City slow to enforce misshapen Airbnb ban
City government’s appointee for economic development has been tasked with blockading economic development on the Internet. (Photo LinkedIn) It may be good that Chattanooga city government is bureaucratically slow in getting into gear its surveillance of the short-term vacation rental market. Donna Williams of the mayor’s economic and community development office has the unfortunate duty […]
Hammond says massacre risk too slight to shut down schools
Sheriff Jim Hammond chats with people in the audience prior to a school board meeting Thursday in Hamilton County’s barbed-wire fence-protected administrative compound. (Photo David Tulis) Sheriff Jim Hammond refuses to order a shutdown of Hamilton County public schools even though he describes them as being subject to a “type of war” — the gunman […]
Begging ban hits 9 pages of type + appendices as shopkeeps voice support
A red ribbon flutters toward the tarmac after William Green, cente, opens his M.L. King Boulevard eatery, G’s Detroit Sausages, a shop whose customers are frequently hassled by beggars. (Photo Facebook) Four opponents of a city panhandling ban talk local politics after a second city council meeting focusing on complaints about begging and harsh measures […]
Model for liberty, confidence, openness: Old Israel with no border wall
In what ways could city government in Chattanooga encourage the concept of sanctuary, where people fleeing evil elsewhere will be protected here? (Photo David Tulis) Welcome to Episode 43 of Axe to the Root Podcast, part of the War Room Productions, I am Bo Marinov, and for the next 20 minutes I will be getting […]
Backers of homeless prick Roddy, Berke trial balloon ban on panhandling
Regina Ledford shamefully admits to city council that she panhandles to survive her poverty. Other critics of a proposed begging ban are Jean-Marie Lawrence, left, and Beth Foster, right. (Photo David Tulis) The left wing of Christendom is out in force to denounce a police harassment bill in Chattanooga sought by Mayor Andy Berke’s executive […]
City claims authority to regulate vehicles for hire
A bus subject to city regulation passes in front of the Realto theater in 1935. The city charter gives the corporation power to tax for-profit vehicles for hire — and boldly claims the power to impose a tax on private “pleasure” cars. (Photo Chattanooga History Center, Picnooga) Transportation administrative notice is supported from an another […]
Notice to Hammond: Reform required even though Haslam, judges, legislators opposed
Sheriff Jim Hammond talks with Greg Luther, left, at a 2014 political event. Mr. Luther is defending the right of citizenry to photograph department officers in any public place. (Photo David Tulis) The following is a letter sent to Jim Hammond, sheriff of Hamilton County, Tenn., regarding an interview about the laws he is charged […]
Cobbler with ‘peach of a wife’ looks for apprentice
Michael Scallia polishes a freshly repaired boot, a job he would have gladly offloaded to an apprentice — if he could only find one for Buddy’s shoe repair in Chattanooga. (Photo David Tulis) All across the Chattanooga area are business owners who would love to have a chance to meet your teenage son or daughter […]
Hammond gets help on key question: Does travel = transportation?
Sheriff Jim Hammond, the most powerful man in Hamilton County, Tenn, declines to answer questions about the scope of authority of the driver license law, but indicates his belief that no one can be on the road without a license, even if that person is non-commercial. (Photo David Tulis) Sheriff Jim Hammond declines to answer […]
How Berke could win all sides by restraining cops, ordering ’open’ city
Mayor Andy Berke speaks with members of the audience at a campaign debate at UTC in 2017. (Photo David Tulis) I realize it will take a while for the policy and political implications of transportation administrative notice to take effect. For busy men such as Mayor Andy Berke and city attorney Wade Hinton, it will […]