Chattanooga Pulse

A rundown of the newsy, the notable, and the notorious…

Littlefield Not Backing Down

Chattanooga Mayor Ron Littlefield has no plans to back down from his controversial executive order that charges all city employees a $100 monthly fee to keep their take-home cars.  He does hope, however, that the policy will be temporary and can be eliminated when the economy improves and city revenue returns to pre-recession levels.

Explaining the thought process behind the take-home charge, he said the alternative was layoffs of city employees, and that he would rather have “everyone hurt a little rather than having some hurt a lot.”  If he were to cancel the executive order, the approximately $1.4 million it is expected the program will generate would have to be taken from somewhere else in the city budget.  He even pointed out that he is paying the $100 a month for his own city-supplied vehicle.

However, local police officers and other city employees angry over the new policy have been quite vocal in their opposition. They’ve packed city council meetings, sent representatives out to local talk-radio stations, and mounted a letter-writing campaign to both media outlets and city council members.  Several council members are upset with the program, not just because they feel it makes it even more difficult for police officers to do their job, but because there is concern that Littlefield may have overstepped his authority, as the City Charter specifically gives only the council the authority to authorize spending and budgets.

Fortwood vs. Fraternities Once Again

The residents of the Fortwood neighborhood, which has seen a veritable renaissance over the past decade, are up in arms again over the various college fraternity houses that are dotted throughout the neighborhood.  Their concerns came out during a public meeting last week, hosted by the university, which allowed residents and fraternity members to meet face to face.

While nearly everyone in the meeting agreed there were a number of issues that needed to be addressed—primarily parking, loud parties and underage drinking—no one on the meeting was able to agree on how to solve the various problems. Paul Burke, who is the “house dad” for the Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity, said the issue was not one of residents against fraternities. “You’re not going anywhere and we’re not going anywhere,” he told the group. “We need to get along.”

Not everyone in the audience was willing to take a conciliatory approach.  Resident Janice Heath complained that at least two to three nights a week, she and her husband were unable to sleep because of the loud noises coming from fraternity parties.  Some of the parties happened during the week and resulted in the police being called. She also complained about the traffic from people going to and from the parties, which was even louder than the music being played.

Burke, however, was able to get in the last word on Mrs. Heath, informing her that her own son held a house party this past summer when she and her husband were out of town.  According to him, there was underage drinking going on, along with plenty of noise and traffic problems, the type she was concerned about.  “We didn’t call the police, we didn’t complain,” he told her and the rest of the group. “But this problem happens everywhere, not just in frat houses.”

Chattanooga’s Food Deserts

A “food desert” is defined as “a district with little or no access to foods needed to maintain a healthy diet.” Last November, the Ochs Center for Metropolitan Studies, in partnership with Crabtree Farms and the Benwood Foundation, conducted the first-ever report on food consumption and production in the Chattanooga area.  The report, authored by Lori Quillen, found that certain areas of the region could definitely be categorized as food deserts, forcing the residents of those areas to travel outside them to find and purchase healthy foods. If, in fact, these residents do—or can.

According to the report: “Several neighborhoods in and near Chattanooga’s urban core have identified lack of access to grocery stores and healthy food as an issue. These neighborhoods include some areas that have among the highest concentrations of poverty in the region. They also have some of the highest rates of obesity and overweight residents—in many cases double the countywide rate.”

Fair access to healthy food has become a nationally scrutinized issue, and it remains to be seen what Chattanooga will do about it. This issue will be one of the topics addressed by Majora Carter in her upcoming George T. Hunter lecture—see our cover story this week for details.

To view the entire Ochs Center reports, visit www.ochscenter.org