By Mark Hite
President, Greater Chattanooga Association of REALTORS®
The Greater Chattanooga Association of REALTORS® (GCAR) hosted the first forum for the Chattanooga Mayoral and City Council candidates on Wednesday January 11th for its members and the local media.
GCAR and its RPAC (REALTOR® Political Action Committee) hosted the event at its Amincola Highway office. The Morning Session was for the four Mayoral Candidates and the afternoon session for all of the City Council candidates. Both sessions were moderated by Becky Cope-English who is the 2017 Chair of the RPAC Trustees.
As English guided the meetings, questions were posed for each candidate and ranged from: crime/violence, job creation/economic development and education/job training. At the end of each session, members of the audience were invited to ask questions. You can watch both sessions and get all the details at LIVESTREAM.COM/GCARONLINE .
You may ask yourself, why are REALTORS® engaged in local political elections? The answer is quite simple and important, REALTORS® are advocates for personal property rights and items/issues which can affect real estate values.
All members of GCAR were encouraged to attend, even if they do not currently reside inside the Chattanooga City limits and therefore more than a hundred members came to one or both of the sessions. The general consensus was that if a member planned to list or sell property within Chattanooga in the next 4 years, then they needed to be up to date on issues and opportunities in every corridor.
GCAR’s involvement in local issues is not a new practice. Over the last year GCAR and its RPAC have been engaged in the Hamilton County School Board elections, Assessor of Property elections, Form Based Code policy creation, PILOT program and Thrive2055, to name a few. In addition to the spring Chattanooga City elections, GCAR will be engaged in the evolving storm water solution and short term vacation rentals policies in 2017.
Once you have viewed the above referenced video and know who you want to cast your vote in support of, you can begin early voting on February 15th and election day is March 7th.