A large crowd attended the City Council candidates’ forum at the Maryville Social Hall on Monday night.

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Published on 9/29/2009

By Scott Harper

sharper@gtowntimes.com

The city has poor leadership and needs to be more open to the public. Those were among the charges made by candidates for Georgetown mayor and city council at a forum Monday night.

In front of a packed Maryville Social Hall at a forum sponsored by the GOP Patriot's Club, the candidates answered questions about the future of Georgetown and how they plan to make it a better place if they are elected.

The candidates for mayor are Democrat Jack Scoville, Republican Marty Tennant and petition candidates Bob Sizemore and Kizzie Lawson along with write-in candidate Ron Charlton.

Lawson was absent from the forum.

There are three city council seats up for grabs.

Incumbent Democrat Brendon Barber and Democrat newcomers Jeanette Ard and Dedric Bonds will face Republicans Paige Sawyer, an incumbent, and newcomers Bruce Yablin and Jim Moody.

"We have poor leadership in the city. We do a terrible job with PR for those who live here and for those wanting to come," Ard said. "There is a lack of common sense when decisions are made and that costs lots and lots of money."

She said just because things such as vehicles are budgeted does not mean they must be purchased.

Yablin said one way the city has shown lack of leadership is by not having sidewalks on a lot of roads where children are walking.

"I believe they are waiting until someone gets hit by a car before they do something about it," he said.

Bonds said when he travels he sees places that are growing.

"Georgetown in languishing. We need an environment in City Hall" that makes business owners want to locate here, Bonds said.

Scoville, elected to city council in 2005, said the "lack of strong proactive leadership" has hurt business recruitment in the city.

He said recently-hired City Administrator Chris Eldridge is helping to turn things around.

Sawyer said until the population of the city increases to support them, it will be hard to attract new businesses.

"I have presented countless ideas but they have been ignored," he said.

He said the fact the city, unlike the county, has no impact fees should be used as a recruitment point.

"We should use that to entice businesses to come to the city," Sawyer said.

Land purchase

The city's recent $1.07 million purchase of 18 acres of land for a new Maryville fire station provided ammunition for newcomer candidates.

Tennant said he would like to see the vote to approve the purchase reversed.

"It was an unwise expenditure and was done in a rushed manner. They did not even wait for an the environmental assessment to come back before they agreed to buy it," he said.

Sizemore said, if elected, he will work to make sure the city "spends as little as possible to get the best purchases."

Other cost savings

The candidates were also asked by Georgetown Timed Executive Editor Bob Piazza, the moderator, about ways they would help the city be more efficient.

Scoville said the city could eliminate five meter reading positions if the meters were upgraded.

Tennant -- who said he would forgo his first year's salary if elected -- suggested the city look at possibly combining some city and county departments, such as Planning and Zoning, that are duplicated.

Charlton echoed that idea.

"Marty took my thunder about working with the county," Charlton said, adding he would also like to see GPS systems on city vehicles to cut down on gas consumption.

Barber agreed that the use of cars needs to be studied to see if savings can be found but he also brought up the idea of a four-day workweek.

Ard said she would look at each department to see where savings can be found. She said by implementing more technology, fewer hires would need to be made.

"We can save by cutting out duplications of effort," she said.

Miscellaneous

•  Some candidates said they want to see the city televise meetings on cable TV but Yablin said the city is wasting a resource it already has. He said the city-owned radio station (105.7 FM) should be used to broadcast meetings.

• Moody said the city needs to create an "emergency evacuation route" so that traffic can get around when one of the main highways, such as Highway 17, are closed due to flooding. He said the drainage system needs to be completed to help with that problem.

• Sawyer drew one of the few laughs of the night when he talked about trying to make sure city workers are earning their pay. He said there are some workers who give 100-percent.

"They give 12-percent on Monday, 15-percent on Tuesday," he said as the audience chuckled.

He also said he has tried to implement a one-day-per-month furlough which would save the city $260,000.

• The forum was mainly cordial but there was a little tension between Tennant and Scoville.

Scoville, who said there is more to being mayor than being a good speech maker or a technician, added he is "the most capable person" to run the city.

Tennant responded by saying "if Jack was the type of person he describes himself to be, we wouldn't be where we are now."