The Chattanooga City Council met on August 11, 2026, beginning with the Pledge of Allegiance and an invocation. The meeting featured special presentations, a public hearing on Plan Chattanooga, discussion of agenda items, a recess for an attorney-client session, and a voting session followed by public comments. Key topics included the retirement of K9 officers, the adoption process for Plan Chattanooga, and several property rezoning and purchasing items.
I put the religious through the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Mr. Chair, I will use my time to Minister Janice Shereen Smith, who will be delivering our invitation as the official chaplain for District 5. Minister Smith. Good afternoon, everyone. I continually be grateful to serve as president of District 5 and 9 in my community. And I'm so blessed today that Dennis Clark, Ron Elliott are in the room as we celebrate the goodness of God. As I pondered over what I would say today to bless all of us, not just y'all, but all of us. God gave me Genesis chapter one that says, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was void and it was without form. And darkness was hovering over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God, the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters, and God looked upon all He had made at the end of this very scripture and said that it is good. Well, you might say, perhaps, what am I saying to you today? I'm saying that God created, God created, and inside of us there is something we can all create. We can carry our lives in the perspective of knowing and lifting the hands of God by blessing one another. When we look inside of ourselves at the way that God put everything together, we have that same ability. And to each and every one of us that holds this responsibility. Father God, in the name of Jesus. And it's in Jesus Christ's holy name by God the Father who is in heaven. And we pray, amen. All right, thank you. As we get started this afternoon, just a reminder to everyone to please uh turn off or silence your cell phones so that we don't have any unnecessary distractions this afternoon. Um and we like at the beginning of our meeting just to give a rundown of how the meeting will go. So we kind of operate in two parts. The first part of our meeting is an agenda session where we will have some special presentations, and we do have a couple of those this afternoon. Um and then council will go around and um we'll discuss any agenda items that are up for a vote this afternoon and then next week, and then looking ahead into the future three weeks or more, uh council will discuss any of those items as needed. Um after that point, we will have uh a recess where we will have an attorney client meeting today with our city attorney. And um, so when we get to that time, I'll announce the the time that we'll be coming back after that recess. And when we do, we'll be voting on all the items that are on our agenda today. Um, and so after uh all of that, after the voting, um, at the end of our uh second portion of our meeting, there will be a time for members of the public who are here to address counsel on any topic that you'd like. Um and at that time, our our city attorney will read some rules and we'll have you come down front. Um there is also this week a special time um uh public hearing about plan Chattanooga. And so if you're here to speak to counsel for that purpose, um there will be that time uh just here in just a very few minutes. Um and so just wanted to kind of explain the difference there. Um anyone's welcome to speak about Plan Chattanooga here at the front end of the meeting, and then at the end will be just kind of an open open um public comment period. So our first special presentation, um, we have some canine officers here with us today with their um their officer handlers, and so if they would, I guess come down um or or rise where you're at, whatever's most comfortable for our our canine officers. So we have, I believe uh canine Duke. Is that the carrier? Okay, so we have K9 Burt um with his handler, Officer Timmons. Is that right? Okay. Um and so we just want to take this time and recognize uh K9 Officer Burt. He is retiring from the Chattanooga Police Department, and uh he will be transferred to the ownership of Officer Timmons. Um and there will be a time later on when we vote, we'll be officially voting um on a resolution um to uh I guess authorize that retirement, but wanted here at the at the front end um to recognize him, and I think he deserves a round of applause. Thank you. Okay. Um and so our next item in the nature of a special presentation is a public hearing um on Plan Chattanooga. And the way we'll uh handle this public hearing is we'll set aside uh a maximum of one hour total for anyone for any and all speakers who are here to talk to counsel about Plan Chattanooga, and we'll do two minutes per speaker. Um and so if you're here for the purpose of talking to us about um plan Chattanooga, you're welcome to come to the podium down front here.