team with Jay Wood and Bill Gore's direction and help has focused on strengthening how we serve applicants, support responsible development, and operate more efficiently.

I'm here today.

So the agenda today is simple, but it's got a lot of information, so bear with me.

I'll review LDO's purpose and mission, our pillars of progress, our path forward, and then we'll close with any questions that you guys might have.

So our purpose, or well, many of you are familiar with the land development office, often referred to as the LDO.

I want to briefly set the stage for the scope and impact of this team's work.

So the LDO is made up of five core teams site development, development services, land use, administration, and code enforcement.

Together, these five teams operate with just over 80 staff members, and in the past year alone, they processed more than 12,800 permits, over 12,000 inspections, and 14,000 code enforcement cases.

And those numbers only reflect a portion of the services that the office provides on behalf of the city and its residents.

At its core, the LDO exists to ensure safe neighborhoods, resilient development, and well planned communities across Chattanooga.

We guide projects from completion or from the conception to completion through permitting inspections, site development review, floodplain management, code enforcement, and I could go on and on and on.

And our purpose right or our current focus right now is to re-establish the LDO as the city's gateway for bringing ideas and investments to life by functioning as a true one-stop shop for permitting and development.

So over the past year and a half, we've stayed focused on the purpose and mission that we just talked about on the last slide.

That focus has driven intentional investments in our people, processes, and culture, resulting in real measurable progress.

In the last six months alone, the LDO has completed over a hundred projects aimed at improving efficiency, effectiveness, and customer service.

We've organized this work into four pillars to try and kind of get it organized for you all.

So I'll walk through those pillars, why we feel they are important, and then highlight our most impactful wins for each pillar.

So to begin, these are our four pillars here.

People and expertise recognizes that our greatest asset in LDO is our people.

Placing the right people in the right roles and ensuring they are properly trained and equipping them with the tools they need is essential to individual success and to the overall performance of the department.

For process and technology, that really reflects our commitment to modernizing how we do work.

So we're streamlining workflows, leveraging technology, we're improving speed, accuracy, and transparency, while also reducing costs for both the city and our customers.

And for partnerships and outreach, this this part is really crucial.

It represents our most significant cultural shift within the LDO over the last year and a half.

Under Bill and Jay's leadership, we've focused on strengthening relationships both internally and externally, meeting people where they are, taking a solutions-oriented approach, and prioritizing problem solving solving rather than defaulting to no all the time.

And last but certainly not least is performance and accountability.

This addresses the need for clarity and consistency in how we measure success.

Historically, the LDO lacked shared metrics and clearly defined goals.

We are now systematically capturing data, setting measurable benchmarks, and using that information to establish realistic timelines, clear expectation expectations for our staff, and just greater accountability for our customers.

So starting with pillar one, people and expertise, our highest priority in this pillar was building a complete and capable team.

So over the past year, the LDO has updated multiple job titles to better reflect the skills and responsibilities needed to do the work well and attract the right talent.

We've filled long-standing vacancies that contributed to chronic understaffing, including fully staffing code enforcement for the first time in over a decade, which is a huge win for us.

Additionally, we've added key leadership and technical roles to strengthen oversight, reduce bottlenecks, and improve coordination across departments.

This includes me, actually, over the past year as the zoning manager, but full title as assistant director of land use.

That one's just not as fun.

We've incorporated transportation and urban forestry into LDO, which ensures complex technical reviews stay aligned with LDO timelines and customer expectations.

We've added a stormwater and floodplain manager, and we've updated the chief infrastructure inspector position as well.

We've also integrated key partners by creating a dedicated fire marshal office within the LDO, which strengthens our collaboration and significantly shortens review cycles.

These staffing and structural changes have created a team with the right expertise in the right place.

And you'll hear me say that a lot because we truly believe that's important.

And it's allowed the managers and assistant directors to focus on leadership and strategic initiatives rather than filling operational gaps, which is extremely helpful as well.

So we've been working on strengthening consistency and compliance too, and this supports predictable predictable outcomes and fair enforcement.

The first part of that being the administrative hearing officer or the AHO function has been fully reorganized to improve consistency and efficiency.

Code enforcement has standardized compliance expectations, eliminating discretionary extensions that varied by case, and this approach creates fairness, transparency, and consistent outcomes for all applicants.

Accountability has been strengthened through the consistent participation of the city attorney's office in code enforcement hearings, allowing the city to formally address chronic noncompliance rather than placing burdens solely on the inspector.

In addition, City Attorney's Office again has given us targeted legal training to help establish a shared consistent approach to compliance citywide.

We want to say a sincere thank you to Phil and his team for all the support that they have given us over the past year and how much we appreciate that.

Last but not least on this slide, we have created more than 30 SOPs or standard operating procedures and checklists, which have been developed across all of our teams.

This helps make sure that we're consistent and that we're staying on track when we're looking at these permits or going out on inspections.

So that's been a huge help as well.

Moving on to pillar two, uh, the LDO is continually looking for ways to improve our internal processes and better leverage technology to serve both our staff and our customers more effectively.

Some key highlights include for plans, we transitioned to electronic stamping, which eliminated the need for applicants to print and submit two full-size paper plan sets to us.

So they're not having to come down to the office anymore, they can do this all online, which is again very helpful.

The plat review process was modernized to allow for fully digital plat submissions during the review stage.

So now we can do that, and we're working with our partners, uh all of our partners to get on board with that as well.

We enabled electronic payment for services, replacing slow manual check-based systems.

And then next, moving on to permits.

Uh, we have added and improved many of our permits.

So in just a year alone, the team has added seven new permits to our software system.

The one I really want to highlight is our residential and commercial repair and replace permit.

This update moved simple requests like your changing out the roof on your house from the entire building permit process to just this repair and replace process.

So we took out the additional reviewers, we took out the additional time, and so our staff can just quickly look at this and move it, move it on.

Um, and it allows for our customers to get the response they need in a timely manner.

In addition, many existing permit applications have been updated to improve the accuracy and completeness of the information we receive.

This directly translates to shorter review times and reduced overall time to permit.

The most recent updates are made to the commercial and residential building permits done in Q3 and Q4 of 2025.

