Citizens, we live in a geographically and geologically complex county. Mountains on the west and east and the river bisecting the county. A county where Chattanooga receives lots of tax benefits, but less than half of the people in Hamilton County live in Chattanooga. County taxes primarily go to schools for ALL of the county.
We need a better way forward. We have kicked the can down the road for years WAITING for the infrastructure to catch up with the development, like waiting on a tree to grow, because we lacked a vision and plan which encompasses the engineering, the politics, the funding and the execution resources to fix the problem.
The infrastructure problems will not fix themselves, and the well-intentioned projects underway right now are a band-aid, at best.
A better way forward is to listen to the citizens, direct growth in areas that can really support it and want it, and keep the rural character of the unincorporated areas at least until there is a way to get a better funding stream than property taxes.
Ours is a five-year plan.
This resolution suggests we basically keep doing what we have we been doing with some concessions that are merely optics… this is the definition of insanity.
Let us break the cycle and listen to the citizens.
Gary Boles