CHATTANOOGA VOTERS MADE GOOD CHOICES
Chattanooga will keep its good mayor Andy Berke. That’s a plus for us because Berke is the kind of mayor who builds a city of people, not a city of monuments.
That’s not to say Chattanooga hasn’t had some monumental growth in Berke’s first four years.
We have booming downtown condo construction, a new and improved approach to zoning, a much touted “innovation zone,” trendy new bike lanes to “calm” traffic and a plan to improve some of our most public parks.
But on Berke’s watch, we’ve mostly seen the kind of hardfought, street-level, neighborhood building that leads to the kind of growth that makes those condos rise: We’ve gained about 8,000 new jobs. Unemployment has fallen from about 7 percent (the all-time high was 9.6 in 2011) to a low of 4 percent in May 2016. The city upped the number of contracts awarded to minority-owned businesses from 1 percent to 14 percent.
Along the way, Chattanooga experienced the third highest wage growth in the country for a mid-sized city.
Despite a rise in gang shootings, Chattanooga has seen a 10 percent decrease in violent crime since 2014, and property crime is at historic lows. Berke and Chattanooga police continue to tweak his Violence Reduction Initiative and plan to raise the city’s total sworn police officers to 500 — the most in the city’s history.
But Berke’s passion for growing people shines most brightly around children, and it starts early with education. Berke led the city to invest in expanded Head Start services, the Office of Early Childhood Development, early learning scholarships and Baby University, which helps new and young parents understand the importance of reading to their babies and toddlers. He also led the city to make summer camps free and add reading and learning programs in the city’s Youth and Family Development Centers.
Voters saw all this and gave the mayor four more years. Now we expect more, and Berke acknowledges there’s more to do. For starters, some 27 percent of Chattanooga residents struggle below the poverty line with a per-capita poor population nearly double that of the national average.
On Tuesday night after receiving 64 percent of the 18,968 mayoral votes cast, Berke promised to “push forward.”
Godspeed.
THE COUNCIL
But city voters signaled that they are looking to tweak the nine-member City Council.
Balloters turned out one long-time city leader in favor of a new and younger voice, and they propelled two other incumbent council races into runoffs set for April 11. They also voted to keep three incumbent council members (plus two more who were unopposed, along with one new representative who had no opposition).
Anthony Byrd, 41, bested Moses Freeman, 78, to bring new eyes and energy to the district made up of Eastside, Amnicola, Avondale and Bushtown.
Meanwhile, incumbent Chris Anderson, who at 36 has been Chattanooga’s youngest council member, finds himself in a runoff with Erskine Oglesby, 61, to represent parts of Downtown, Alton Park, East Lake and St. Elmo.
And incumbent Yusuf Hakeem, another long-time city leader, faces a runoff challenge from 40-year-old Demetrus Coonrod in East Chattanooga, Eastdale, Glenwood, Missionary Ridge and Ridgedale.
Incumbents Chip Henderson, Jerry Mitchell, and Russell Gilbert bested challengers to be re-elected. Darrin Ledford was elected without opposition to the seat of Larry Grohn, who unsuccessfully challenged Mayor Berke. Incumbents Ken Smith and Carol Berz won re-election bids without opposition.
Interestingly, those voters signaling for change came from the fast-growing downtown and St. Elmo neighborhoods in Anderson’s District 7 and from the slowest growing (and poorest) neighborhoods of the inner city in District 8 where Byrd wrested the leadership from Freeman and in District 9 where Coonrod challenges Hakeem.
The Chattanooga City Council already is looking more interesting with the addition of Byrd.
Coonrod could add still more youth, as well as the viewpoint of another businesswoman.
Things are looking up for Chattanooga.