And so we've already seen major improvements in the information that we're receiving, the site plans are receiving, and the timelines that go along with that.

In this process, we had our some development partners come in and test these changes to ensure that the questions were clear, the information requested was appropriate, and there are no unintended consequences.

So a huge thank you to our development partners as well for being a part of that process and making sure that we succeed.

So collectively, these processes and technology improvements have reduced costs, accelerated submission timelines for applicants, and created more efficient streamline workflows for the city.

All right, pillar three, partnership and outreach.

This has been critical to the success of LDO.

We do not operate in a vacuum.

Our work depends on strong collaboration with builders, contractors, homeowners, businesses, and our internal city partners.

At its core, our role is to help people navigate the process so projects move forward efficiently, predictably, and in compliance with city standards.

Over the past year, we've been very intentional about strengthening both internal coordination and external relationships.

Internally, we've expanded interdepartmental coordination through more frequent meetings, required in-person participation in pre-submital meetings, and cross-training across teams.

A key example of interdepartmental coordination is our weekly meetings with the regional planning agency.

We ensure aligned code interpretations, timely updates, and consistent messaging to our customers.

This regular collaboration has reduced confusion and improved outcomes.

So huge thank you to Karen and the RPA team for continuing that partnership.

These efforts extend beyond the RPA, though.

We do ongoing coordination with transportation, the city engineering office, water quality, the city attorney's office, police, and others to ensure that a unified city approach on everything to ensure a unified city approach on everything that we work on.

The requirement of in-person attendance at pre-submittal meetings has also made a meaningful difference.

Having everyone at the table has improved collaboration and problem solving from even just our internal team.

Externally, we continue to prioritize active forward-focused community education.

Our senior embudsman, Dallas Rucker, along with LDO staff is regularly going out to meet with developers, engineers, contractors, and realtors to walk through permitting inspection and zoning requirements.

We have an open door policy, and it's simple.

If you're stuck, come and talk to us.

We thank so many of you for telling people to reach out to us because that's the only way that we can truly sit down and solve the problem that's at hand.

These conversations often, yeah, I did an audit of me and Bill and Jeremy Swilly's calendar.

We spend about 50 hours every month in these meetings talking to our applicants and our customers, and that's just leadership.

That's not even our staff that's doing these permits on a day-to-day basis.

To further engage industry partners, we launched quarterly contractor meetings.

We've now renamed that to LDO Partners Quarterly, along with targeted office visits.

These forums allow us to share upcoming changes and receive direct feedback from our customers and our stakeholders.

If you guys are interested, the next LDO Partners Quarterly is on April 29th at the Construction Career Center from 8 to 10 a.m.

We would love to see you there.

Finally, we've advanced community-based enforcement and education.

Community enforcement district blitz have paired enforcement with clear communication and education for our residents.

Additionally, we've begun quarterly sign sweeps with direct education for business owners when possible.

And we have created educational handouts, such as like where you can have your sandwich board sign or where you can have a flag sign, and what's the floodplain and how can that how does that affect you, right?

And we've also been translating these outreach materials into Spanish as well to better serve our community.

Finally, pillar four, performance and accountability.

Again, historically, performance tracking within the LDO was inconsistent.

Over the past year, we have been intentional about building a clear, shared approach to performance measurements so staff understands expectations, leadership can identify bottlenecks, and public resources are used responsibly.

Most importantly, this allows us to move from reactive problem solving to proactive improvement.

Our key initiative that we have recently finished the first iteration of was a centralized dashboard.

In this dashboard, we established overall permit processing expectations for our permits, most often used, as well as review specific timelines for each step grounded in real data.

This provides a high level visibility into permit volumes, review timelines, and generally team performance.

And this allows us to monitor trends, adjust staffing staffing where needed, and ensure applicants receive consistent and predictable service.

To reinforce accountability at every level, we've created individual OpenGov reports that allow teams to track their progress and workload in real time.

In parallel, we are developing comprehensive standardized standardized SOPs and checklists for all reviews and inspections, just like we talked about before.

We believe the only way for us to truly know where we are and where we have opportunities for growth is with clear and true metrics.

So previously, our reported timelines did not include intake time, which created this big disconnect between what the city communicated and what applicants actually experienced.

We corrected this by updating our methodology to reflect the full end-to-end review process.

This gives us and our customers a more accurate picture of timelines and performance.

Finally, we wanted to highlight a piece of the workload that is often overlooked open records request.

As Phil, I'm sure can let you know, we are the second busiest department in the city for open records request, with 2025 exceeding 2024's totals.

The filling of these requests are time consuming, but we have been working with the city attorney's office and DTS to better track and streamline these requests, including developing template responses and open data for frequently requested information, like where are all these STBRs?

This improves transparency while reducing staff time spent on repeat requests.

Okay, that was a lot of information.

But I hope that it clearly demonstrates the hard work the LDO team has put in to become more efficient, effective, and customer focused.

However, the work does not stop there.

We have a clear plan to build on this momentum in the next few slig.

The next few slides, I will walk you through key highlights of our path forward.

I was going to do the three and six and twelve months, but 12 months is really a lot of implementation of what we're doing in three and six months, so I'm just gonna do three and six months and then we'll move on.

But before we get started with that, this slide here just uh provides a high level snapshot of our priorities.

Since we're gonna go into more details, I won't dig into all of these, but just wanted you guys to have an overview here.

And at the bottom, you'll see finding a way to yes is success.

Across all of our pillars and our priorities, our mantra is clear.

We do not stop at obstacles.

We keep working, we keep collaborating, and we keep moving forward until we get to where we need to be.

So for the next three months, as the organization continues to evolve with new positions, promotions, internal changes.

We have several key positions we are focused on in the near term.

Over the next three months, we will we will be filling the Euclidean development review planner, a community outreach coordinator, and two permit clerk positions.

In parallel, we will continue to expand training through additional standard operating procedures and cross-training across departments.

We are working on establishing a take-home vehicle policy, which will better support our field staff.

We're doing permit revamps to street cut, earth retraining structure, and plat review permits along with others, but those are the ones that came top of mind.

We have new permits as well.

