Chattanooga council lays out citywide priorities, forms volunteer working groups

The Chattanooga City Council on a strategic planning session identified five guiding values — mutual respect, professionalism, honesty, curiosity and collaboration — and grouped citywide legislative priorities into working groups whose members volunteered to lead and participate.

The values were listed by the chair during the session as the foundation for how council members want to work together, and the chair asked members for additions before moving into shared priorities. The council grouped priorities into buckets that include infrastructure funding (with a note to assess maintenance liabilities and secure recurring revenue and city water for Raccoon Mountain residents), economic revitalization and neglected community corridors, Land Development Office (LDO) policy improvements to reduce housing costs, homelessness support ecosystem improvements (including low/no-barrier shelter), budget policy reform (reserves, one-time and volatile revenues, fiscal notes), safety improvements (traffic safety and prevention-focused public safety), and code enforcement gaps.

Council members volunteered to lead or join working groups during the meeting. The chair proposed that working groups operate outside standing committees and be open to any council member who wants to participate; leads were asked to coordinate meeting times through Nicole in order to comply with public-meeting rules. Specific volunteer assignments announced during the session included:

- Infrastructure funding: a council member volunteered to lead infrastructure funding work and to coordinate with Councilman Elliott on budget policy. - Economic revitalization: Councilman Elliott and other members volunteered to participate; “identified public-private partnerships” was added to the economic revitalization bucket during discussion. - Land Development Office / LDO policy improvement and budget policy reform: volunteers included council members who said they would work on LDO ordinance changes to make housing less expensive and on updating budget practices. - Homelessness support ecosystem: council members volunteered to co-lead work on low/no-barrier shelter and homelessness policy. - Safety improvements and code enforcement: volunteers were identified to lead safety and code enforcement work; chair said she would take on code enforcement unless other council members opted in.

The chair said working groups should be informal but public, with meetings scheduled through Nicole so they meet Tennessee open-meeting requirements. She said staff will circulate a list of volunteers and working-group leads and that periodic updates will be provided to the full council. She characterized the proposal as flexible and subject to council direction.

Why it matters: Council members framed this as groundwork for multiyear policy work and city projects. The working-group approach is intended to concentrate subject-matter work, enable research and policy development, and provide a structure for members to shepherd initiatives while allowing departments to handle operational tasks. Council members emphasized avoiding committee-level micromanagement of departments and preserving the public visibility of any working-group meetings.

The chair closed the discussion by saying she will circulate who volunteered for each group and that working-group leads should arrange public meetings through Nicole; she also reminded members that legislative committee work will continue under Vice Chairwoman Noel for formal legislative processing of proposed ordinances.