East Ridge renews lobbyist contract
The city of East Ridge is renewing its agreement with Nicole Osborne Watson of the Nashville law firm Holland & Knight to serve as a lobbyist for the city at a cost of about $3,000 per month.
The firm has assisted the city “in issues and matters before the Tennessee General Assembly as well as state agencies for the past six or seven years,” City Manager Scott Miller said to council members before the vote at a council meeting last month.
Watson has registered as a lobbyist for the city since 2017, according to the Tennessee Bureau of Ethics and State Finance website.
“She has been instrumental in achieving enhancements to the Border Region Retail Tourism Development District Act that have financially and economically benefited the city,” Miller wrote in a memorandum attached to the agenda for the Dec. 14 meeting, when council members unanimously passed a resolution approving the contract for her services in 2024.
According to the agreement with Holland & Knight for the 2024 calendar year, Osborne Watson will be paid a fixed rate of $2,916.67 on a monthly basis, which amounts to about $35,000 for the year.
In 2023, the city paid Watson a fixed rate of $2,750 per month for her services, Miller said at the meeting.
State Rep. Esther Helton Haynes, R-East Ridge, who serves in the state House and as the vice mayor of East Ridge, did not return a phone call seeking comment.
Osborne Watson is married to Tennessee Senate Finance Committee Chair Bo Watson, R-Hixson, who sponsored the Border Region Retail Tourism Development Act in 2011. Watson more recently sponsored a bill, which passed the senate in 2023, that specified which costs are eligible for reimbursement under the border region legislation.
The border region legislation is designed to offer business incentives to companies that locate in East Ridge rather than over the state line in Georgia.
Watson began disclosing his relationship with Nicole Osborne some two years before the couple married in the summer of 2018. The announcement of the marriage was published in The New York Times.
Their relationship came under scrutiny in 2022, when Watson voted in favor of the state budget that included a provision for which Osborne Watson lobbied on behalf of client Tennessee Football Inc., which sought a $500 million appropriation for a new stadium for the Tennessee Titans.
At the time, Watson told the Chattanooga Times Free Press that the relationship was disclosed even before the couple married in 2018 and that he and Osborne Watson have a firm policy of not discussing legislation.
Osborne Watson did not respond to an email from the Times Free Press.
Dick Williams, chair of the good government group Common Cause Tennessee, said the relationship is not the first to occur between a lawmaker and a lobbyist and that such relationships are not necessarily bad or good.
“Obviously, when it happens, it should raise eyebrows to be scrupulous in being sure that he or they are not doing something that is just for their benefit,” Williams said by phone. “Basically, the bottom line is, it’s fine as long as it’s clearly all above the table and everybody understands that and their actions can be at least reasonably defended as a good thing for the area and ideally the state.”
As of Friday, Osborne Watson is registered in 2024 to lobby on behalf of 22 clients, including Star Community Builders, a real estate development company owned by Bob Martino that has been a client of Osborne Watson since 2022. Martino is the owner of the Chattanooga Red Wolves soccer team and the developer of the Gateway development in East Ridge that includes the CHI Memorial Stadium.
In 2022, East Ridge officials sought a
$13 million state partnership
grant with the state Department of Finance and Administration on behalf of Star Community Builders for public infrastructure at the Gateway development. The funding was supported by the entire Hamilton County legislative delegation and was whittled down during the budget-making process to $5 million.