We're going to introduce townhouse permits, which is a huge win for us as townhouses are in this weird thing, uh weird uh situation.

They're not residential, but they're not commercial, and so they're kind of in the middle.

Right now we have them going through the commercial building permit, but it's just not really fitting their needs.

So creating this new permit will be very helpful for us in that permitting process.

Um, additionally, we are creating the staff reviewed plats to streamline review pathways permit as well, and then website updates.

We are actively auditing LDO web pages and benchmarking against peer cities to improve clarity, add resources, and incorporate maps.

Once the audit is complete, we will partner with DTS to implement these improvements as well.

New and improved GIS maps.

Um there's a lot of them here, but a couple that is that are really exciting for me are we have an S TBR map that's going to be public facing and auto-populating so that we can see where all of our STBRs are.

Um, again, one of our major open records requests, so this will be really helpful on two levels.

Um, and then internal improvements to our uh plan review map and our OpenGov GIS, which ensures accurate and accessible information for our team.

For public information enhancements, um, we're adding clear resources and timelines within OpenGov, and we're launching a public-facing cost estimator, both things which will be extremely helpful for our applicants.

Uh dedicated outreach.

So that community outreach coordinator role is going to really strengthen education and engagement.

They'll control or they'll administer all nine of our boards so that way it's cohesive and we have the same message going forward for our community, as well as help with presentations and creating opportunities for community engagement.

And then interdepartmental collaboration, continued coordination with partners such as Moccus and Bend and the Regional Planning Agency, along with everyone that we talked about before, are really important to us.

And then finally, we've finalized permit metrics for most of our frequently used permits.

We're working to expand these metrics across all permit types.

Building on this, we are formalizing standards for inspections, public engagement and response times again to ensure clear expectations for both staff and applicants.

So moving to three to six months, we're requesting additional head count and FY27 budget.

Don't worry, we're keeping it flat, but we are requesting more.

This is to address the growing uh demand by requesting more building and trades inspectors and key code enforcement personnel.

We're going to move code enforcement to the uh DRC, so the LDO is all under one roof, partially because we're creating a great culture at LDO and we want them to be included in that.

Um but also it helps with collaboration, interdepartmental help and reducing the overlap of work.

Strategic reorganization.

We'll be drafting the plan for consolidation and training of the code enforcement and inspections team for uh effectiveness.

And this is just because we have multiple teams doing inspections or multiple teams doing code enforcement when we really need to have those all housed under the same management.

Uh and we'll continue to fill positions in month three through six.

A couple of those key positions are the municipal forester and the assistant director of development services.

We're gonna modernize customer service by transitioning teams to soft phones so that they can call applicants while out on the job site.

We're gonna implement the OpenGov permit review update, which will help streamline the permit reviews and create summaries of comments for our applicants to better help them understand holistically the revisions needed to move forward.

We'll begin training and implementation of new code enforcement software.

And then the expansion of internal SOPs in checklist library.

And then the one thing that I oh, it is on here.

Great.

Ball in court.

This one is really exciting for us.

OpenGov, our permitting software is finally getting the um the tracking metrics for us to know whether or when it's in our court versus when it's in the applicant's court and what that timeline looks like.

And so we're hoping to have that implemented from in the next six months, but that will depend on our OpenGov partners.

The great news is that they have it, they've been showing it to us, and we're ready to move forward as soon as they are.

All right.

So we're gonna skip through 12 again because a lot of it is just implementing a lot of the things that I just said and continuing to reinforce and um revisit our metrics and our accountability procedures.

But while the last few slides highlighted key initiatives and next steps, I just really think it's important to emphasize that this work represents more than just a set of improvements.

It reflects a fundamental cultural shift in how the LDO operates.

By investing in our people, modernizing our processes, strengthening our partnerships, and holding ourselves accountable.

We're building a more responsive, efficient, and transparent organization.

An organization that sets a higher standard for service of service for our staff, our partners, and our community as a whole.

It's just the beginning.

I am so excited to be a part of this team, and I know that our team is so excited for all of these things that we continue to do and all of these improvements we continue to make, and we just are thrilled to be building on this momentum and growing into the best version of LDO.

So thank you for your time today, and uh it's open to any questions.

Amen.

Darien, thank you.

What a thorough presentation.

I know we had one light, uh I now see two lights, three lights, so we have some questions for you.

You covered uh the bases, so I can only I can only imagine what everybody else needs to know.

But I will I will add one thing.

Will you please send your PowerPoint presentation to Nicole, our our counsel uh council office so she can send it out to everybody?

Absolutely because you had some great information in there, and then I will um move to Chairwoman Hill.

Thank you.

Um Darien, I know that the land development office is um is one of our most critical functions and also one that has had many, many challenges over the years.

And so when you talk about the progress that you've made, I can hear the excitement in your voice about the cultural shift and I mean the fact that you all have created or completed a hundred projects to make improvements speaks to how much improvement there was to make, but um the the reality that you all are making those and also finding that the culture is becoming a culture of how might we, as opposed to absolutely not.

You know, you're moving toward yes as opposed to so many um people who have worked with LDO in the past or constituents, they feel like they've they've always been told no.

It's almost like how how do I just get to know?

Um and and that is not the intent um and uh of why we even have LDO.

So thank you very much.

I um it's been a long time since I headed out on a maternity leave, but I know the feeling of having to make sure you've got all those ducks in a row before you go.

So I appreciate you um putting this together for us and and getting us up to speed.

Um I wish you all the best.

Thank you.

That's all, ma'am.

Cherokee.

Uh Councilman Harvey.

Thank you, Darren, for being here.

Um, I'm super excited to hear that we are fully staffed in the codes enforcement uh department.

Um the second most amount of calls I get other than pave my road and fix my sidewalk is codes enforcement.

Yeah.

Um so we're so excited to to hear that um and and hope to see some some improvement throughout the city on that.

Um but I just want to give it to you.

I that was an incredible presentation, as pregnant as you are.

I think you deserve a round of applause.

That's all, Madam Chair.

Thank you.

Uh Councilwoman Dotley.

Thanks so much, Madam Chair.

