City Parks And Outdoors Advisory Committee Holds Inaugural Meeting

A group of Chattanoogans gathered Thursday morning at the Philip Grymes Outdoor Chattanooga Center by Coolidge Park for what might have looked like a typical indoor meeting, but their thoughts and comments were more focused on the outside.

And their discussions and ponderings were also on a period well beyond Thursday afternoon’s mild and pleasant early spring weather forecast.

This was the first meeting of the newly formed and apparently unprecedented Chattanooga Parks and Outdoors Advisory Committee of 15 unpaid volunteers selected from an unusually large 180-plus applicants.

The group’s goal, according to officials, is to offer support, input, feedback, and ideas to the city’s Parks and Outdoors fulltime staff under administrator Scott Martin and to be kept abreast of park-related projects and activities in this city praised for its scenery and greenspace.

And they can also serve as liaisons to their smaller communities back and forth over park-related issues and ideas and help in the education process.

As Mr. Martin told the group during what amounted to an orientation meeting Thursday, “Anything that we bring to the (City) Council of a substantive nature comes through you first. You are the input, and we want to have the decision-making process behind it.”

Julia Bursch, the deputy chief operating officer for the city of Chattanooga, who was representing Mayor Tim Kelly, also told the group during opening introductions that their role will be an asset to the city. “The work you all will do on the committee is important not only to the department but to our community,” she said.

The group’s members, who briefly introduced themselves in the meeting, range from college professors to landscape architects, to former park officials, schoolteachers, developers, artists, students and beyond. They are also of varying ages, genders, and ethnicities, and several have only lived in Chattanooga less than five or 10 years and were drawn to town due to the scenery and outdoor opportunities.

Among those who have lived elsewhere is Bob Geier, a retired engineer and former Chicagoan, who was appointed as a representative of the Mountain Creek area. He said he was motivated to apply to be on the committee because of what he sees as a shortage of park space for more passive recreation in his part of town.

“There is only one park (Mountain Creek Park by Red Bank Elementary) along the entire corridor, and it is way on the south side,” said Mr. Geier, who lives up closer to the former Quarry Golf Course and has been active with Friends of Mountain Creek trying in part to get that land preserved or not overly developed.

“I’d like to get something set aside for people in that area. The Quarry Golf Course was previously committed to the community back in 1981 to be a greenspace, but it’s been sold to a developer (the Pratt development firm). The Walden’s Ridge Park (operated by Hamilton County) is right there and the trailhead for that park is a piece of the Quarry parking lot to the clubhouse. But that park is for bicycling and climbing. It is not for dog walking. It’s too vertical.”

Regarding the entire city in terms of greenspace and scenery and potential, he is quite positive, however.

“One of the reasons we moved to this area is we are from the Chicago area, where there is not really an ounce of greenspace,” he continued. “It’s pavement and blacktop and shingles. There are very few, if any, trees, and in this area, there is so much in the way of natural resources that are beautiful.”

However, he is aware of all the development pressures on the remaining pristine landscapes here, and that is also a motivation to be involved in the committee for him.

“It’s really beautiful here, and I just think we are possibly in jeopardy of losing a lot of that. I think it is important to maintain some of that space for the people instead of stacking people on top of each other.”

Much of the meeting involved taking care of procedural matters. Local historian and active community volunteer and retired Girls Preparatory School educator Linda Moss Mines was approved by a vote of the committee to be the chairperson. She was unable to attend in person due to a prior commitment scheduled long in advance but joined the group via videoconferencing.

At her recommendation, the group voted to approve Shelby Meek as vice chairperson.

The full committee includes Mr. Geier, representing District 1; Anna Hall, District 2; Terry Lee, District 3; Paul Darr, District 4; Dank Hawkins Jr., District 5; Melissa Lozano Lykes, District 6; Adam Kinsey, District 7; Ms. Meek, District 8; and Angie Reed-Thomas; District 9. The mayoral appointments include Stephen Culp, Ms. Mines, Erika Roberts, Dreama Campbell, Meghan Ploch and Lillie Barrie.

The group also heard city Parks and Outdoors department staff members introduce themselves and their roles, with several talking enthusiastically about various activities and projects they are helping oversee.

In a presentation designed to introduce committee members to the type of discussions that will take place at the meeting, Parks and Outdoors director of design and connectivity Blythe Bailey talked about plans to expand and improve the well-used “Chattown” Skatepark near Finley Stadium. That will include a larger and more modern poured concrete park.

According to Brian Smith, the Parks and Outdoors director of communications and marketing, the presentation was designed to educate the committee members, including that the skate park will be for all levels of skaters and skateboarders, and let them offer feedback. Regarding the latter, he said that this and other future committee presentations will also let the committee members think about how a project or idea can help the communities they represent and let them offer input in return.

Among the other matters discussed, the group agreed to meet on the first Thursday of every month at 8:30 a.m. Mr. Martin said they will likely meet at varying park-related locations around the city at least during the first year or so to help the members learn about parks throughout Chattanooga. He said the meetings are each expected to last only about 75 minutes.

The committee is also scheduled to have former New York parks commissioner Mitch Silver lead a half-day retreat on the afternoon of May 8.

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Jcshearer2@comcast.net