Climate action plan. Carbon neutral aspirations. This career environmental attorney has opinions. But they only matter insofar as I share them with, and they are heard by, the officials whom we have elected into office.
The idea that every time a hot button issue arises, which some or many people find objectionable, that we, as a constituency, should demand a voter referendum "at the polls" to approve or deny the controversial proposition, fully and completely ignores the fact that we have elected nine, or in the case of the county, 11, humans to make these hard decisions. That is the litmus test when you cast your vote. Do they have the skill to analyze, and to decide, in a manner that is in the best interests of our city and county.
Punting the hard decisions away into the voter referendum ozone (no pun intended) enables neither efficient nor effective leadership.
Michael Mallen, Esq.
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In response to the opinion of Michael Mallen, I would like to know why is it that the city of Chattanooga can make rules and ordnances without public input and can carry on a Woke movement of politics before the citizens which pay their salaries?
I applaud the lawsuit and hope that some common sense would prevail given the mayor's agenda with a Climate Action Plan that increases our taxes and doesn't fix any of the current issues we have including poor public works, homelessness and a weak City Council that only listens to the mayor, not the citizens.
Tim Bittenbender
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I’ve have been around long enough be suspicious when someone says, “Nothing to see here,” or “…we don’t need to study this further.” Any person who shutters responses to a public forum, like stating the necessity to vote on it, then read it, is no one I want to listen to. Cases in point, the Affordable Care Act, the Ukraine Supplemental Appropriations Act and a few more with just this president, all of them so long and thick, almost every legislator admitted to not reading it in its entirety (translation: not at all).
Sure, we voted in our council members, for the mundane minutia of the day-to-day running of local government. No one elected them to instigate far-reaching changes to where we live or how we live. This process should be slowed down because once instigated it will be difficult to reverse.
The science of “climate change” is, at most, a hazy quasi-scientific quagmire of refutable data that even the most knowledgeable “experts” cannot agree upon. Keeping this in mind, if this is such a good, fool-proof, mutually equitable plan for all concerned, let the voters decide.
Dave Fihn