Um you already got one of my questions answered about the presentation coming to us.

Um the other was just thank you, Darien.

That was very thorough.

And from the time I got here in 21 to today to see all of these improvements are amazing.

And so I just want to say I appreciate your work, and you do it with a good attitude, and we appreciate you for that.

So looking forward to more information, um, moving forward, seeing how you're gonna come in flatten it, hey account.

That's gonna be interesting to see for the budget, and uh love moving to some of the electronic versions of things so that we're able to expedite, you know, permitting the permanent process and things like that.

So uh very excited from the time from the time I got here, and I know it was a little bit worse even before it's a to this is amazing.

So congratulations to you and your team, and uh again, I'm just looking forward to more information.

Thank you, thank you so much, madam chair.

Thank you.

And just to kind of build off of that, you know, this is this is not me.

This is all of our team, right?

Um, I'm so grateful for Bill and for Jay.

Uh their support means everything to everyone in LDO, and um, they have really just given us the opportunity to truly succeed.

And so I just I would like you know to make sure you guys know that I could not be as happy as I am to talk about all these things if it wasn't for every single person that's in that building.

So it's a great tribute.

All right, councilman Henderson.

Thank you, madam chair uh and Darren.

That's I I just was going to say y'all have done amazing job, your team, um you and and Bill, um Jeremy Woods, uh Jeremy Sweeley.

Uh y'all have done a great job at identifying choke points in this system and and identifying those and really problem solving and coming up with a solution for those choke points.

And and that's something that I I don't know that we've ever done well.

Uh, but y'all have done a great job at overhauling LDO.

And I think one of the most important pillars that I saw on this screen was the partnership and outreach.

But I think that has also helped identify those choke points and and and I think just knowing uh out in the community, the developers uh knowing that y'all are taking this seriously, looking at all these things and bringing people on board to kind of help solve those problems.

I think have relieved a lot of people and a lot of a lot of frustration uh when you go down to LDO to try to pull permit.

So uh good job and kudos.

Thank you.

And Councilman Clark.

Oh, thank you, uh Chairwoman Burns.

Uh Darren, I too want to echo uh Councilman Henderson's sentiments.

One, your breathing was amazing.

It was like we were like we went in Lamas class.

I I don't I've had children.

I know Councilman Harvey has, and so I can I can only imagine what Lamar's class is like now.

Uh I want to just briefly echo the same thing.

Um this to see public works and land development office pivot when we bring concerns has been amazing, and I've seen working with Bill Gore, yourself, Jeremy Swilly, and um sorry, I'm looking at you.

Jay Woods is amazing.

We're not always the most congenial council, sometimes in our request.

Um Jay said that's true.

Um but we do what we do for the people.

Yeah, and I know y'all have a heart and and uh ironing out those kinks and the way y'all pivot so quickly to answer those.

Yeah and I know y'all have a heart and and uh ironing out those kinks and the way y'all pivot so quickly to answer those this is amazing.

My question is is in regards to compliance.

And before I get to that also want to give a shout out to Chris Anderson who I know has been a very important consultant.

Absolutely all in um helping iron out those kinks but my question is to compliance.

Once all these processes are in place what is the follow-up or what is the team or the department or the I know we've just hired some new people but once we issue permits um I know that's not a sign requirement that says that hey this permit has been issued for this property.

I think we used to do it or we used to like when someone apply for a permit like if we if the public wanted to know what was being built there.

Yeah you know for zoning we will place a sign but for building we don't place signs for that is that correct that is correct.

Okay is there did we used to is there a reason why we came away from that or I don't know why we came away from it because I wasn't there at the time um but there is no requirement for us to do that.

I will say one of the great things about um openGov which is our permitting system is that they can search anyone can search an address and see if a building permit has been pulled um so if you start to see work on a site and you want to know more about it it doesn't give you all of the details but it will start to answer some of those questions on like you know who is doing this and you know what's the use that's going to be here.

That's the other question we get is that somebody's building something did the do they have the proper permits um and I've learned through that website that some people will start building without a permit and I guess like to wrap up my question how do we go back and is it just if it's only reported do we have a team that goes around and check compliance what does that look like yeah so a little bit of both um so you can call into 311 and put in like a it's like a questions and feedback and be like hey is there a building permit for this and if there's not we issue a stop work order and we get them going down the right process.

Additionally our building inspectors have zones and they're out there they're doing building inspections on a regular basis um it when it gets to the point where they start building the inspection goes on hold so a lot of our building inspectors know what's going on catch something yes in route okay correct and so between those two things um it really helps us to continue to stay proactive awesome thank you so much for the again awesome presentation I look forward to receiving it via email thank you thank you yeah anyone else gonna jump in okay uh again Darien thank you uh definitely have experienced the shifting customer service with everyone that you mentioned and being the willingness to just get ahead of issues before they become issues have great conversations with um all of your staff when a question comes up they've always been very Bill Jeremy your your crew has always been willing to help answer questions and help get to the Ruba problem and uh to piggyback on Chairwoman Hill embrace what yes looks like more so than no seeing no other lights um thank you Darien again for that wonderful presentation uh we're gonna recess and understand we have an attorney client meeting what time would you like us to return?

Okay so we will return at 545.

Thank you thank you

We are back in session.

Oh my gosh, where did everybody go?

Okay.

Madam Clerk, will you please read item A?

An earnest home in Chattanooga City Co Part two, Chapter Thirty Eight zone and Ornus.

So that's ReZone property located at fifty-nine twenty pine grove trail from R and three residential neighborhood zone to IL industrial lights on subcertain conditions.

Council, can I get a motion?

I would like to make a motion to uh approve of approval approve the rezone with the five special conditions.

Do you want me to read the five conditions in?

Uh sure, I think that would be great.

Thank you.

And the the five conditions are the planned parking lot, we'll use an honest street address.

Rear access on Pine Grove Trail will be limited to cars only for the planned parking area.

Pine Grove trail access will be limited to cars exiting the property only unless otherwise required by the fire marshal.

The property owner will install a gate at the pine grove trail access with exit only signage, and the property must uh be used only for a car parking area, and no oversized vehicles will be allowed.

Yes.

