Sideways chicken bone in Mayor Berke’s throat
This letter to assistant city attorney Keith Reisman will get no answer, under the argument that the city attorney’s office does not give legal advice to anybody but the city. But it is the key question pending reform in Chattanooga of a major police abuse of the public that Mayor Andy Berke continues to practice. […]
Breezy legal ad dries paint around police chief Roddy, Sheriff Hammond
Police chief David Roddy deals with members of the public at an event at Unum insurance. Mr. Roddy and Mayor Andy Berke are under administrative notice about the limits of police transportation enforcement powers against people using cars, trucks and motorbikes on Chattanooga streets, boulevards, roads and freeways. (Photo CPD) An affidavit of classified ad […]
Notice project will gain foothold in individual acts of courage at local level
Sheriff Jim Hammond got transportation administrative notice March 1, 2018, and refused to alter traffic stop practices, despite clear limits in state law outlined in a notice he did not rebut. (Photo David Tulis) Local economy has a theory strongly and insists on bottom-up reform, and rejects the hope of top-down reform, especially where constitutional […]
Council chokes residents’ financial windpipes 6 more months, keeps Airbnb ban
Rebecca Little is fighting for the right to run Airbnb. Here she is in city court after being dunned by Mayor Andy Berke’s economic development people on accusations that she is involved in economic development. (Photo David Tulis) City council members met with mayoral staffer Donna Williams Tuesday and will do nothing to overturn their […]
Reporters sketch East Ridge cast of election characters
Reporter Dick Cook reviews colorful characters, serious thinking people running for mayor of East Ridge and city council. Eight seek 2 seats on the council, with three or four serious, knowledgeable on how “the system” works. Also, a word about Esther Helton, her refusal to debate in her state house race, and her qualifications. Dick […]
City officials, cops ignore police powers notice
City officials and the police chief are ignoring a notice that indicates current traffic enforcement protocols are illegally putting people into custody and before courts who are not in commercial jurisdiction. (Photo David Tulis) City government is ignoring an 8-month effort to bring it into compliance with state and federal law regulating the commercial use […]
Cops schmooze with public as council apology eases Mott-Coonrod feud
Demetrus Coonrod, right, city councilwoman, speaks with Donna “Elle,” left, and Tippi Montgomery. (Photo David Tulis) Marie Mott and council chairman Ken Smith find points of common ground after city council Oct. 2. (Photo David Tulis) City councilman Demetrus Coonrod, humbled by a Christian mediation session, utters a public apology Tuesday to Marie Mott and […]
Mott decries harsh cops, exclusion of poor, demands city change
Marie Mott of 92.7 NoogaRadio and an independent social activist excoriates Chattanooga city council members as religious hypocrites for issuing prayers to God but not reining in police nor stopping the forced exodus of the poor from cheap rental houses as the market determines better use of the land (“gentrification”). (Photo Facebook at NoogaRadio) City […]
Police powers notice to fight for place in county records
Police officers in Chattanooga conduct a transportation stop against a traveler who, under legal presumption only, is involved in transportation. (Photo David Tulis) County attorney Rheubin Taylor and county register Marc Gravitt are resisting entry into the county record books a document called transportation administrative notice. The notice has powerful implications for police and sheriff […]
Journalist-teacher fights for driver license as system gridlocks on poor
Keelah Jackson is under a civil death sentence. The state tells this city court petitioner she cannot use a car privately, but must buy a license to drive or operate a car in commerce. But she is too poor to pay court fees and fines to end a state block on her getting a driver […]