City Commission candidates make their cases at Chamber forum
The candidates for Owensboro City Commission were questioned on issues such as homelessness, housing and crime Tuesday night in a forum sponsored by the Greater Owensboro Chamber of Commerce.
The candidates included two incumbents looking to keep their seats, a former commissioner looking to return to City Hall and four challengers who have not held a local office before. The discussion touched on issues as widely diverging as what the city should to do draw more economic development, the city’s role in creating affordable housing and homes for the homeless, and on city taxes.
When asked what motivated him to run, Tyler Goad, Navy ROTC instructor at Daviess County High School, said his focus was bringing Owensboro up to speed to make it a great place for businesses to either build or move to.
“I feel like business is where we can create more hope for this community,” Goad said. “We can expand the tax base without having to raise taxes, and make the city have more money in its coffers to bear on some of the issues and problems we have.”
Jeff Sanford, a former commissioners and real estate agent, said his focus on seeking a new term is because officials “really need to concentrate on industry.”
“We all have to get on the same page and talk to Frankfort as one — city, county, Chamber, EDC, all of us — have to have the same message: Industrial park. We have to have some place to put businesses.”
Commissioner Sharon NeSmith said she is running partly on transparency in government.
“Every time we do something in Owensboro there are 1,700 versions of why we did it and how we did it and who we did it to,” NeSmith said. “I would like it to be very transparent on what happens in our town and why it happens.
“One of my goals is, in whatever we do, we tell you who we are doing it for, why we’re doing it, when are we going to do it, how are we going to pay for it and who it will impact the most.”
Commissioner Bob Glenn said the city has three challenges — access to affordable housing, homelessness and gun violence.
“Those are not easy solutions,” Glenn said. On housing, Glenn said, “I think this commission has done a great job in terms of affordable housing,” but that the city needed to go more on housing and homelessness.
“I’m looking forward to addressing all three of those issues,” Glenn said.
Curtis Maglinger, a small business owner, said, “We need to focus on talent and recruitment, development and retention,” and that he would also stress city collaboration with other local agencies.
“When we all work together, we can achieve great things,” Maglinger said.
Robert Morris, a business owner, said he was motivated to run by reading and watching about local government.
“I grew a passion for it,” Morris said, and that he has a “two-year plan” if he is elected commissioner.
“If you’ve here for so long (on the commission) and there’s still a lot of things you need to be done, then you’ve been here too long,” Morris said.
Regarding his plan, Morris said, “You’ve got to look at the infrastructure, the roads, the overhead electric.”
Rafe Buckner, a business owner, said homelessness is a major concern that prompted him to run.
“For the last 10 years, I’ve watched our homeless population grow,” said Buckner, who is head of the Northwest Neighborhood Alliance. “I would like to see us come up with some affordable housing for that issue, as well as some zoning changes that allow us to do some things different than we have on affordable housing.
“I think we need to turn over every stone if we’re going to be a community that is welcoming of people like we have been,” Buckner said.
When asked what city government could do about crime, Sanford said the issue “starts at home with the parents.”
“A lot of these kids that get in trouble with the shootings … (city government) can set a tone; we can help our police officers; we can give them raises, but these kids, I did a lot of coaching in my time, and a lot of time they didn’t get very good upbringing.
“That’s a pretty tough thing to handle and our police officers can only do so much,” Sanford said. “They’re handling shootings and they’re handing the homeless.”
NeSmith agreed with Sanford by saying, “if you go back three generations, it seems the idea of parenting started changing,” adding that children who were raised by permissive parents became permissive to their own children.
“I’m very concerned about the shootings. That doesn’t sound like it’s Owensboro,” NeSmith said, and that officers have complained when a person is arrested “(they’re) writing up the report and that person is getting in a car and leaving.”
NeSmith said, “We’ve got to figure out who is making these laws” regarding the courts, “and what do we need to do from a Frankfort standpoint and a federal standpoint.”
Glenn said violence “is fueled by drugs and gangs” and that the Owensboro Police Department officers are making arrests on large drug investigations. Regarding teens and children, Glenn said, “they have to have a pathway to hope.”
The city supports agencies that work with young people, such as Western Academy at the Neblett and Breaking the Cycle, Glenn said.
“We will continue to do so because we see that as a pathway and conduit of getting young men and young women away from drugs and a life of crime.”
City facilities should be used for youth activities, Glenn said.
Maglinger said crime “is a complicated issue that doesn’t have a simple answer, but getting the community stakeholders involved and the community involved that’s what’s going to help … I would be one to collaborate with them and with the full community.”
Morris also said part of the issue lies with the judicial system
“I think we need to be tougher on crime and our judges need to be a whole lot tougher,” Morris said.
Regarding crime, Morris said he would also support a earlier curfew “to separate the good folks from the bad folks.”
Buckner said, “We need to look at the root (of crime). We need to support families and we need to support those grass-roots programs that are actually out there touching families and touching these kids.”
Buckner said he would also work to get people involved in youth mentorship programs.
“If you have four or five kids and your a single mother and you’re working eight-hour shifts, and these kids are just out there walking around,” he said. “I think we have to encourage mentorship and get people more involved.”
Buckner also called for people to be more responsible with their guns, citing the number of firearms thefts in the city from unlocked vehicles.
“I think we need to be talking a little bit more about responsible gun ownership,” Buckner said.
Goad said access to good jobs plays a role in youth crime.