So motion to approve with those conditions.

Council, we have a motion to approve on the floor with a proper second.

Do we have any questions or comments?

All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed?

Motion passes.

So as reason property located at twenty eight oh two Curtis Street from RN one five residential neighborhood zone to TRN two zone subject certain conditions.

Yes.

Oh, we don't need to be.

But anyway, um I was absent last week in uh councilwoman Dotley honored me well and read into the record the conditions.

I want to move to approve with condition, but uh Tony Knobley, do you have those conditions?

Yes, ma'am.

If you will read them again for me, please.

Yes, ma'am.

Uh the conditions on this rezoning is all parking for both existing and new units shall be located in the rear alley, also known as Brown Alley, and there should be no parking on Curtis Street.

And that is the condition.

Thank you.

So with that being said, I'm move to approve.

Okay, council.

We have a motion on the floor to approve with a proper second.

Do we have any questions or comments?

All in favor?

Opposed.

Motion passes.

All right, moving into ordinances under first reading.

Item A, please.

An ordinance to amend Chattanooga City Code, part two, chapter 38 zoning ordinance, so as to rezone property located at 3014 Dodds Avenue from IH Heavy Industrial Zone to CC Commercial Corridor Zone.

Thank you, Madam Vice Chair.

This is in your district.

This is case number 2025 0176.

Is the applicant present?

Wonderful.

Is the is there any opposition present?

Okay.

Okay, thank you, Madam Chair.

I would like for the applicant to come forth, please with our translator.

Shall we do seven minutes?

Yes.

Okay.

Um, as the applicant, you will have seven minutes to speak and share your case, your application case, and what you would like to do.

And then um, we don't have any opposition tonight, but um madam vice chair will take it from there.

Yeah.

So just just tell us what you want to do with the property.

Okay.

Umso um 3014 avenue.

Um deseo is uh construir uh hacer on uh tienda the avater.

Uh thank you good afternoon, council.

Um the applicant here is the property uh owner of the DS head parcel.

Um and her plan is to continue us build a grocery store um and uh for commercial purposes on the property.

Okay, thank you, madam chair.

So what I would like to do, I have spoken with the applicant.

Matter of fact, we spoke four or five times, and uh she is willing and do understand what the conditions are.

Uh and let me read it into the record.

The conditions are she is to use it as she stated her application as a grocery store and a um restaurant, correct?

Okay, so what the condition would be no animal care facility with outdoor area, no gas station, no live entertainment, secondary use, no liquor store, no nightclub, no outdoor market, and no drive-through facilities, and we have that conversation.

Is she in agreement with that?

Yes, thank you.

Okay, so with that being said, I make a motion to move to approve with conditions.

Thank you, council.

We have a motion on the floor to approve with conditions.

Do we have any uh questions or comments?

Any further conversation?

All right, seeing none, all in favor?

Aye, opposed, motion passes.

Thank you.

Okay, item B, please, Madam Clerk.

In ordinance to Man Chattanooga City Code, part two, chapter 38 zoning ordinance.

So it's reasonable property located at 2003 Wilcox Boulevard from RN15 residential neighborhood zone to TR and three traditional neighborhood residential zone, subject to certain conditions.

This is case 2025 0152.

Is the applicant present?

Do we have any opposition present?

Madam Vice Chair, this is in your district.

Okay, thank you, Madam Vice Chair.

I am dominating this this agenda today.

So what we're going to do is make a motion to defer until February the 16th due to the fact that the neighborhood association meeting last month was cancelled because of the weather.

So February 16th would be the neighborhood association meeting, and then I will ask that this be deferred until February the 17th.

Okay, yes, ma'am.

And it is with um conditions as well that the owner of the property will be here.

I I deferred it several times because he said he could not get here, but he needs to be here front and center.

So I make a motion to approve with those.

No, you make a motion to defer.

To defer.

I'm sorry, to defer.

Until February the 17th.

Okay, council.

We have a motion on the floor to defer until February 17th with very clear communication that the applicant needs to be here.

Sounds like a disappointment.

Or it might not go well.

All in favor.

Opposed?

Motion passes to defer.

Thank you.

Okay.

Moving into resolutions, Madam Clerk, I'd like to take items A and B as a package, please.

Item A.

A resolution authorizing the mayor says the need to award up to 40,000 to have a tap for humanity of Greater Chattanooga area to construct the house at 2217 Davenport Street for affordable home ownership.

Item B, a resolution authorized the mirror is a need to award up to 40,000 to habitat for humanity, a greater Chattanooga area to construct the house at 2113 Davenport Street for affordable home ownership.

Move to approve.

Thank you.

Council, we have a motion on the floor to approve with a proper second.

Do you have any questions or comments?

All in favor?

Opposed?

Motion passes.

All right, I'd like to take items C and D, Madam Clerk, as a package.

Item C resolution on authorizing the appointment of Luke Kaiser as a special commission police officer unarmed for the city of Chattanooga, Chattanooga parking authority to perform duties expressly limited to the performance of the duties and the position of parking ambassador.

Item D, a resolution authorizing the appointment of William Benford as a special commission police officer on arm for the city of Chattanooga, Child and Google Parking Authority to perform duties expressly limited to the performance of the duties in the position of parking ambassador.

Second.

Thank you.

Council, we have a motion on the floor to approve with a proper second.

Do I have any questions or comments?

All in favor?

Opposed?

Motion passes.

Okay.

Let's talk about purchases, please.

Good evening, council.

Hello.

I have four purchases recommended for approval this evening.

The first one is for technology services.

This is a one-time purchase of courts and justice software subscription and maintenance.

This purchase from Tyler Technology Technologies will be in the amount of 125,424 and 60 cents utilizing the source well contract.

Wastewater, this is a one-time purchase of a gearbox for the UNOX tank system.

The source purchase from SPX Flow Technology will be in the amount of 89,873.

Wastewater is requesting an increase of $50,000 for biosolids data management system services to support unexpected project.

The new estimated annual spend will be $250,000.

Early learning head start.

This is a one-time purchase of a baseline application and comprehensive community assessment services.

This sole source purchase from foundations for families will be in the amount of $55,800.

