Community Meeting with Mayor Coppinger

I'd like to start this blog with a request. I had a recent computer "crash" and lost a LOT of email addresses. If you are reading this (and I know you are!), please send your email address to me at paulmhmd@comcast.net. And include your name. Sometimes its hard to figure out who "mom1234@" really is! Thanks!!

Last night I attended the community meeting with County Mayor Jim Coppinger at the theater in SMMHS. This was a well attended event. My estimate was approximately 150 people attended. As you might expect, education issues dominated the discussion. Clearly the "elephant in the room, however was funding, ie, money! The meeting did start off with a question from Dr. Cleaveland about funding for the Health Department. The looming expiration of the sales tax agreement between the county and the city has left many questions about jointly funded departments and, while a county health department is mandated by state law, as pointed out by Mayor Coppinger, Dr. Cleaveland asked how well it was to be funded. Like most questions last night, however there really was no concrete answer.

This was the theme of the evening... lots of problems but no answers. A few themes did emerge from the questions from the audience. One was the obvious but important message that we, the local residents care deeply about our kids and their education. While this is hopefully true of all communities, it was clearly pointed out that we have put our money where our mouths are. The $10 million raised by the Towns of Signal Mountain and Walden was crucial to getting SMMHS built. Since then more millions have been raised by local residents to fund our local schools. This doesn't include the increases in sales taxes which the town passed. One of my great regrets about my term on the town council was my failure to convince the rest of the council to commit this sales tax money to further improvements in the school before it opened. This reminds me that Vice-Mayor Susan Robertson, whose vote along with Mayor Bill Lusk was critical in defeating my proposal to dedicate this money to the school, was present at this meeting along with newer Councilmembers Dick Gee and Bill Wallace.

But I digress. The other message of the night was that the local residents were tired of being responsible for paying for everything from books to IB program expenses for our local schools while other schools receive such basics from the county, including a new IB  program being proposed at Ooltewah High School. There was a mood of "we're not gonna take it" anymore from the crowd.

Chip Baker

I should mention that the other officials on the stage with Mayor Coppinger were County Commissioner Jim Fields and School Board Rep. Chip Baker. Chip was running late because of a budget committee meeting. At that meeting it was apparently announced that the school board deficit is an even greater $14 million. This information is in today's Times Free Press. Several questions were directed to Commissioner Fields about the PILOT money from the Volkswagen plant being withheld from the School Board by the County Commission. PILOT means "Payment In Lieu Of Taxes". Commissioner Fields began his defense of his support of this effort by arguing with citizen and former School Board member Annie Hall about the definition of property taxes. "It's not property tax money, its PILOT money" he insisted. That's like arguing whether the ocean is green or blue... either way it's all wet. Let's get real. Mr. Fields insisted this money would be used for "construction and maintenance" and, I do compliment the County Commissioner for agreeing to pay for the purchase of the old David Brainerd private school which saved money for the school board. However, the need is now. Schools have leaking roofs and many other maintenance problems now. The School Board is looking at significant draconian cuts in programs, benefits and personnel. The real life effect will be larger classrooms, continued problems with buildings falling down around our children and teachers leaving our county to work in Georgia. It makes no sense to withold current revenue from current needs. Frankly, my impression of the crowd was that they were not impressed with Mr. Fields position and his defense of it. I hope he will reconsider in light of a very clear message from his constituents.

The Greater Signal Mountain Community has shown its commitment to education through millions of dollars in actual cash raised not to mention incalculable amounts of volunteer hours. We have built a middle/high school which critics claimed no one would send their children to and which would sit empty yet which is projected to reach capacity in its third year. The County Commission needs to stop playing political games with the school board and give them the resources they need to do their job. It that means a tax increase, well, here on Signal Mountain we can say "been there, done that, got the t-shirt". Literally. Maybe if they get this job done it will give Congress a clue about how to do it right. Frankly, I'm not optimistic.