On March 7, Chattanooga voters will choose between Larry Grohn, Chris Long, David Crockett, or incumbent Andy Berke as mayor. WUTC reached out to all four and requested interviews. Crime and affordable housing were the two main topics each candidate addressed.
Larry Grohn is on the City Council serving District 4. A former schoolteacher, he moved to Chattanooga to retire, but got involved in politics.
INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT:
Mike Miller: Larry Grohn, thank you for being here today.
COUNCILMAN LARRY GROHN: I appreciate you asking.
Mike Miller: You've said that keeping citizens safe from violence is Chattanooga's number one challenge. You've called for an end to the violence reduction initiative that was a city initiative that was supposed to put more gang members in jail by prosecuting them aggressively even for misdemeanors. Why would you say that Chattanooga should close down that initiative? And what would you do if you were elected, to end violence, for example the real time intelligence center the Chattanooga police just unveiled.
COUNCILMAN LARRY GROHN: Well I think that the police department needs to be able to use the newest technology to do the job that they're professionally trained to do. But they need to be allowed to do their job. So I contend that they're not being allowed to do their job right now for political reasons. And we're attacking a symptom of the violence. We're not attacking the core issues. The core issues are unemployment, lack of job skills, lack of education, poverty, lack of affordable housing. Unless we attack those issues I don't think we're ever going to get a handle on the crime. I mean we need to vigorously pursue criminals. We need to deter crime. We need to prosecute. But we also need to lobby our state legislature to give our judges the power to be able to put criminals away. We can't just give somebody a four to six year suspended sentence and they're back out on the street with time served in county jail. Even if you're convicted of a felony, a fifth felony is what it takes to get you into state prison. You only have to serve 28 percent of your time. How do you get citizens in communities who are afraid to walk their streets in the evening, to have their children play outside in the front yard, to sit on their front porch? How do you get those citizens to cooperate with you, when they see people that are not going to turn away from this no matter what back out on the street in just a matter of months?
MIKE MILLER: On a lack of affordable housing in Chattanooga, you've said you want to rip up existing tax break deals that are meant to create affordable housing right now and establish a trust fund. Tell me about that?
COUNCILMAN LARRY GROHN: Well there are many different ways that we can attack affordable housing. But it's not affordable housing when 20 percent of an apartment complex is offered at the current affordable housing. Chattanooga in the last three years has experienced a top 10 city in not only wage growth, but in terms of rent growth. But yet there is a large segment of our population that hasn't kept up with that wage growth so they've been left behind. So I have a big issue with what's currently considered an affordable wage, when you can earn over $34,000 a year and qualify for affordable housing. To me that's not true affordable housing. We need to be using the HUD very low income. And the problem is we're five to six thousand housing units, single thousand housing units, short of in an all economic brackets throughout the city. Because of the growth that we're experiencing. So unless we get a program that's going to actually produce those affordable housing and then make them truly affordable, again we have an issue that we have to address that has not been addressed.
MIKE MILLER: And the tax breaks were supposed to help with that. So what was wrong with them in your opinion?
G: Well the vast majority of the apartments offered at affordable, are one bedroom. Like 80 percent, you have 20 percent that are supposed to be affordable- 80 percent of those will be one bedroom. There won't be one bedroom, they'll be studios, or loft type one bedrooms. 355 square feet, 425, maybe 500 hundred square feet. And again, we should be working off very low income which would make those 60 percent of the average median income, not 80 percent. So that would really drive it down. The fastest growing job sector in the city in the last four years has been service and hospitality. 4000 jobs in the last four years. The average wage for those is $8.89 cents an hour. Nobody working full time at $8.90 cents an hour is going to be able to move in any of these "affordable houses". It's just- it's a smokescreen. It really is. And we have to take care of those individuals that have really been left behind by this economic surge that we've had.
MIKE MILLER: So we've talked about housing, we've talked about crime, what would you say is another major issue facing Chattanooga that you would try to fix if you were elected?
COUNCILMAN LARRY GROHN: Well I want to institute not only a affordable housing taskforce but also a works training skills task force. Which will be pretty much be a vocational, technical, construction trades training facility. We will have a central facility-
MIKE MILLER: Like Kirkman-
COUNCILMAN LARRY GROHN: Very much like Kirkman. And then we will also have satellite facilities in the neighborhoods that we will be concentrating on the most. So we want to reinvigorate those neighborhoods. By, not only, creating affordable housing but actually having a program that's going to actually build those affordable housings. And then partner with
developers and especially small business, minority business, construction companies that want to partner in this. And I've already established a 501-3C for this to be operated under. And I've already got an agency in town that's ready to quarterbacked this. So we can pull together all of the nonprofits in Chattanooga, of which there are almost fifteen hundred- and not just these are all different types-- but we have many that are trying to somehow find housing for homeless, housing for single moms, housing for vets, housing for workforce folks. But we have to develop it. The city owns hundreds and hundreds of vacant lots that could be utilized all over the city.
MIKE MILLER: And we're just about out of time, about 30 seconds left. What is the number one thing you want voters to know about you in these remaining 30 seconds?
COUNCILMAN LARRY GROHN: I'm Larry Grohn, I'm not tied in with any power that be group. Whether they be Democrat or Republican. I’m just not there. I'm just a hardworking individual that grew up lower middle class, my dad died when I was 19. I was a single dad for 10 years. I got custody of my kids when they were three and five. I've just been blessed with some opportunities that I took advantage of. And experiences that I rely upon that is going to help me be the kind of person that I think this city needs.
MIKE MILLER: Thank you very much.
COUNCILMAN LARRY GROHN: Appreciate you, thank you so much.