Thank you very much.

Council, can I get a motion?

Call girl.

Okay, we have a motion on the floor to approve these purchase requests and a proper second.

Do I have any questions or comments?

All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed?

Motion passes.

Thank you for sticking with us, Dewey.

All right.

This brings us to committee reports.

Councilman Elliott.

Councilwoman Dotley.

Well, you switched it up this week, madam.

I try to go back and uh so yes, we will have a budget committee meeting next week, which will cover uh a general uh budget overview and just some updates on IFY26, as well as PFM will come into a bond uh report slash announcement.

We'll look at some financial policies for my finance team, and um and Dr.

ACOF will be here to give an overview of his um the research that he's done, most of the information you should receive uh by by Thursday morning.

Right.

So that is it.

Thank you so much, Madam Chief.

Thank you.

Councilman Burrs.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

We had a planning and zoning committee meeting today um to review the cases that are coming on up on our agenda next week, and had a fantastic presentation from the land development office.

Thank you.

Councilman Henderson, Councilman Davis, no report, councilman Harvey, no report, councilman Clark, no report, Vice Chairwoman Noel, no report.

Um and we will we will have a legislative committee meeting in two weeks.

Yeah, um that was uh postponed 17th, I think.

February 17th, yes, thank you.

Okay.

Mr.

Attorney.

Yes, ma'am.

Do you have any uh other business that you need to share?

We we took care of the one item during planning zoning, I think.

I think we took care of it.

I gave to the uh clerk here a copy of that uh, I guess uh revoking or withdrawing the request.

Okay.

And so I think that is part of your record now at this point.

So that is all.

Um something that is not a part of our record, council, is I forgot to get a motion on the minutes.

Oh I was living in strategic planning world where we did do the minutes.

So can I get a motion on the minutes uh to approve the minutes?

Thank you.

Um well, the minutes will stand, barring any objection for our tradition.

Okay.

All right, so that brings us to the point in our meeting where we are happy to uh recognize persons who are here to address the council.

Um, if you're here and you want to address the council, please go ahead and line up behind this podium and listen while our attorney reads the rules.

Yes.

And at the end of each council business meeting, the chair will recognize members of the public who wish to address the council, and here's your rules.

Each speaker wishing to address the council can only be recognized at the microphone up front, provided for that purpose, can't have more than three minutes to speak.

And the speaker can address the council only upon matters within their legislative and quasi judicial authority and not on matters which are not under their authority and are regulated by other governmental bodies or agencies.

Uh, do not engage in any vulgar or obscene language nor use the floor to personally attack or personally denigrate others and address your comments to the council as a whole and not towards individual council members.

And lastly, do not engage in disorderly conduct or disrupting a public meeting, which is prohibited by Tennessee law, and someone commits that offense if a person substantially obstructs or interferes with the meeting by physical action or verbal utterance with the intent to prevent or disrupt a lawful meeting or gathering.

Having stated those rules, please come ahead and state your name and district if you would.

Hello, my name is Jessica Cantor Chow.

I am a constituent of District 8 in the Oak Grove neighborhood.

Um homeowner there.

Uh, as many of the people have filled this meeting at its uh at the top, I wish to express my concern about the ICE presence in our community and ask that our city's leadership explore every legal arena in its power to keep this federal force from terrorizing our city as we have seen it done across the country.

Um I was emboldened to hear that our state senator uh from Chattanooga was the loan dissenter in on the Republican side for passing the omnibus immigration that allowed um lawmakers or that disallowed lawmakers from voting against sanctuary city policies.

I understand this is something that this Chattanooga cannot explore.

Um, but I would also uh along with many of my fellow voters seek reassurance that Chattanooga police department and the Hamilton County Sheriffs does not opt into the 2287G program that would deputize our forces to help with federal immigration enforcement.

Thank you.

Hello, council members.

I am not a resident of a district within Chattanooga, but I live on Signal Mountain and very much am a part of the Chattanooga community and frequent the businesses here.

And I, with a lot of people who turned up tonight or this afternoon, were uh encouraged to come here to speak out against ice and with a concern for our communities and just a plea for you all to act in the best interest of our communities and keeping ice out.

We shouldn't have to watch our neighborhood, our neighbors and friends and family members being detained, deported, and as we've seen in recent news, executed in the streets.

And so ICE is a violent action in the streets, and nobody wants it here.

And so just a plea for the council members to protect your jurisdictions and districts against the presence of ice.

And that is all.

And what was your name?

I'm Sophia.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I'm Blake Wright.

I'm in uh Elliott's district, which is district nine.

Um I'm talking about um yes last week, the chief of police, John Chambers encouraged us to submit FOIA request regarding reviewing why there was such an increase in arrest of persons who was handed over to ICE compared to last year.

Um I just want to remind everyone that the chief of police, and I've told him this before, gets paid 170,000 around that amount of taxpayer money and is responsible for the oversight of his officers.

It is arguably his job to investigate what is happening here and ensure that his officers are not engaging in racial profiling, and we pay him very well to do so.

I found the defensiveness of his response one that is often typical of these types of discussions.

It's not ideal that you know we have to communicate in this way, but it is the way that we have.

So that's kind of how I receive that comment.

In the data of arrest, we've seen that overall Chattanooga has a major crisis when it comes to driving and traffic related offenses, not just with undocumented citizens, but the city as a whole.

12% of the top 25 charges since 2018 would be significantly reduced if we invest in public safety dollars in public transit.

On July 24th of last year, I provided John Chambers, a position paper that details how 83 to 89% of top 25 charges could be addressed with non-officer positions or investments in non-police actions.

Due to the very real danger of us giving undocumented citizens to internment camps run by a dangerous and unstable federal government, the call to action to protect our people seems clear to me.

If the police can't do anything other than hand over people to the feds due to lacking an ID to drive, we must provide safe transit, not just to undocumented residents, but all residents of the city.

And doing so would benefit everyone.

It is time to declare transport a state of an emergency and redirect public safety dollars, which we've allocated a lot of money to public safety to rolling out more buses and routes to every area of the city to protect our people and ensure they can get around, get to their jobs without harassment from local law enforcement.

