The Chattanooga City Council met on July 7, 2026, beginning at 7:20 PM Eastern. The meeting opened with a moment of silence for recent tragedies, including fires and loss of life. Council heard a presentation on the sister city visit to Wolfsburg, Germany, and a comprehensive safety action plan. After a public hearing on a franchise ordinance, the council voted on numerous ordinances, resolutions, and purchases. Public comments focused on funding for 911 dispatcher pay raises.
Please stand. Under God. Indivisible. Um we've had a lot of tragedy uh in and around our communities last few days. Around a time that is supposed to be something special where we are celebrating our country's two hundred and fifty anniversary. Whether that is the loss of life of young people, people now displaced from their homes from tragic fires. And I hope all of our thoughts and prayers are with the families are affected across our city and across the rest of the country who are heard of right now. So if you please could join me in a brief moment of silence and take whatever time you may need. And we do have several topics to discuss with our city attorney this evening. And so our recess might be a bit longer than normal. And when we come back, then we'll vote on all of the items that are on our agenda to be voted on tonight. All the ordinances and resolutions that are before us. So with that being said, I'd like to turn to Councilman Harvey for our first special presentation. He is newly returned from Germany and has, I believe, um uh a plaque or some sort of a presentation as well to share with us on behalf of our sister city of Wolfsburg as I trip over that word. So I'll turn it over to you, Councilman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Uh, I'd like to invite the rest of our delegation to stand with me if they will. Um I think we've got everyone except is Andrew Hudson. I might have missed him come in. Um he was also with us. But if they would come forward as we uh go through some of these um photos. Uh like uh Mr. Chairman said, uh, we've just returned uh from a sister city visit in Wolfsburg, Germany, or otherwise Wolfsburg. Am I saying that right, Karen? Yes, okay, there you go. That's how you pronounce it in in Germany. Um, you know, I I never would have dreamed of something like this when I ran for office um last year. Uh you know, if you'd told uh Cody Harvey who was pulling 12 hour ships at Erlanger 10 years ago uh that I'd get to represent my city in a foreign country, I'd have thought you were crazy. Um but um uh I was able to do that, and what an honor it was uh being born and raised here in Chattanooga to be able to represent um the city that I love so much uh in another country. It was truly an honor. So thank you all for giving me that honor. Uh Mayor Kelly was scheduled to uh join us on this trip, but he was pulled to Washington, DC uh to meet with our federal delegation on some important work. And so uh they named me the head of the delegation. I don't know if that's good or bad, but um anyway, it was a wonderful time. So we wanted to show you some uh photos from our trip, and then also uh the city of Wolfsburg uh gave us a plaque that we will present at the end of the presentation. Um so uh, you know, as I walked through uh Germany, I thought, you know, it's really not a whole lot different than uh than here. Uh even the people uh, you know, we're all human beings, and that that's what it gets down to. But I thought this was uh a beautiful area here uh next to what they call the Autostadt, uh, which I'll be sharing more about here in just a minute. But this is their version of the river walk. Um so just a beautiful little area there that they they can enjoy um around the Autostadt. Rick. There we go. Okay. Um one of the highlights of the trip was uh Wolfsburg is the uh world headquarters of Volkswagen. And why is that significant? Well, we have a Volkswagen plant right here in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Um so this was super neat. Um photos were limited. Uh they didn't want a whole lot getting uh getting out, so uh we took just uh a few photos, but there you can see us um in that little trolley there, which was pulled by a live-size Volkswagen vehicle.