Commission, Mayor Wamp debate new stadium deal
CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (WDEF) – Sparks flew at the Hamilton County Commission meeting Wednesday.
The South Broad Stadium project was the topic of hours of debate.
The primary point of controversy at the Hamilton County Commission meeting on Wednesday was how the new stadium deal came together with the representation of Hamilton County Chairman Jeff Eversole. He was the sole representative for the county in those negotiations, which put him at odds with Hamilton County Mayor Weston Wamp.
The mood was tense during the meeting, as Mayor Wamp told Chairman Eversole “I told you one week ago we were planning to meet, and the staff was having conversations with the city’s chief of staff to schedule a meeting between Tim Kelly and I to hammer out a negotiation and instead of trusting Lee Brouner (Hamilton County’s Chief Financial Officer), Cory Gearrin (Hamilton County’s Deputy Mayor), and I to do that, you involved yourself at that point.”
At this point Mayor Wamp immediately left the podium, and that was not the only moment of tense back and forth between the Mayor and Chairman.
While Chairman Eversole was speaking with Brouner, Eversole made this remark, “You report to the mayor, you hear him giggling back there and that’s okay Mayor, but I’ll be the adult in this.”
Chairman Eversole explained that he couldn’t involve other commissioners or the Mayor’s Office in the negotiations due to Sunshine laws.
He recalled, “I asked Attorney Taylor, “Mr. Taylor, can I at this point share this information?” and he said, “Absolutely not!””
This left some of the other commissioners perplexed.
The Commissioner for District 7, Lee Helton, said, “Before I had a meeting with any of these parties, before I even knew who I was having a meeting with, I got a press release that said, “A final deal has been reached.””
The Commissioner for District 5, Greg Beck, said, “I’ve seen Santa Claus come to town before, and bring a bunch of toys to the elite and to the upper class and bring a bunch of… sack full of tricks to minorities.”
Chairman Eversole says that inaction could send the wrong signal to future investors.
He said, “I think the next Volkswagen that’s coming into Hamilton County, if they get scrutinized like we are scrutinizing just a baseball stadium, they’re not going to come here.”
Mayor Wamp says that the process moving forward needs to be done correctly.
He said, “We’ve not had an open discussion on this stadium in a year and a half and that’s mostly because we were waiting on pricing to be put together.”
The County Commission has agreed to take this up in a vote in two weeks on February 14th at that meeting, as the Mayor’s Office says they are still analyzing the deal.