Thank you.

Will you wait just a second?

My I'm about to die, and my colleague has a plug.

Just a minute.

I want to be able to take notes.

Yeah.

Oh, no, I wanted to plug.

Okay, well, obviously.

Does anybody have a pen?

Here's a pen.

Thank you.

For the record, your computer was about to die, not you.

My computer was about to die, and I have no paper because I'm a digital gal.

We'll give you a piece of paper.

I'm clearly not prepared in this remark.

All right, let me give you a piece of park.

Thank you.

Okay.

Okay.

Sorry about that.

Go ahead.

Please.

Hi, my name is Lauren Hurley.

I'm in District 7 over in Alton Park.

Um, and I just wanted to address all of y'all here today, and just kind of like recognize that we all want to be on the right side of history here.

And I know that we all want to try to do whatever we can.

And I feel it so much as someone who is not an elected office and is not in any leadership whatsoever.

Like, you know, you can feel very hopeless and feel like there's nothing you can do.

Your hands are tied, it's above you.

Um, and I understand feeling that way, but I also know that there's a lot that we all can do in this room.

And that uh could look like continuing to join us tomorrow and for weeks after, um, as we continue to put pressure on city council or uh county commission to explore all the avenues that they can to work to dissolve the 287G contract.

I think coming with us and being in solidarity with us uh would be really important.

And just should if anything, just show where you stand um with this right now.

Um additionally, um I do know that y'all are uh y'all have power over CBD's budget.

Um that can also be used to pressure.

Um we don't have a significant ICE presence here in Chattanooga and here in Hamilton County.

Um our own police officers are doing ICE's work um by arresting people for oftentimes you know minor traffic violations, and because of the lack of ID, sending them over to the county jail to where they can be picked up by ICE and sent wherever.

Um is really scary to think about.

Um, because those are our citizens, those are Chattanoogans.

They are important and they are what makes this city great, and I'm sure that you'll all agree.

Uh thank you.

Um hi, I'm Jonah Epperson.

Um I just wanted to ask a couple questions.

Um it's my understanding about like the 287 agreement that it's something um like an agreement between police and ice agents that when people are taken to jail that then ice is picking them up and deporting them, and I just want to understand what's going on with that better.

Um and if that's something that we're trying to get rid of.

So this time in our meeting is a time when mostly we listen, so it's not the best time for us to do QA.

Oh, I can get you connected with people after the meeting though.

Okay.

Um I guess I am more just wanted to ask some questions.

Um, because my other question was about like the statistics on how many people have been deported from Chattanooga by ICE.

Um I guess it then the QA will be after something.

All right, thank you.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you for being here.

Hi, I'm Nips.

Uh I uh I am very nervous.

I'm so sorry.

This is the first time I've actually attended a city council meeting and everything.

Uh I'm a veteran.

I've served this country, I've done two deployments and Afghanistan and Iraq and all that.

Um I am pissed off about what's going on.

And I did not swear an oath to the politicians, parties, or power hungry agencies.

I swore an oath to a constitution, as many of us have.

What's happening right now is exactly what we are warned about.

Intimidation, abuse of authority, and rights treated like privileges, the government can revoke when it's convenient.

If you think violating due process makes you safe, then you don't understand freedom.

If you are cheering the song, congratulations.

You are siding with the kind of government we're supposed to stop, not become.

I serve so people wouldn't have to be afraid of their own government.

If you are silent while rights are being stripped, you are compliant.

And if you're enforcing it, don't pretend you're on the right side of history because you're not.

And as somebody who's a veteran and who who loves protesting and having a big mouth that vocalizes a lot of problems, I am actually kind of somewhat scared.

My family is scared, my friends are scared because I have protesting on my truck.

I have fuck ice, impeach Trump, I have things like that.

And as a female, especially, I should not have to be worried about an unmarked car.

What four mass men coming out of their vehicle who do not identify themselves.

I would flee for my life.

I would be scared, as every other woman in here would be.

And we have it's just an atrocious thing.

I've lost battle buddies in the military from deployments protecting this constitution, protecting our rights.

I've lost that other battle buddies, and they would be absolutely disgusted how this country has been.

And I guarantee you, I don't know what you guys stand on, but I guarantee you, not only myself, but everybody else, a lot of veterans are disgusted with anybody who sits there and defends this.

You know, we sat there and said the Pledge Allegiance in the beginning.

Life, liberty, and justice for all.

We don't pick and fucking choose.

And if my language does offend anybody, I'm sorry, but people getting murdered in the streets and witnessing that on television, on Facebook, on social media is absolutely ridiculous.

And anybody who could not see that Alex, what he did was murdered.

You need to get your eyes checked, you need to get into therapy.

Something.

But uh I am rambling, I apologize, I am nervous again, and uh, yes, thank you for your time then.

Thank you.

Thank you, Neifs.

Um, what district are you what district are you in?

Uh honestly, I have no idea.

I'm over by Lee Highway.

I'm just maybe in district thing.

Okay.

Yeah, okay.

District five, you said?

District five or six.

We should be more work.

Okay, I'll double check on that.

Thank you guys so much.

Jen, do you know what um district you're in?

Jen Epperson.

Jim.

Jonah.

Um, either five or uh either five or nine, it's right on the board.

Okay, cool.

Yeah, five or nine.

Okay, thank you.

Do we have anybody else here who wants to speak to counsel?

Okay, well, um, I I just want to share uh a couple things, and then it looks like councilman Elliott um has something he wants to share as well.

Um being elected comes with um responsibilities, you're not always prepared to know how best to handle.

Um and I I want people to know that I share a heavy heart with what our country, how our country is behaving right now, how our leaders um on the federal level are behaving.

Um I'm mourning the nation that I thought we had, and I'm hopeful for the nation that I I pray that we will become again.

Um I do believe that we have a higher calling to be bearers of light in a dark world.

Um and that Chattanooga is a community that welcomes that is welcoming and that that has historically celebrated our diversity.

Um in my opinion, and I speak only for myself, um, the ICE ISIS tactics of um intimidation in other cities undermines the safety of residents and infringes upon constitutional rights in those cities.

