It probably is either ironic or appropriate that a public official who cut his teeth on leading a visioning process for Chattanooga in the 1980s is embarking on a new mission in 2009.

Mayor Ron Littlefield collected his share of brickbats for using his first four years in the lead city administrative post to chart a plan for the homeless and to focus on brickand-mortar issues such as sidewalks. From his perspective, fixing the infrastructure was a positive.

On the heels of two developers as predecessors in the mayor’s office, Mr. Littlefield sketched out his approach to city government, one that was more readily defined by feet on the street and not by revitalizing the riverfront.

But as an individual who was part of the community discussions that led to the Tennessee Aquarium as a beginning to a downtown renaissance, Mr. Littlefield puzzled some community leaders by moving from the waterfront to more everyday concerns.

There were hints during his re-election campaign that if he remained in office — and thus could not run again — he would chart a different course.

The decision by Volkswagen to locate its

- turing facility here provided

boost to thoughts of new directions and new discussions.

With a background as a planner, the mayor laid out his thoughts to embark on another visioning effort and this time to invite into the conversation young, vibrant citizens who have migrated to Chattanooga because of the waterfront reclamation, the downtown revival, the job opportunities on the horizon and the mobility that today’s workplace offers. In other words, you can select a nice place to live and conduct your business via computers, teleconferences and e-commerce.

For Mr. Littlefield, the challenge is not to re-energize downtown, even though there are some areas that still can use a little polish. He sees a coming together that is centered around “meat and potatoes,” or as he more appropriately terms it, the structure of government.

For him the way government conducts its business, offering many times duplicative services and fewer efficiencies, is an acknowledgment that those in government should work toward a common goal of quality at lower cost to the taxpayer.

The agenda advanced last week by the mayor had a little bit for everyone to latch onto either in support or opposition.

Those who lumped his four-part initiative into a take-it-or-leave-it proposition missed the point.

To simply explain away his initiatives as a backdoor approach to metropolitan government that melds city and county into one is too simplistic.

Are there services offered by the city and county that could be combined? Certainly.

Are there reasons to wrestle with the financial dilemma that local institutions such as the library are shoved into because of the joint-funding arrangements between the city and the county? By all means.

Does that mean that everyone who resides in the city limits of Chattanooga or the unincorporated areas of Hamilton County is prepared to join hands and sing “Kum Ba Yah”? Not really.

But if the community embarks once more on a broad discussion where people with differing points of view across a spectrum of ages and races gather to plot a direction for the future, then Mr. Littlefield has once more started the talk.

To reach Tom Griscom, call (423) 757-6472 or e-mail tgriscom@timesfreepress.com.