Back in the back Rick.

We are ready.

Well, good afternoon, everybody, and welcome to the City Council Historic Preservation Town Hall meeting.

I am a city councilman for District Five.

And I just want to welcome you all and kind of give context and purpose as to why we're here.

We only have four areas that are currently registered as protected historic zones.

That's Battery Place, Fort Wood, St.

Elmo, and Furger Place.

And we have one house on Missionary Ridge and Councilman Elliott's district called the Shaven House.

We have heard through so many community people that we still have work to do as a council.

The perception is that once you register a site and you note that it is historic, is it protected?

And the question is it is not, meaning that developers can come in and change the interior and exterior of the building.

And so we believe that our role as city council is to, as uh which is exactly what a town hall meeting is.

Let me put this on silent.

Um, is to do our duty, our civic duty, and that is to hear from you and the experts about your input about what we can do.

So tonight we're joined by the president of Preserve Chattanooga, which is our local historic preservation organization, which was formerly cornerstone, and we have some consultants and some panel members that you'll hear later in the program.

This event is being streamed live through our city of Chattanooga YouTube channel.

It can be referenced after the event is done.

So thank y'all again for coming.

Again, this is an opportunity for city council to be in the room with you.

And the purpose, I'll just be really frank with you, is that once we leave here, the three councilmen that are here currently, and I'll introduce them.

We have Councilman Cody Harvey for District 4, which of East Brainerd, and we have Councilman Vice Chairman Ron Elliott in the back here, uh, who is um representing District 9 with some historic areas in his district, including Missionary Ridge.

After this meeting, we will do our formal process legally to be able to be in the room with each other to take your feedback and to do an official application to the Historic Zoning Commission of areas and sites that you would like to hear or see preserved.

I want to recognize some special people in the room, starting with Preserve Chattanooga.

We have the chair of the board of directors, Dalton Chen right here in the back.

You can just wave or stand Dalton, thank you for being here.

Some other preserved Chattanooga board members.

We have Miss Dana Moody wave Dana, and I think to the left, we have Natalie Phillips of the board for Preserve Chattanooga.

Are there any more board members here for Preserve Chattanooga?

Thank y'all for being here.

We're also joined by State Representative Greg Vidal of District 29, who is a super cool guy and ally to the city council and a conservation uh guru and his daughter Tess is here.

Thank y'all so much for being here.

We're also joined by Anthony Byrd, who's our former councilperson who is currently serving as our city court clerk.

We're also joined by my dear friend and my mentor, uh former councilman Russell Gilbert, who's joined by his daughter right here on the front row, who you'll hear from later.

We also have our deputy chief of staff, Darren Leffer, who's also a former councilman for District 4, who's also here.

Thank you so much, Dan, for your presence.

We have one of our neighborhood gurus, Dr.

Evelyn O'Holmes, who's on the front row, who keeps us all informed, and thank you so much for helping get the word out.

And of course, we also have John Edwards here, who's a dear friend of mine as well, local historian who owns Chattanooga News Chronicle.

So I just wanted to kind of point out some really cool people in the room.

I know I've missed out on some people because you all are special, but these individuals have been very instrumental in our journey on how we create policy around preservation.

Do you all have an agenda?

If not, uh, when we break, I'll be able to pass this out.

If not, I'll bring some into the chambers.

But before you leave, make sure you sign in uh so that we can have a record and put you on the preserved Chattanooga uh mailing list.

If you have to use the restrooms, the bathrooms are on the other side of this wall, uh please feel free to go out through this last door and it goes to the restroom.

If you have a cell phone, because we are streaming live, please either mute it or turn it down to its lowest level, okay?

So I think I have completed my welcomes and introductions.

And again, you'll be hearing from Cody Hart Councilman Cody Harvey and Ron Elliott at the end to do our closing remarks.

But now I'm gonna introduce Todd Mark Morgan, uh, who's gonna bring us greetings from Preserve Chattanooga.

Thank you, Councilman Clark, and thank all of you for being here tonight.

Uh, this is such an important moment for Chattanooga and really Hamilton County, uh, not every community gets to have an opportunity to do a preservation planning process.

We had one back in 1977.

That's quite a while ago, and you know, a lot has changed since then.

More things have come historic, and some things were not identified at all back in 1977.

There's been other plans, of course, that have happened over the decades as well.

This will give us a chance to tie all this together and kind of a hopefully a beautiful bow, no pressure to our consultants who are working on this.

But it's really important for everybody to understand that this is a community process.

That's why we have wonderful events like this that are a town hall opportunity for folks to voice their opinions, their concerns, what they would love to see happen in Chattanooga, because we have something, we have a hot commodity in Chattanooga.

People want to be here, they want to invest in this city, and we need to let them know that there are things here that are important to us as a community.