And while our local Chattanooga police department officers work hard to maintain order and build a positive community relate and positive community relationships, the actions that we're seeing from federal agents create a climate of fear.

And to my knowledge, Chattanooga has not changed as a city.

We are still a welcoming city, and I think what I'm hearing people say is we want to we want to protect that.

We want our neighbors to be able to live here safely, to know that the rights that they are guaranteed by virtue of being um either American citizens or on American soil are something that that we take seriously um in our community.

And I've had a lot of conversations with our administration and with um Chief Chambers, the leader of our police department, to try to understand a lot of the nuances that are uh answers to those questions, Joan, that you brought up about how many people are being deported, what's the role um of these partnerships?

And um next week at our 330 meeting at the top of the meeting, and the in the special presentation special presentation section of our meeting, we are going to have a presentation from our administration and our police department to help all of us really understand in writing all the ways that the different federal and state laws work and also look at data very specific to the city of Chattanooga so that we can um find um find a shared understanding about what is actually happening here.

Um and my hope is that um instead of uh succumbing to a temptation um that is so easy to to find differences that we might be able to find commonality um and ways to work together.

I do think that um in this instance what I'm learning is that our um our powers are limited as a city council um and even as a as a Chattanooga police department and even as the mayor of our of our city um but that does not change the heart of our community and the work that we do for our neighbors.

Um and I'm sure that many people are exploring what it is to be a neighbor right now and and how if you know someone who is afraid, how you can help them be less so and help them know that they're not alone.

Um doesn't I don't have any answers for anybody, but I wanted to let you know that you are you're being heard by this council.

Um and I speak for myself only when I say I am um I am making the road by walking it to discern how best um to help steward the souls of 191,000 people who live in the city of Chattanooga.

Um I take that very seriously.

Councilman Elliott.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I think uh the feelings people are feeling right now, whether it's angry, sad, scared, frustrated for like there's we're screaming to this abyss and nothing's happening.

All of those feelings are valid, right?

Um I can't speak for anybody else while share them as well.

In many regards, it feels like we're watching a fabric of our society and our country just get ripped right from under us.

We all should be upset.

If you don't, if you're not, I feel like that's some humanly fundamentally maybe wrong view.

I'm gonna give this quick ad lib, and then I'll promise I'll be done.

In 2018, I was asked to speak at this uh know your rights meeting.

It was a small little room, the East Lake Park building.

If you've been there, it's not very big space.

And I'll never forget it's like standing room only.

It's around 200 people there.

And here I was trying to talk about people being like civically engaged, and um when I was there, they were having to give a presentation about how to protect yourself if you came across ice in particular.

And I didn't forget they brought out this app.

They had this app, and they were like, it was a pre-coded message in it.

And I think at that time that app had like a standard prompt, like if you don't hear from me in 15 minutes, this is what you do to my kids, this is who should take them, here's extra money for them.

I've been picked up, and you probably won't hear from me anytime soon.

They went on in that meeting to talk about how if I recall correctly, it was in Ridgedale, how ICE agents at that time were starving people out.

It was one family in particular who was trying to go to school, and as soon as they walked out the door, ice hopped out of their cars, and they waited until they got done, until they couldn't last any longer.

No more food, nothing.

Um this is a reality that uh our community has seen before, uh, unfortunately.

And as an elected official, you know, you you you carry that weight, right?

Uh and I want you, I want you guys to know that we at least we hear you.

We hear your concerns, but also our hands are tied, unfortunately.

For us, I think somebody mentioned this 287 whatever thing that they're referring to that does not involve CPD.

I think your concern about it is valid, but that's a sheriff's office.

It's a whole nother elected body, right?

And as you guys continue to advocate and push and fight the good fight, I am all for it, right?

But where do we make sure we direct our energies to make sure it makes the best impact?

Right.

You know, we have this conversation too about like where's the line drawn when CPD is doing their job.

Like some of their hands are tied.

If they come across with somebody that doesn't have a license, state law ties her hands to arrest them, right?

It's nothing that we can do.

State literally has passed laws saying if we as elected officials push anything around immigration, we're subject to class E felonies.

And you stripped out our seats.

Well, that's not a big deal.

You can trust me, y'all can have it.

It's a couple district nine folks here today, so y'all can come up with if you want to.

Um, so you know, it's not a perfect world.

I would like to see how we can continue to figure out how to advocate together and to push the areas that's actually can make a difference.

And there may be something we can do.

I don't know.

Uh I'll be honest on the front end.

I don't know there's where there's a lot we can do equitably, right?

Where do you draw the line of who do you rest and who you don't?

Then you have subjective policing.

Something that I know the many of the minorities in my community do not want to entertain that again.

So it's a tough conversation.

But I appreciate you for being here.

And I ask you to keep fighting, keep advocating, even when it's frustrating and it's tiresome, and I feel like you're you're throwing rocks at a huge wall that's not moving.

So just want to thank y'all.

I do have to get out of here, have a neighborhood meeting, but thank y'all for being here.

That's all, Madam Chair.

Okay, thank you.

Councilman Harvey.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Um, but I want to encourage everyone to attend our meeting next week.

Uh, there's been a lot of misinformation already uh going around statistics and things uh that we are going to clear up, and I think you're gonna be pleasantly surprised what you find out from the city of Chattanooga.

Um I want to assure you we have the right leadership in place with Chief John Chambers.

Um I trust him, I trust our uh department, City of Chattanooga Police Department.

Um again, I think you're gonna be rather surprised when you see the numbers come out next week.

Um, that what you get in in the city of Chattanooga is going to be order and discipline.

Um it's not going to be chaos.

Um so I I just wanted to say that.

And the other thing I want to uh wanted to say is there's so much negativity every time you turn on the news, every time we have a discussion.

I want to call attention to a positive story that we saw tonight at that lecture.

So I I just I I want us to remember that um it's not all negative it's not all you know what what you see on TV the world's not ending um despite what others may have you believe um but think of that young lady um the American dream is alive and well hey council looks like our board is clear had learned a lot today done quite a bit of work for the people of Chattanooga can I get a motion to adjourn all in favor of adjourning aye opposed we are adjourned thank you