Chattanooga Times Free Press
ALL ABOUT THE MATH
A firm that has produced economic reports for multiple Chattanooga developments does not determine whether the visions of developers are too ambitious, said a longtime leader at the company. Younger Associates takes plans from developers and turns...
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City cutting down trees near Chatt Foundation
The city of Chattanooga is cutting down about a dozen trees outside the Chatt Foundation, a social service agency where the homeless community frequently gathers outside, as summer nears. The group’s CEO says he wasn’t aware until Day 1 of the...
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Developer casts doubt on Novonix’s plan to expand
Novonix is exploring an expansion next door to its riverfront plant in Chattanooga, but the move would not be the best use for the property, according to the developer of the surrounding site. The battery materials maker is assessing whether to buy a...
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‘Competitive disadvantage’
As it competes with surrounding communities for athletic events, Hamilton County may need to construct a large indoor sports complex if it wants to keep up with demand, according to a recent study. “We have more demand than we have capacity in current...
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Heading to the moon
A towering orange-and-white NASA rocket blasted off from Florida on Wednesday evening, lifting four astronauts toward space and transporting spectators’ imaginations to a future in which Americans may again set foot on the moon. As they did during the...
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‘PRETTY DARN CLOSE’
A study provided to elected officials before they approved a special tax district for a 28-block development on Chattanooga’s Westside predicted the site would produce more than $9.5 million of new tax revenue last year, but the site produced...
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Holding pattern
The timeline for approving or denying Rock City’s requested changes to law on Lookout Mountain, Georgia, to build a gondola lift is delayed as the city waits for more information from studies on traffic and sewer impacts. The city’s Planning...
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‘PROFIT OVER PATIENTS’
ATennessee bill that CVS Health has claimed would force it to close all its pharmacies in the state would not require such closures — and would create a more even playing field, said local independent pharmacists in Chattanooga. State lawmakers are...
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STILL IN THE BALLPARK
As the Chattanooga Lookouts prepare to celebrate the opening of Erlanger Park, a study that made predictions for the scope and speed of development around the minor league baseball stadium beginning in 2026 appears optimistic, although officials...
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RIVERFRONT REFRESH TO START IN THE FALL
Come November, urban planners expect to begin a multimillion dollar project aimed at revitalizing Chattanooga’s downtown riverfront, making it a park that residents use on a more daily basis. “This is one of Chattanooga and Hamilton County’s premier,...
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Work on Chattanooga icon enters final stretch
One year into its 18-month closure, the Walnut Street Bridge is on track to reopen in late September, officials say. The city hosted a walking tour of Chattanooga’s iconic pedestrian bridge Thursday for local media to see the progress made since the...
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PROJECT TAKES A HIT
More than $1.5 million in federal funds have been cut from a program designed to alleviate the shortage of mental health professionals in rural Tennessee schools. Project Rural Access to Interventions in School Environments pays the tuition of...
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MIXED MESSAGES
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — President Donald Trump said for a second day that the U.S. was in talks with Iran to end the war as diplomatic efforts picked up Tuesday and Iran issued a newly defiant statement. Airstrikes battered the Islamic Republic...
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Westside milestone
One Westside, a major project of the Chattanooga Housing Authority to revitalize the eponymous city sector and replace over 600 aging public housing units, started construction on the second phase of its sevenphase plan Monday. The new development...
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‘Real momentum’
BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee is in talks with potential buyers for its downtown Chattanooga headquarters on Cameron Hill, although the state’s largest health insurer has not listed it for sale. The insurance company said last year it may place...
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‘Transitory’ records
Public records requests sent to 35 state and local governments and agencies in the Chattanooga area reveal that officials at more than a dozen use generative artificial intelligence for work. Reporters at the Chattanooga Times Free Press submitted the...
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DOUBLE PARKING
While CARTA brings forward city legislation to boot chronic parking violators downtown, the transit authority is crafting a plan to push private parking operators to lower their prices. The Chattanooga Area Regional Transportation Authority primarily...
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‘Chaos or not chaos’
Most local and state governmental agencies in the region haven’t enacted policies to govern employee use of artificial intelligence, which experts say could make oversight more difficult and introduce security and privacy risks, according to a survey...
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Hamilton County takes step to end partnership
The Hamilton County Commission voted 7-4 Wednesday to allow Mayor Weston Wamp to sever the county’s contract with a planning agency it shares with the city of Chattanooga. “When Chattanooga and Hamilton County go their separate ways, that’s a...
