Budget Workshop Scheduled for Friday

The East Ridge City Council will hold a budget workshop on Friday, May 31 at City Hall on Tombras Avenue, according to a notice on the front door of City Hall.

The workshop is scheduled to begin at 1 p.m., and the public is invited.

Last Thursday, City Manager Chris Dorsey reviewed the proposed $13.88 million General Fund budget. According to a budget summary document that Dorsey submitted to the council, the proposed 2019-20 fiscal year budget represents a 12.5 percent drop from last year’s spending.

In order to balance the proposed budget city officials had to reach into the city’s fund balance for an additional $646,000. The proposed budget does not include any money for an animal services building/dog park, or any funding for a fieldhouse at Raymond James Stadium on property obtained by the City of East Ridge in 2017.

About Dick Cook

Dick Cook has lived in East Ridge since the Kennedy Administration when his parents bought a house on Marietta Street. Dick graduated from ERHS in 1976 before going on to the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga where he studied Political Science. Dick worked for the Chattanooga Free-Press and the Chattanooga Times Free Press for 22 years. Free-Press Sports Editor Roy Exum plucked him out of production in 1989 and gave him a job as a sports reporter. Dick covered everything from prep sports to the whitewater events on the Ocoee River for the 1996 Olympics. When Chattanooga's two paper's merged, he became the Crime Reporter covering both the Chattanooga Police and Fire Departments. He was among reporters who were honored by the Associated Press for the TFP's coverage of the 2002 fog-shrouded crash on I-75 in Catoosa County, Dick and his wife, Cathy, live on Marlboro Avenue where they are seen frequently chasing around their three grandsons.