Candidates for Gainesville mayor and District 4 City Commission focused on the issues Thursday night in an effort to attract local voters for the upcoming election.
Speaking in front of about 80 people at the Gainesville Woman’s Club, the candidates were placed onto panels, where they were grilled on fiscal, social and environmental issues.
“On March 16, our neighborhood’s at stake,” said mayoral candidate Craig Lowe, alluding to the upcoming election. “There will be no time for on-the-job training. We need someone with proven leadership.”
The candidates for the District 4 commission, Francis “Pat” Fitzpatrick, Nathaniel Sperling, Mason Alley, Randy Wells and Penny Wheat, were the first to address the crowd.
The candidates spoke for about 45 minutes, and they spent most of their time emphasizing the need to maintain fiscal responsibility during rough economic times.
“This is the biggest thing we face,” Alley said. “We do have a budget shortfall. We need to spend our time and priorities on things that bring us together, and the thing that brings us together is jobs and job creation.”
Fitzpatrick, a homeless awareness advocate, deferred on most of the questions, instead choosing to speak on attaining more rights for the homeless, especially on the subject of potentially lifting the 130 meal limit at St. Francis House.
“We’ve got to feed the hungry,” he said. “I love being in America, where they tell you that you can’t give a sandwich to a child, and we show up in masses and do it anyway.”
But there was another pressing issue at the heart of Thursday’s forum.
The mayoral candidates, Lowe, Don Marsh, Ozzy Angulo, Monica Leadon Cooper and Richard Selwach, discussed their shared opposition to the Koppers Inc. industrial site, which is an environmental concern for Gainesville residents.
“This is the one issue in Gainesville that everyone is on the same page,” Cooper said. “The whole town wants this cleaned up.”
Lowe has worked as city commissioner to address the concerns.
“Koppers came to me and asked how they could be better neighbors,” Lowe recalled. “I told them that the best thing you can do is to leave.”
Selwach, the owner of Best Jewelry and Loan Pawnbrokers, said that more drastic action, such as placing heavy fines, is necessary in addressing the environmental issue of the Koppers site.
Although his fellow opponents used all their alloted time, Selwach kept his answers short and crisp.
“My three main priorities are balancing the budget, balancing the budget and balancing the budget,” he said.
But for the candidates, the election is not just about the issues.
It’s about reaching out to the community.
“I talk to smart people all the time,” Marsh said. “I think to myself, ‘Why aren’t we listening to these people?’ I want to partner with you as mayor.”
Although all the candidates had differences in their political philosophies, they all shared a sentiment of encouraging Gainesville citizens to make the effort to vote.
“Elected officials need to be held accountable,” Angulo said. “And the only way we can do that is to have citizens involved.”
