(cheerful music) - [Announcer] You're watching highlights of the Chattanooga City Council meeting, a production of WTCI PBS.

(cheerful music) - Good evening, everyone, and welcome to our Tuesday, December 6th City Council business meeting.

I will now call the meeting to order, and the Pledge of Allegiance and implication, if he so chooses, will be led by Councilman Smith.

- [All] I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.

And to the Republic for which stands, one Nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

- Thank you, Councilman Smith.

We have no special presentations this evening.

We'll take a motion for our minutes.

Have a motion for the minutes from our last meeting with a second, will stand without objection.

Ordinances on final reading under city council or council office item A. Madam Clerk, please.

- [Madam Clerk] An ordinance to amend Chattanooga City Code part two chapter 35, section 35160, billing and charges for district records.

- Have a motion to approve.

Second to that motion.

Questions, comments before we vote?

All those in favor, say aye.

Opposed?

Item carries.

Madam Clerk, without objection from council, would you take legal items B through F?

And we'll take those as a package.

- [Madam Clerk] Item B, an ordinance to amend Chattanooga City Code part two chapter 10 so as to adopt the 2018 edition of the International Building Code, the International Residential Code, and the 2018 edition of the International Energy Conservation Code and certain dependencies of these codes as revised and amended as the official building code, residential code, and energy conservation codes of the city of Chattanooga.

Item C, an ordinance to amend Chattanooga City Code part two chapter 19, sections 19.1 and 19.2 so as to adopt a 2018 addition of the International Fuel Gas Code and certain dependencies as revised and amended as the official gas code of the city of Chattanooga.

To amend Section 19:3 concerning amendments to said code.

To amend sections 101.1, 101.2, 106.1, 106.3, 106.5.3, 106.5.4, 106.6.2, 106.6.3, 108.4, 108.5, 109, and 310.1.1 regarding permit inspections and board adjustments and appeals.

Item D, an ordinance to amend Chattanooga City Code part two chapter 22.5 so as to adopt the 2018 edition of the International Mechanical Code and certain dependencies as revised and amended as the official mechanical code of the city of Chattanooga.

Item E, an ordinance to amend Chattanooga City Code part two chapter 27 so as to adopt a 2018 edition of the International Plumbing Code and certain dependencies as revised and amended as the official plumbing code of the city of Chattanooga.

Item F, an ordinance to amend Chattanooga City Code part two chapter 31, section 31.4, installations, maintenance, repair, sewer service lines, charge exception.

- Thank you, Madam Clerk.

Have a motion to approve.

I the second to that motion.

All those, any questions, comments before we vote on final reading?

All those in favor, items B through F, Please say aye.

Opposed?

Items carry.

Under public works, item G, please.

- [Madam Clerk] An ordinance closing and abandoning a portion of the unopened right away adjacent to the 1800 block of South Holtzclaw Avenue as detailed on the attached map, subject to certain conditions.

- Have a motion to approve.

A second to that motion.

Questions or comments before we vote?

All those in favor, say aye.

Opposed, item carries.

We have no ordinances on first reading this evening.

Resolutions, economic development item A, please.

- [Madam Clerk] Resolution authorized in America as a need to enter into a city of Chattanooga Standard Premises Use agreement with Chattanooga Hockey Inc. And substantially, the form attached for the use of a portion of 1785 Richie White Boulevard, identified as tax number 145KE001.01 for a term of five years, beginning on April 1, 2023, and ending on March 31, 2028 for annual rent in the amount of one dollar.

Madam Vice Chair.

- [Vice Chair] Move to approve.

- Have motion to approve.

I have a second to that motion.

Questions or comments before we vote?

All those in favor, say aye.

Opposed?

Item carries.

Human resources.

Madam Clerk, without objection, from council, would you please read items B through F?

- [Madam Clerk] Yes.

Item B, a resolution authorizing appointment of John Smith as special police officer unarmed for the Department of Public Works to do special duty as prescribed herein in his position as plumbing inspector subject to certain conditions.

Item C, a resolution authorizing the appointment of Jordan Landis as special police officer unarmed for the Department of Public Works to do special duty as prescribed herein in his position as combo inspector, subject to certain conditions.

Item D, a resolution authorizing the appointment of Joshua Burgess as special police officer unarmed for the Department of Community Development Code Enforcement to do special duties as described herein in his position as code enforcement, subject to certain conditions.

Item E, a resolution authorizing the appointment of Priscilla Petty as special police officer unarmed for the Department of Community Development Code Enforcement to do special duty as prescribed herein in her position as demolition abatement specialist, subject to certain conditions.

Item F, a resolution authorized the appointment of Joshua Ballard as special police officer unarmed for the Department of Community Development Code Enforcement due to special duty as prescribed herein in his position as code enforcement, subject to certain conditions.

