Mayor Tim Kelly presented his plan “One Chattanooga” at the Civitan Club meeting Friday morning. He said there are seven key strategies in his plan including early childhood learning, infrastructure, public health, and building a competitive regional economy. He said he wants to repair the “two Chattanoogas” referring to his idea that Chattanooga is “segregated economically, culturally and otherwise.”
Mayor Kelly told the Civitans early childhood learning is the most urgent item to work on despite not being able to see real results until years after his term.
He said he has spent time nationally and locally discussing K-12 and the people who need this the most, ironically, cannot afford it. He also said it is critical that they find a way to create and fund a proper early childhood education with help from the federal government.
“If I’m thinking about what would produce the best Chattanooga in 20 years from now, this would it,” Mayor Kelly said. “If you get this wrong, all the money in the world would not be able to fix it.”
He expressed his urgent concern for this matter by stating only 40 percent of children going into kindergarten in this area know shapes, colors, and letters.
“You wonder why we have problems with public safety or people that are unemployable, that's why,” he stated.
Mayor Kelly said building a competitive regional economy is also high on his list of priorities. He said many of today's high paying jobs are related to digital and creative economies that are mostly located in larger metros. He said Chattanooga’s jobs are growing; however, Nashville and Atlanta are “leaving us in the dust.” Mayor Kelly said he plans to fix this issue by working closely with the Chamber of Commerce to see what can be done better.
“A lot of midsize cities in America run the risk of sliding into economic irrelevance,” said Mayor Kelly. “That frankly, unattended, is the way things are going for Chattanooga.”
He went on to say Chattanooga is fortunate in terms of quality of life and natural environment and those are the things to lean on and leverage in order to create jobs.
A Civitan member asked if he could reach these goals without raising tax dollars. Mayor Kelly said they are getting a good bit of money from the federal government, more specifically for infrastructure, and taxes will not need to be raised. He said the infrastructure bill will massively help with those goals.