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Ross’s Landing closure looms
Not long after the Walnut Street Bridge reopens to the public this fall, another major renovation project is expected to begin. While speaking about upcoming projects at Coolidge Park and the Brainerd Levee at Tuesday’s City Council meeting, city...
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SPLIT ENDS
After seven years of orange barrels, dump trucks and backups, the $328 million, two-phase project to rebuild the state-line interstate junction known for decades as the split is taking its final lap. For all practical purposes, the Tennessee...
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‘The pay went crazy’
President Donald Trump in August 2020 decried the multimillion-dollar salary of the Tennessee Valley Authority’s thenpresident, Jeff Lyash, calling for him to be replaced. “The new CEO must be paid no more than $500,000 a year,” Trump said. “We want...
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‘People are going to go somewhere else’
A memo signed by President Donald Trump pushing a $500,000 compensation ceiling onto the Tennessee Valley Authority dropped like a bomb at the federal utility, where its provisions would land far beyond its intended target, the CEO. There would be...
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Grassroots effort grows
Four years after a city of Chattanooga Department of Parks and Outdoors public survey revealed that respondents’ No. 1 facility request was a botanical garden, a group of citizens is working to bring that collective wish to life. Chattanooga Botanical...
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Trump directs TVA board to limit pay
President Donald Trump signed a memorandum directing the Tennessee Valley Authority board of directors to place a compensation limit of $500,000 on all employees, including the CEO. Trump instructed the board to place the limit if it’s consistent with...
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‘NOT NOW, NOT EVER’
Hamilton County Commissioners were split in a heated debate over a proposal that would lead to a separate planning agency for unincorporated county developments, despite being partially funded by taxes from city residents. The resolution, introduced...
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Oil takes center stage
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — The U.S. said it took out more than a dozen mine-laying Iranian vessels Tuesday, and the Islamic Republic vowed to block the region’s oil exports, saying it would not allow “even a single liter” to be shipped to its...
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POTENTIAL SWITCH
Novonix, a Chattanooga-based battery materials manufacturer, has secured rights to purchase a property next door to its facility off Riverfront Parkway as an alternative to a planned second site at Enterprise South Industrial Park. The company has...
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‘THIS IS NOT WHAT I SIGNED UP FOR’
Around the turn of the new year, 120 public libraries across Tennessee performed state-requested ageappropriateness reviews of their juvenile and children’s sections. In the 11 counties surrounding Chattanooga, seven libraries flagged a total of 15...
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IT’S GO TIME
Though the relative progress of two ambitious Chattanooga redevelopment projects may seem ripe for comparison, the deals behind the new Lookouts stadium and the riverfront commercial district known as The Bend are fundamentally different, according to...
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Trump demands Iran’s unconditional surrender
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Friday demanded Iran’s “unconditional surrender,” the latest and broadest expansion of his goals for the war, while Israeli jets pummeled Tehran and other parts of Iran with a fresh wave of airstrikes. The...
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‘FINANCIAL BURDEN’
A delayed project to build an apartment complex and office building by the new Chattanooga Lookouts stadium will soon cost taxpayers, Hamilton County Attorney Janie Varnell told developers in a letter. Varnell requested updates and a legal...
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War with Iran reaches far beyond Mideast
The 5-day-old war with Iran spread far beyond the Middle East on Wednesday as an American submarine torpedoed an Iranian navy ship off Sri Lanka and NATO air defenses shot down an Iranian ballistic missile that was heading toward Turkish airspace. The...
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Change in air at TVA
Jeremy Fisher, who was chief business officer at the Tennessee Valley Authority until Monday, is not just departing the nation’s largest public utility. His role will be eliminated and his duties reassigned to other executives. The departure continued...
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‘HE SHOULD HAVE BOUGHT US OUT’
In 2020, a developer purchased 122 acres of land surrounding Tracie and Scott Sutton’s home on Ooltewah-Georgetown Road, where they had lived for more than 30 years. Now the Suttons’ home sits on a peninsula, surrounded by exposed dirt and a deep hole...
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City buys land for new park
Another park may come to East Brainerd after the Chattanooga City Council unanimously approved a land acquisition in the area. The land is off Gray Road, about a mile and a half away from the area’s main recreation spot, Heritage Park. It’s a patch of...
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Mayors take meeting on downtown project
The developers of The Bend, a planned 28-block commercial and entertainment district west of downtown, have apparently quelled some of the concerns expressed by Chattanooga officials. But neither the developer nor the city have released details of a...