- We will take these items B through F as a package.

Have a motion to approve.

I have a second to that motion.

Several seconds, thank you.

Questions or comments before we vote?

All those in favor, say aye.

Opposed?

Items carry.

Thank you.

Under mayor's office, item G, please.

- [Madam Clerk] A resolution authorized the mayor to execute Amendment 2 of the memorandum of understanding between the City of Chattanooga and the University of Tennessee Chattanooga Master of Public Health Program to hire one additional graduate assistant, increasing the budget by $14,263 in the amount of $49,759 for the total amount of $64,022.

- Have motion to approve, and I have a second to that motion.

Thank you Dr. Lambert for the explanation.

Questions or comments before we vote?

All those in favor, say aye.

Opposed?

Item carries.

Under planning, item H, please.

- [Madam Clerk] The resolution approved is special exceptions permit for use of a late night entertainment facility located at 6924 Shallowford Road, more particularly described in the attached documents.

- Dr. Berz.

- Are the ladies here?

Is the applicant here?

Come on up.

Hi, tell me about your establishment.

- It's gonna be like a sports bar.

I want to expand my business.

I have another business here in Rossville Boulevard, but I want to do another sports bar in Shallowford Road.

So I found the opportunity to- - [Dr. Berz] Where's your other business?

- 2925 Rossville Boulevard.

- [Dr. Berz] Rossville Boulevard.

- Rossville Boulevard, yes.

So I decide to rent this space at Shallowford.

So it's gonna be like Latin music in there.

It's gonna be more like a late night entertainment.

Yes.

- Okay, late night entertainment.

And you're talking about being open on Friday and Saturday and Sunday nights?

- [Business Owner] Yes.

- Okay.

And then the other nights is 11 o'clock.

Do you understand that?

- The other, yes.

Yes, I understand that.

- Okay.

So every night is 11 o'clock except Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

That's what you understand?

- [Business Owner] Oh, okay.

- No, I mean, do you understand that?

- Yes, I understand.

Like you said Monday through Friday is 11:00 PM.

- Yes.

- [Business Owner] I have close 11:00 PM.

- Yes.

- [Chair] Monday through Thursday.

- Oh, excuse me, Thursday too.

- [Business Owner] Okay.

- Yeah, so Monday through Thursday, you're closing early, 11 o'clock, and then on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, you're open later than that.

- [Business Owner] I can, yes.

Like I can open because when I talked to the zoning inspector, he said that I had to apply for this special permit before I proceed.

- Yeah, and that's exactly right.

That's exactly right.

You're close to a residential area.

And so you have to close down by 11 o'clock every night but Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

And then you're staying open till three?

- [Business Owner] Yes, 2:45 is the closing time.

- All right.

Okay.

I see a question.

Yeah.

Yeah, I'm through.

- [Chair] All right, thank you, Dr. Berz.

Madam Vice Chair?

- Yes, what is the name of your business on Rossville?

- [Business Owner] It's Acapulco Bar Inc. - Okay, and what's address?

- [Business Owner] 2925 Rossville Boulevard.

- Okay, thank you.

- [Chair] Thank you.

Dr. Berz, if you'll hit your light for me.

- Vice Chair?

- [Chair] I see no other questions.

- Okay.

All right, thank you, ma'am.

- [Business Owner] Thank you.

- Mr.

Chair, I move to approve.

- I have a motion to approve.

I have a second to that motion.

Questions or comments before we vote?

All those in favor, say aye.

Opposed?

Item carries.

Thank you.

Now move into committee reports.

I will start with Councilwoman Kumron, please.

Councilwoman Nole.

Dr. Berz.

Councilman Henderson.

Councilwoman Hill.

All right, Councilman Smith.

Councilman Hester.

Madam Vice Chair.

That concludes our committee reports.

We are now, we'll move into persons wishing to address council this evening.

Is there anyone who would like to address council this evening?

If you would make your way to the podium and Mr. Noblet will read our public speaking rules.

- [Mr. Noblet] Okay, at the end of every council meeting, the Chair will recognize members of the public that wish to talk to them.

Here's your rules.

Each speaker wishing to address the council can only be recognized upfront at the microphone that's provided for that purpose.

You can't have more than three minutes to speak, and you can address the council only upon matters within their legislative and quasi judicial authority and not upon matters that are not under their authority or regulated by other governmental bodies or agencies.

Don't use vulgar or obscene language, nor use the floor to personally attack or personally denigrate others.

Address your comments to the council as a whole and not make comments directed towards individual council members.

You can only do it one time a day, but you're good right now.

