I have always believed that having good data is essential to making good decisions. Over the course of the COVID pandemic, I’ve worked with Mayor Coppinger and the leadership at the Hamilton County Health Department, our local hospitals and medical providers, and numerous community partners to better understand exactly what is happening with coronavirus in our community -- where it’s spreading, how fast it’s spreading, and who seems especially vulnerable.
When everyone has the facts, everyone can make the best decisions for themselves and their families about how to stay safe.
Open data has been a cornerstone of my administration since the very beginning. Our Office of Performance Management & Open Data (OPMOD) works with each city department to monitor their progress, help them work more efficiently, and keep the public informed about what they do. This week, they’re unveiling their new Policing and Racial Equity dashboard, a new tool that will provide an unprecedented level of transparency for our Chattanooga Police Department.
By pulling together and sharing troves of data about our Internal Affairs cases, you can now see exactly how the Department holds its own members accountable when complaints come in as well as how and where use of force is applied. Having these tools not only creates an additional layer of accountability within our department but also with our residents, who will also have the same access to this data.
Of course, the most exciting thing about our open data sites isn’t what I think about them -- it’s what you can do with them. Check out the dashboard yourself. My thanks to Chief Roddy, everyone at CPD, and our outstanding OPMOD team for their great work on this project and providing important data in an easily digestible way.
Hamilton County Schools is now in the second week of its fall semester and I know that every student, teacher, and staff member is doing as much as they can to keep themselves healthy and safe. HCS has its own data protocols that determine when and how they are bringing students back into classrooms, and you can view it here. The rolling 5-day average of active COVID cases is the principal data point they are looking at.
Remember -- the ability for kids to safely get back to school is up to each one of us, and how well we choose to wear masks, maintain social distancing, wash our hands, and avoid large gatherings.
Speaking of Hamilton County Schools, our innovative HCS EdConnect partnership is already producing big results. You’ll recall that this effort will connect every child in our community who gets a free or reduced lunch to EPB’s high-speed “gig” broadband service, at no cost to them. Already, EPB and HCS have connected more than 2,000 kids, with many, many more on the way.
Over the weekend, Governor Lee announced that he was extending his executive order declaring a state of emergency in Tennessee for another month, through at least the end of September. While we know measures like the county’s facemask directive are effective in slowing the spread of the virus, we need to do more before things can return to normal.
Pretty soon, it will be Labor Day, and I know everyone would enjoy having picnics and backyard cookouts -- I definitely would. This year, however, it’s just more responsible for everyone to stay home and stay safe. This is tough, but if we all work together, I know that we can make it.
Thanks for all you do and please stay safe.
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