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City clears another homeless camp
Chattanooga city staffers rolled bikes laden with bags full of food, water, tarps and rolls of quarters through a muddied, well-worn path into the woods on Friday. When they arrived, a crowd of over a dozen people greeted them — the residents of a...
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‘It has met my expectations’
As Chattanooga City Council member Marvene Noel of Orchard Knob drove up to Erlanger Park on Tuesday, she was initially worried the new stadium would not be ready for the Chattanooga Lookouts opener April 14. “I was saying to myself, they’re gonna...
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‘SUPERCHARGED’
President Donald Trump may have enabled the nation’s largest public utility to keep its aging coal-fired power plants open, but the Tennessee Valley Authority is planning for a future in which the president’s climate deregulation may be reversed. In a...
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EPA UPDATE
If you’re out of bounds for federal lead cleanup in your Chattanooga backyard, you may still be able to get free help. During a recent meeting, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency project manager Jasmin Jefferies said the organization’s federal lead...
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DUI CHARGES TOP IMMIGRANT ARRESTS
Drunk driving was the most common primary charge for people arrested in Hamilton County last year whose citizenship status was unknown or could not be verified by law enforcement, according to data from the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office. More than...
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Police numbers rebound
Chattanooga Police officer Kyle Hullander sang the national anthem a cappella before a full auditorium at Silverdale Baptist Church, the hums of the audience serving as a backing track. Friday was the first day Hullander was authorized to wear that...
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Volkswagen workers approve union contract
Volkswagen workers in Chattanooga have formally approved their first union contract, which promises to boost wages 20% over the next four years and ensure eligible workers receive at least $14,200 in bonuses. The vote, with 96% of the ballots cast...
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VW voting is underway
Workers began voting Wednesday on a final contract between Volkswagen and the United Auto Workers union that contains several key differences from a version the company originally unveiled in September. Still, much of it remains unchanged. In early...
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‘In better shape than it’s ever been’
Jimmy White, a local developer working to build a new riverfront district in Chattanooga called The Bend, said he’s confident in the future of the 7-year-old project as the city asks for updates it said were overdue. The former GE Power site west of...
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NO CLEAN-CAR RULES
The momentous end to the federal government’s legal authority to fight climate change makes it official. The United States will essentially have no laws on the books that enforce how efficient America’s passenger cars and trucks should be. That’s the...
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SECRET WEAPON
Republican elected officials in Tennessee have encouraged President Donald Trump to use the Tennessee Valley Authority as an instrument to achieve his energy goals, and the possibility is greater with a new board of mostly Trump nominees. Last week,...
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Base camp for the outdoors
After years of deliberation about what Hamilton County should do with McDonald Farm, officials have landed on an answer: turn much of its acreage into a state park. The park will encompass about 1,300 acres of the historic Sale Creek farm, once owned...
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Tourism funds at risk
Hamilton County commissioners may divert money away from the Chattanooga Tourism Co. amid a dispute over salaries and what some officials describe as its lack of cooperation with a newer agency focused on sports tourism. Commissioner Chip Baker,...
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‘We’re gonna make his life miserable’
Don Moul, CEO of the Tennessee Valley Authority, traveled to Washington on Wednesday moments after the board of the federally owned utility fulfilled a wish of President Donald Trump by voting to keep two coalfired power plants open. Moul sat in the...
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Frost pleads guilty, free on $10K bond
Former Chattanooga accountant Jonathan Frost is free on a $10,000 bond after he pleaded guilty to three federal financial crimes in court Wednesday. He officially entered the plea in court before Magistrate Judge Christopher H. Steger in the...
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Top cop: Helping ICE isn’t on agenda
The Chattanooga Police Department is not involved in any kind of immigration enforcement, nor does it intend to be, according to Chief John Chambers. That’s what he told the Chattanooga City Council and a room full of residents and city staffers...
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NOT GIVING UP
A Volkswagen employee who’s part of an effort to remove the UAW from the company’s Chattanooga plant said he and his coworkers are forging ahead with the push despite the union reaching a tentative agreement on a final contract. However, the actual...
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Paving signals ‘important step’ for I-75/I-24 project
If the weather cooperates in the coming days and weeks, contract crews reconstructing the second phase of the Interstate 75/Interstate 24 interchange in Chattanooga will be performing paving work and attending to final details on the I-24 portion of...