Do not engage in disorderly conduct or disrupting a public meeting, which is prohibited by Tennessee law, and someone commits that offense if the 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 given you those rules, please go ahead, sir, and talk to the council.

- Hello, guten tag.

My name is Joshua Capelish, ich liebe Chattanooga.

(speaks German) Sprechen sie deutsch?

A little bit.

I lived in Germany for three years.

(indistinct) Let's see here.

Basically what I'm trying to say is, love is the universal language, right?

So obviously you have a big company here in Chattanooga, Volkswagen, and I feel that no matter where you're at in the world, love is universal language, and we're all just trying to say the same thing.

We're trying to get through this life, doing the best we can for ourselves and for others.

And you know, early on, I guess before Mayor Kelly started his campaign, I signed up to support that 'cause he was an independent candidate and I believe in unity and people being together.

I don't live in Chattanooga yet.

I'm probably gonna move back, right?

And, but that's where my heart is.

So this is where I love to be, and I think about my friends out there who are homeless and that's why I'm here.

Usually, this is my 19th time coming here.

And according to my math, I've traveled 1,824 miles just to speak here for three minutes.

Basically to represent the voice of the people that are out in the streets.

So that's my main goal here is to help folks out there.

I have no other political aspirations other than to be the voice for people that don't seem to have one.

And I love those people.

A lot of folks out there don't have a lot to offer for me.

And for me, it gives me a great sense of purpose to provide unity in our community and to show love and care.

And I'm not a perfect person at all.

And throughout some of this political stuff, I felt attacked a little bit and maybe I've said things that I shouldn't have, but I guess I anticipated a lot more support in an official way.

Two years before I started this mission, I was gonna build these homes, but I didn't know where to put 'em.

And if I err on the side of hopefully doing good, I apologize to the staff or anything that maybe have felt attacked or whatever, but basically I'm trying to help folks out there.

And so this year we're shifting gears and getting hats, gloves, mittens, that sort of thing and trying to really work with the staff.

I come here knowing that city hall and this platform isn't necessarily the best place to speak, but sometimes that's the only opportunity I get to actually speak and have my voice heard.

And I send emails.

This is a form of continuity and public awareness and this sort of thing, and I'm not the only one that comes up here.

I come here quite a bit, but it's not for my own personal gain or anything.

And basically I feel like I need to do things for God and my certain beliefs and being an American, and that's basically why I'm here.

So what I wanna do is try to work with anybody, and I think that's how democracy works.

The citizens hold the government accountable and the government's accountable to the citizens, and we're all accountable to God, if you believe that, or at least one another.

And so that's my main goal here.

And I hope that we can work together and find some energy to really work together as Americans and Chattanoogans.

So I believe in what Mayor Kelly's doing and his staff, and I'm proud of all of you.

Thank you.

(speaks German) I can't hear that well.

- Hello, council.

My name's Todd Murphy, and I own a retail business on the south side.

I've been there for 20 years.

20 years ago, this was not a problem.

The problem that we're having is parking.

20 years ago, there were acres of parking and no one wanted to be where I was.

And, but since then, south side's grown.

It's wonderful.

We love it, I love my business down there.

But we have an issue where about some time, and I don't know the exact date, but April or May of last year, first I should say that the corner of 14th and Williams, if you're familiar with it, it's a block off market.

Sort of right off the choo choo.

And then Williams runs between 14th and Main Street.

Then also it's a block between Coward.

Those areas are the last areas in Chattanooga that are not metered, and so it's free parking.

It's two hour parking for free.

At some point, the Chattanooga parking authority back in April or May of last year decided to quit monitoring that area.

We've reached out, we've called, we've spoken, we've talked to the ticket takers, we've spoken to Chattanooga Parking Authority, but we now have a problem where we have people who are parking there all day, sometimes four days.

The main offenders of that are Clumpy's employees, Urban Stack employees, construction workers.

- [Chair] Sir.

- I'm sorry?

- [Chair] Let's not name.

- Okay.

- [Chair] And try to denigrate other businesses.

- I'm not, I'm sorry.

- [Chair] Thank you.

I know, but we're mentioning specific names right now.

- Okay.

- [Chair] Thank you.

Well, we have employees for other businesses who are using that.

We even have a hotel that's on our block that uses that for overflow valet parking.

And it's killing us.

And we have nowhere, we're looking for somebody to help us get it.

All we want is the parking enforced.

We're not asking for any special outlet, but there are two hours parking signs all up and down both of those streets, and it's just simply not enforced.

And that's what we're looking for.

We've already lost two businesses on that block since this started who had been there a long time.

Well, one of them had.

One of them was sort of my counterpart, had been there about 10 years.

They went out business about three months ago, and then we lost another business about a month ago.

