By Valerie Sliker
Some of the Mayoral and Town Council candidates discussed the town's hot topics at a town hall style meeting on October 20th with less than 25 in attendance. Optimistic solutions were offered with little or no strategy.
In attendance, Christopher Salley running for Mayor; Taylor Love and Kevin Young, for Town Council. Most issues addressed referred back to the need for a working budget and debt elimination. All three candidates are relatively inexperienced and agreed whole heartedly, if elected, to attend budget classes and municipal courses for the newly elected.
Issues of concern among town residents include:
- Water system improvement
- Improve Medical Center
- Reopen town hall
- Rehire former fire department
- Attract new businesses to town
- Fix budget, eliminate debt
- Drug reduction
- Increase police department
- Decrease speeding tractor trailers through town.
The candidates agreed on these issues, but offered no clear path for the future. Salley would like to increase the town limits and reduce business taxes as a means to attract new business. Love suggested caution lights for the trucks while Love and Salley both agreed that extending the slower 40 mph limit would also slow the speeding trucks. Salley would like to restructure the police department into a public safety department. Young's experience with budget and finance would be an asset to both the town and the Medical Center's budget problems. Residents left the meeting with an optimistic hope for improvements, but no idea how these changes would be initiated.