“The things we mentioned here point to absentee parents more than parents who neglected to do their duty,” Goad said. “I think that’s part of the economic conditions in the city as well: We have people who are working too many jobs to make ends meet, and so they are absent from the home and absent from their children.”
Goad said the way to keep at-risk youth out of trouble is to involve them in after-school activities and getting teens mentors.
When asked what role the city has in helping the homeless and combating substance abuse, Glenn said the city is working to address affordable housing through the Community Development department and partnerships with Habitat for Humanity. The city also works with local homeless shelters, Glenn said.
“We need to decide … do we go with a temporary place where these people can live, like a facility or an encampment, or do we look at just building affordable housing and getting them in there?” Glenn said.
Glenn, who is on the board of St. Benedict’s Homeless Shelter, said, “rapid rehousing model … appears to be the way to go.”
“You get people off the street, and after you get them off the street in housing, you get them help with drug addiction and mental health issues,” Glenn said.
Maglinger said “there’s no silver bullet” to addressing those issues, but that the city had agencies that work with the homeless and people with mental illness.
“Let’s get them together and find ways to reduce existing problems,” Maglinger said. “We have to work together.”
Morris said he has seen housing that is unaffordable in the city, and that “we need to get money from Frankfort” for housing. “We’ve got to have their help. “A homeless encampment doesn’t sound right to me.”
Morris suggested the city convert old houses and involve homeless people in the refurbishing process.
Buckner city officials “should be meeting with folks that deal with the homeless and should be meeting with folks that deal with mental illness and our police department.”
“We should be coming up with a plan, but I would like to see it as a plan coming from us,” Buckner said.
Goad said there are multiple issues that contribute to homelessness, and that, “what I would like to see is for us to conduct a study and figure out what our location’s homelessness issues are, and start diverting resources to that, in terms of expertise and in some cases, money.
“I’d like to see us route money from state and national sources to this problem,” Goad said.
Later, Goad said, “Building a better business environment is one of the solutions here. By creating jobs, we create hope.”
Sanford said he would support taking the Community Development Department’s Neighborhood Revitalization Strategy Area program, which targets specific parts of town, and expanding it city-wide.
“There are houses everywhere that investors will invest in,” Sanford said. “They can take these houses and put them back on the tax roles, which helps the city, and also gives people something affordable to live in.”
Sanford said the city should work with mental health providers to help address mental illness in the community.
NeSmith said “homelessness is a circumstance, it’s not a crime,” and that, “the key focus is prevention.
“You can’t fix something with a Band-Aid. You’ve got to find the root cause, and then try to start (to) change the root cause,” NeSmith said.
Moderator Jared Revlett, chair of the Chamber Young Professionals, noted the city’s occupational and net profit tax rates are at “all all-time high,” and asked candidates if they would support “local home rule,” to allow cities the size of Owensboro authority to create other revenue options. Those options could include a restaurant tax.
When asked how they would pursue “home rule,” which would require a state constitutional amendment, Morris said, “I think as far as our taxes go, our assessments on our properties have gotten so high. I know the state brings that assessment … but we can adjust it here and help lower the taxes.
“I think our tax dollars are being used not well on projects we don’t need to use them for.”
Buckner said, “Fiscally, I think I’m a conservative person. I’m tight with my own money so I would be the same way with other folks’ money.”
Home rule helped Beaver Dam create its amphitheater, Buckner said. Regarding taxes generally, “I would have to dig a little deeper to see what we can do to lower taxes,” Buckner said.
Goad said of home rule cities “we can’t fix that. We fix that at the state level. It’s our job as city commissioners to communicate our city’s needs up to the state level. That’s what we need to do, and we do that forcibly and strongly to our elected leaders at the state level.”
Sanford said, to lower local taxes, “you have more people paying taxes.”
“That’s why I keep talking about an industrial park,” Sanford said, adding later “the more people we have paying taxes, the less taxes the rest of us have to pay, because we have more people paying into the math.”
“Home rule would be great, but I’m not going to count on that,” Sanford said.
NeSmith said, “I never have understood why we are not all equal” in terms of small towns being allowed home rule, while cities like Owensboro do not have the same authority.
“They have advantages we don’t have because of their size,” NeSmith said of smaller communities. “They get a lot more incentives. I think there should be some fairness there.”
Glenn said, “This commission has been excellent stewards of our money” and has undertaken projects to control flooding in the York neighborhoods, and to build the indoor sports complex. The hotel bed tax for the sportsplex is a version of home rule. We are not allowed to do a restaurant tax, and I’ll be honest, I don’t want a restaurant tax.”
Glenn said the city recently lowered its property tax.
“If there are opportunities to lower taxes, we will,” he said, and that, “the city has never been in better financial condition.”
But with the state eliminating income taxes, that will result in higher sales taxes, Glenn said.
Maglinger said, “I think home rule would be a game changer for our community, and I would support that. “I ran some numbers: A 1% sales tax, you could bring in $13 million to $14 million a year.”
At least one other forum is planned for city commission candidates, on Oct. 4 at Kentucky Wesleyan College. Forums for mayoral candidates are planned for next Monday at the Daviess County Public Library, and at the Chamber of Commerce’s Rooster Booster Breakfast on Oct. 3. The Chamber’s “Red, White & Blue” candidate forum is set for Oct. 24.
By James Mayse Messenger- Inquirer