There are five businesses on the floor of the 1401 building, we're all dependent on public parking.

We all pay to park in lot A, which is directly across from us.

And we're just looking for some help with that.

Thank you.

- [Chair] If you'll turn around and Mrs. Bursh is raising her hand, and she'll be happy to speak with you.

- Sure.

- [Chair] Good evening.

- Good evening.

Mariemont District eight.

I'm here on behalf of my brother Reginald Clack Jr. who was publicly fired by the City of Chattanooga as a social media coordinator for the Chattanooga Police Department.

I have sincere questions about his firing, partially because he was accused of being asleep on the job.

And when he was brought in to discuss the accusations against him, he did let those in the room know that he has a disability that impacts sometimes his ability to be awake.

He was fired shortly after that, which to me leans towards discrimination.

And partly, he did not want to discuss the details of his disability to everyone in the room, and he has a right to medical privacy.

Furthermore, the information that was conveniently leaked to the press, the Fraternal Order of Police made a very ignorant statement that was completely untrue that Mr. Clack is seen on social media giving a middle finger to a picture that says F 12.

I have that picture right here.

This is not Mr. Clack.

This is actually from the protest in 2020 of a picture that he took took as media coverage for the George Floyd protest in Nashville.

This was actually published by the Tennesseean.

This is not Mr. Clack who the FOP says is in the picture.

So imagine the public perception.

They didn't provide the picture to the public, but they did state that he was in the picture.

This is not him.

This is a very light-skinned slender man.

This right here, this very handsome chocolate locked brother right here is Reginald Clack.

So I want y'all to look at this.

I know some people think all black people look alike, but this is not the person that's in the picture.

So that was defamation of character for him and has impacted his opportunities in his photography business.

The other thing that I would like to just say that whoever leaked that to the press and leaked it to the Times Free Press, the picture that they used of Mr. Clack in the article was the picture from the balloon release of Darion Hickson who was murdered on Macauley because of a lack of police presence.

So imagine not only do you find out through the news and through your family that you've been fired, but imagine that the picture that's used to mischaracterize you is the one of an intimate moment where you're grieving the loss of a murdered young black African American woman in this city.

I think he should get his job back, personally.

- [Chair] Anyone else wish to address council this evening?

Mr. Smith?

- Yes, my name is Mike Smith.

I'm the Executive Director of the Chattanooga Regional Homeless Coalition.

I live in district three.

I presented last week about a crisis that had occurred in Hamilton County, which did impact the city of Chattanooga.

And that was the displacement of over 300 individuals from an eviction from a hotel closure.

So I wanted to come today, the community outpouring even, the community stepped forward with our best foot at the coalition, quite a few of our partners did as well, as the state of Tennessee, and we were able to rapidly find some response and some temporary solutions for those that had no other solution.

We've just kicked the can down the road a little bit.

And so I wanted to be very clear that what we were able to raise ends on December 14th.

And so without nothing short of divine intervention, I don't know what we're gonna do for the 170 adults and 108 children next week before Christmas.

We are doing everything we can.

I just wanted to make sure that we're communicating that clearly.

Several things happened here.

They were not refunded money from the place that they were staying, which is outside of the city.

It's still in Hamilton County.

But the vast majority of these people were working.

They were working towards the American dream.

They were providing for their children in the way that they could.

Most of them were working in walking distance in the place that they were residing up until that point.

We had to relocate them where we could.

We're using 121 hotel rooms from across the county.

That was the emergency.

But now the crisis is doubled because they have no income.

So next Wednesday, I just wanna relay the information.

We're the Homeless Coalition.

I'm gonna work till midnight trying to find options.

We're gonna have a press conference tomorrow to engage the community even more.

We'll be at the county commission in the morning doing what we can, but we kicked the can down the road.

I wanna keep kicking 'cause we are having positive housing placements out of this crisis, we just need more time.

We're projecting that, we expect that we could house 75% of them within three months through our community partners and all of our efforts.

Hotels cost a lot.

Even the cheap ones that we're able to find.

So I just wanna make sure that everyone's aware in the community both and the council because Christmas is almost here, and ever child should have a home for Christmas.

Thank you - Mr. Smith, I wanna thank you publicly for taking the time to speak with me, educating me more on what Homeless Coalition does.

It was very enlightening, it was very soul searching, and in the midst of this crisis, I wanna thank you personally for the work that you're doing and for caring about each and every individual.

And I say that with all I have in me.

I'm glad that you came down and shared that with us tonight.

I know that you all are working hard, and I am thankful for what you all are doing.

And I've seen it firsthand.

So let's not forget.

Anyone else wish to address council this evening?

If not, I'll entertain a motion to adjourn, and we are adjourned.

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