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‘A lot of uncertainty’
Before the Signal Mountain Planning Commission deferred voting on a proposed 106-home subdivision Thursday, town officials wanted to make clear that a new policy from the Hamilton County Board of Education may affect the school zoning of the proposed...
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‘Old-school TVA’
The Tennessee Valley Authority is nearing a decision on whether to build a multibillion-dollar hydroelectric plant inside a mountain in northern Alabama. TVA first proposed the pumped storage facility in 2023. It would cost between $2 billion and $4...
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‘WATCH THIS’
After a monthslong stalemate, Volkswagen and the United Auto Workers have reached a tentative agreement on a final contract that the union said includes some key concessions from the company. However, it doesn’t accomplish everything. In a statement...
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‘A WELCOMING CITY’
Several Chattanooga City Council members broke out in smiles as Amalia Jacinto Ramirez presented a routine rezoning request to start her own business — all in Spanish. She used an interpreter to present her plan, and the council unanimously approved...
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Survey: Half of St. Elmo residents oppose gondola
Residents in the historic St. Elmo neighborhood of Chattanooga have made their voices heard in a survey on a proposal from Rock City to build a gondola lift nearby. Half of respondents oppose it. The opposition is an extension of a yearslong battle...
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COSTLY MISTAKES
U.S. Rep Chuck Fleischmann, R-Ooltewah, said the contractor for the Chickamauga lock replacement, Shimmick Construction, made mistakes that contributed to cost overruns with the project. “They were multiple,” Fleischmann said in a phone call....
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‘If anybody deserves death…’
Lawmakers aim to strengthen a law involving sentencing for child rapists after a Signal Mountain man avoided the death penalty last week when he pleaded guilty to that crime, among others. Prosecutors initially wanted to seek the death penalty for...
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BIG BUMP IN SIX-FIGURE PAY
The number of city of Chattanooga employees making six figures nearly tripled over the course of 2025, according to an analysis of salary data by the Chattanooga Times Free Press. In February, there were 81 employees making at least $100,000 in the...
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Escape from Washington
WASHINGTON — There’s increasingly one place that U.S. senators want to be — anywhere but Washington. Democrat Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota became the fourth sitting senator to seek leadership of a home state in 2026 when she announced her campaign...
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DIVERTING TRAFFIC
Around 96% of the more than 500,000 annual visitors to Rock City in Lookout Mountain, Georgia, drive down Tennessee Avenue before veering right up Ochs Highway, one of the main roads up the mountain. If the tourist attraction builds a gondola lift and...
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FROST AGREES TO PLEA DEAL
Jonathan Frost, who turned a Chattanooga accounting business into a hub for flashy social media-driven investments that collapsed, has agreed to plead guilty to federal conspiracy charges involving wire and tax fraud and money laundering, according to...
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US braces for more cold
Many in the U.S. faced another night of below-freezing temperatures and no electricity after a colossal winter storm heaped more snow Monday on the Northeast and kept parts of the South coated in ice. At least 30 deaths were reported in states...
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WINTER WEATHER
A massive winter storm dumped sleet, freezing rain and snow across much of the U.S. on Sunday, bringing subzero temperatures and halting air and road traffic. Tree branches and power lines snapped under the weight of ice, and hundreds of thousands of...
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‘Turning that corner’
Five years after Montessori Elementary at Highland Park opened its doors, parents and staff have raised concerns about high teacher turnover and a lack of adherence to the Montessori philosophy at the public charter school. The situation at the roughly...
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Area braces for ice storm
An ice storm warning has been issued for the western Tennessee Valley and the Chattanooga region from 1 p.m. Saturday through 7 p.m. Sunday as forecasters call for potentially crippling icing problems until heavy rains and higher temperatures bring...
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WINTER STORM DRAWS CLOSER
Significant snow is almost out of the forecast for most of the Chattanooga region, and more focus is on higher elevations where a quarterto a half-inch of ice could coat roads, trees and power lines on Signal, Lookout and Monteagle mountains. As...
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Winter worries
Mother Nature may be about to put your weekend plans on ice. It all depends on where the snow-ice line ends up this weekend as an arctic front sweeps into the South, dropping a wintry mix on Tennessee. Too far south, the winter storm system could act...
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Infusion for The Bend
The Bend, a highly anticipated and delayed mixed-use project on Chattanooga’s Westside, received a $47.5 million loan from an out-of-town company to help fund the next phase of development. The loan from Chicago-based financial services firm Hilco...
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