Chattanooga Councilman Cleared of Ethics Violation
After being accused of violating ethics rules last week, Chattanooga City Councilman Chris Anderson has received some good news.
Councilman Anderson said he has now been cleared of any wrong doing.
Citizen advocate Helen Burn Sharp filed a complaint that stated Anderson was at fault for not disclosing his relationship with a local project engineer.
The project engineer is Michael Price, who is charge of the new seven-story, one bedroom apartments being constructed on the corner of Cowart and 12th streets on the Southside.
City council approved the apartment construction in late November.
Price has also donated to Councilman Anderson’s reelection campaign, which is what led Sharp to file the complaint.
Chris Anderson said it only takes one citizen to write a letter to initiate an ethics complaint.
“All those complaints have to be investigated, which they should be. And in this case, we’ve now had two investigations that say I did nothing wrong and the complaint is merit less."
Councilman Moses Freeman said he thinks the law was misunderstood.
"The law says that a person who has personal interest meaning that they accepted some gratuity personally must declare so, but it also says that if you accepted a political contribution for campaign that it was exempted because it had to be reported to the election commission. Mr. Anderson had reported it or is scheduled to report it to the election commission. Therefore it was not something he had to report to the city council."
Councilman Anderson said he is ready to move on from the ordeal.
"I can refocus my attention on serving the people of my district and not worrying about complaints that I found to be frivolous and two legal experts did too."
We reached out to Ms. Sharp about her thoughts on the matter, but she declined to go into detail.
However, she does say she expected this outcome.
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