Education
Better Low Income Housing
Pride
Technology
Buy Local
Police & Fire Unions
Parks Department
Better Communication
Highland Lake Golf Course
Food & Beverage

EDUCATION:

The education in our community has reached a critical mass. We cannot grow Richmond without a better-educated workforce and society. The announcement this past winter has actually helped create awareness that this should be the focus of every aspect of our community.

As a city council person, I would like to assist RCS officials in increasing attendance to class by having our City Police enforce newly passed local curfew laws. Right now, police can’t arrest those under 18 for being out past 1am, but we could bring them to the station and call their guardians to pick them up. I would like to have the support the City Administration and the Morrison Reeves Library to adopt three neighborhood resource centers. We remodel an existing home in the Vaile, Fairview and Starr school districts and stock with computers, periodicals, selection of popular books and a variety of activities for students and parents available after hours. It is apparent that our community needs a literacy program that is within reach and staffed after normal school hours that is staffed with volunteers that are committed to helping us solve this communities education failures.

BETTER LOW INCOME HOUSING:

If we face reality, low-income housing is a necessity for this community. Richmond has faced a mired of landlords that are offering insufficient housing and are pillaging these renters without providing quality housing.

If elected, I would support increasing enforcement of condemning housing and beginning the process of rebuilding our neighborhoods. We want landlords that are offering updated electricity and heating and cooling systems. Better plumbing and homes that are weather proofed to help keep out mold and mildew. I want to go after slumlords in this community and hold them to better standards or condemn the homes begin a process of rebuilding and offering purchase options with assistance of state and federal grants.

But some current renters need to take better care of their properties by keeping trash picked up; lawns clean and make sure that there are lights on porches at night. If we give better care to the renters, we will have better housing.

PRIDE:

Of all the issues Richmond faces, this may be the most important and the hardest to change, but it is something we won’t have to increase taxes for or hire more government employees. It starts with a question, why are you here?

Is it because of a job, sense of history, arts culture, what is it? I think it is time for us to start feeling better about who we are as a community. The news isn’t always so good. Some people think Richmond’s best days are past us. I don’t believe it. Sure, we don’t have the manufacturing jobs we once did, but how many communities are facing greater issues with jobs than us? I could live anywhere I want and yet I choose Richmond. It’s a great place to raise a family. Richmond has a rich history of culture that we get a chance to share in. The depot district has seen resurgence in popularity that was done almost without any city support. We are working in the gorge to preserve our rich musical history. We have a parks system with the Cardinal Greenway that can give us reach into the outdoors that a lot of communities don’t have the money to support. We can easily access larger cities for other activities and sporting events that we don’t have here. We have revitalization of the Millionaires row on East Main. We have affordable housing, and a new 230 million dollar hospital which is a major development on the North side. We have RPL, which is a partner the city can’t afford to be without providing electricity and wireless access. And retail development that further supports that we are a retail hub for East Central Indiana and Western Ohio.

We have to start talking and thinking about the good things we have. It’s tough, I know, but if we see what is positive about this community and begin to find out what it took to get there we can apply the same processes and begin to tackle the barriers we do have. Take education for instance, when the community found out that our graduation rate bordered 50% percent. We all as a community rolled up our sleeves and opened up to a lot of solutions that have already generated a freshmen class that had a tremendous cut in dropouts. As of February 2007, RHS had 100% projected graduation for current freshmen, meaning no dropouts at this point. A lot of people think putting Richmond’s hat into the ring of hosting a presidential debate is daydream. 90% of the cities and towns never even thought there was a process of hosting a debate. That means 90% of the United States doesn’t think they are good enough to host the debates or are ignorant to the process. We may not get there, but throwing our name in the hat means we at least think we’re good enough.

What do you say when people ask where you’re from? “You know, where Tom Raper is. Exit 149 off of I70, The home of Dominic James and Bo Van Pelt.” Is there anything you can say that is positive about us? I’m not asking for you to be blind to our negatives, I’m not even asking you to get your hands dirty or volunteer. Just talk about what is good about us, after being discouraged about something we need to fix in Richmond, travel to the depot district, go see a play at Civic Theatre, take a walk on the Greenway, and enjoy a cup of coffee at new Starbucks.

A lot of people have left town because of a better job, general apathy about our community has to stop in order for us to begin healing and moving Richmond forward.

TECHNOLOGY:

Our city’s website is truly defunct and in need of critical updating with information that is updated at least weekly. I support the recent hiring of Programming and Micros to fix these problems. I do recommend partnering with Waynet.org.

We have to become a wireless accessible community by offering free wireless access in the Uptown, Old Richmond and Historic Depot locations. I helped bring Uptown Main Street, Parallax, Summit Computers, and the Richmond Police Department together to discuss the possibilities of going wireless in our ‘Center City” What better way to show progress to potential economic development opportunities than having this important infrastructure in place. We have one wireless hub is up and running with four more coming in the Center City.

BUY LOCAL:

I would support a lowest and best 5-10% policy on purchases made by the city. This could not be extended to sealed bids. It is an important step in building better rapport with existing business by shopping local first! When it comes to goods and services, bond issues, why not choose to do business locally if it is within the 5-10% margin of the lowest bid? I do not support the idea of not granting a tax abatement or create an incentive package for a new company to locate to our county unless they use local contractors and service businesses. As a small business owner, I wouldn’t want to be forced to use local bidders, that could cause price inflation and is an insult to the good business owners we do have. Dot Foods was asked about this idea and they stated they would not locate here if that was written into their agreement.

POLICE AND FIRE UNIONS:

The City Administration has the very difficult task in negotiating the union contracts. As a councilperson, it will be my job to make sure we have a balanced budget. If the mayor agrees to increase city employee pay, we have to make sure we can provide it with the constraints of the budget without raising taxes.

PARKS DEPARTMENT:

As long as the city has a unionized workforce the parks department for Richmond has the right to do as well. I would encourage the department to find possible alternative ways to provide essential services without increasing budget needs. It is important to keep our parks clean and mowed. It is even more important to keep the community informed of activities at the parks with an updated page on the cities website and kept current Public Service announcements on file with local media. Increase interviews on the radio, and WCTV.

BETTER COMMUNICATION WITH PUBLIC:

People have asked me that if elected, just vote no on camera once. A lot of Richmond residents only react to decision that local government makes. Why can’t we do a better job keeping you informed? As an elected member of the Common council, I will do my best to keep the residents informed to the governmental process through WCTV and local radio interviews. No current council person has a regular time period on the air to inform citizens of the current issues and what information council has been provided.

HIGHLAND LAKE GOLF COURSE:

I would support the leasing of Highland Lake Golf Course to a private firm. Council should approve the lease to a firm that reimburses the greens fees back to the Parks Department but the private company retains cart, concession, tournament fees. I also support serving alcohol at the course. A similar issue came up during the Roosters tenure. A compromise was made that you could consume only a limited number of beers during the course of the game. There wasn’t a single alcohol related incident and the park is in a residential area.

FOOD & BEVERAGE TAX: