Star Herald questions and answers 1. Tell us a little about yourself, including your qualifications. My parents and grandparents were the Storys and Parishes from Biggers. My wife, Amy, grew up just across the border in Myrtle, Missouri. She attended Williams Baptist College and is now a 4th grade teacher at M.D. Williams. We have 3 children: Jordan, 18, Mallory, 9, and Kennedy, 5. I am a 1995 graduate of Pocahontas High School. From there I went on to further my education at BRTC, and Williams Baptist. After college I took a management position with Arkansas State Parks. During my time with Arkansas State Parks I achieved many firsts, including being the youngest person at the time to receive the Director’s Special Commendation. My park received Park of the Year in my second year, an honor this park had never accomplished. In 2005 I had the opportunity to become an entrepreneur in the logistics industry. This allowed my family to gain the financial freedom needed for my wife to return to college and finish her degree. In 2011 we opened the Home Decor Store here in Pocahontas. Thanks to our outstanding customer base we have been blessed with three great years. 2. Why do you want to be mayor? I have always loved Pocahontas and consider it my hometown. I love the quality of life, the people, the good schools, the natural surroundings, and the comfort of knowing my family is always safe and secure here. I appreciate the solid values and good character of our citizens. When I look around our town I see potential for a growing, thriving, vibrant community, and I want to help make it happen for the benefit of us all, but mostly for a hopeful future for my children and for yours. 3. Construction is underway for the new Peco facility. Why is Peco a good thing for Pocahontas, and conversely, do you have any concerns about their expansion into Pocahontas? I am excited about the new jobs and the opportunity for associated industries that will come as a direct result of Peco. Jobs are the life blood of any economy. I view Peco as a great opportunity to boost our local economy. With great opportunities come great challenges, some known and some unknown. We must be prepared to meet these challenges head on with forward thinking and carefully considered solutions. Some areas of concern include demands on our infrastructure and institutions, and safeguarding our environment. If we anticipate the impact, we can work to make this great opportunity for economic growth a win-win for all of us. 4. How can the city of Pocahontas best meet those concerns? As our town grows, we must address added demands on our infrastructure. Our local streets will see increased traffic and our water treatment and waste water treatment plants will see greater volume. There will be more work for every city department, from our fire department to trash collection. I will be proactive, working with city, county, and state offices to address our needs, and any problems that might arise. I will meet with representatives of the Arkansas Highway Department to plan alternate truck routes and to anticipate high traffic flow areas within our city. In addition, I will work with the city water works, the planning and zoning commission, and the city engineer to develop a master plan to accommodate anticipated growth while maintaining the systems we already have. Through my experience as a supervisor for Arkansas State Parks, I established many relationships with various departments of the state that can be used to our advantage. I will work with them to ensure that the environment will be protected. Finally, law enforcement is one of our communitys most important elements. To insure a safe and secure community, we must properly manage our police department and reward the best of the best with better pay. Excellent law officers, with a “protect and serve” attitude, can mean that fewer new officers will be needed. 5. Five Rivers Medical Center is asking for passage of a sales tax to help with operations. Do you support or oppose this tax, and explain your position. Five Rivers Medical Center is an important and valuable asset to our community. The loss of our hospital and the good jobs it supports would affect Pocahontas and Randolph County on many levels. When answering this question we must look at the big picture. Citizens I have spoken with are concerned with our already very high sales tax level. They question the wisdom of our current leadership in seemingly prioritizing a water park over our other community needs, like the hospital. This question of further increasing our taxes to save the hospital is now before the people and the people will decide. If it passes, a sales tax that puts us among the top 5% tax rates in the state is a concern, because it could have a negative impact on our local economy. I will find ways to reduce the consequences of this. If the tax does not pass, we will need to do everything we can to keep the hospital in place and not lose the excellent quality of health care services, and healthcare jobs, we have at present. Although I am not yet privy to the full financial situation of the city or the hospital, if I am elected, through careful scrutiny, budgeting, and smart prioritizing, I believe Pocahontas can keep the high level of health services we are accustomed to and deserve! 6. The city of Pocahontas has provided financial support along with other cities and counties in northeast Arkansas to the Northeast Arkansas Regional Intermodal Facilities Authority (NEARIFA) in their effort to bring jobs to northeast Arkansas. Will you continue that support? The Intermodal Authority is an excellent concept, in that, in order for Northeast Arkansas to grow and prosper, joining with surrounding towns and counties is essential and smart. I fully support our continued work with other towns and cities to bring industry and jobs to the area. Promoting the nearby transportation hub and making it attractive to industry will produce results that will be beneficial to us all. 7. You have 30 uninterrupted minutes with Director Bennett and the five commissioners of the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Dept. What do you say? I would spend the entire 30 minutes with the Highway Commission discussing whats by far our most important highway concern: the long-planned relocation of U.S. Highway 67 through our area. I would tell the highway commission that relocating Highway 67 away from Pocahontas, as some have suggested, could be devastating to our local economy. We are one of the few cities in Northeast Arkansas that has no access to rail transportation. We rely heavily on the highway. As Peco Foods prepares to build a major chicken processing facility here, with 1000 new jobs, good highway access is more important to us than ever. A major highway relocation would inhibit our ability to attract businesses and industry, since business and industry rely heavily on shipping. Only three cities in Northeast Arkansas have consistently grown in population over the last 15 years: Jonesboro, Paragould, and Pocahontas. We are now preparing for another growth spurt. Taking away our direct highway access could stifle that growth while taking away millions of dollars spent annually by traffic passing through our town. In addition, as I am a firm believer in being a good steward of the tax payers money, I feel a complete route change of Highway 67 to a location far east of here would be a very expensive and unnecessary project that would require land acquisition plus community, environmental and archaeological impact studies. Keeping most of the current route would involve less of these expensive and time consuming studies. Changing the route would cross very valuable farm land. The costly acquisition of this property could have long term negative effects on many local and surrounding farm families, which in turn would have long term effects on the local economy. There are other concerns related to wildlife migration, and antiquities remaining from our Native American history, but the major concern is economic. We must work to do everything we can to keep the general route of Highway 67 intact. 8. If elected, what will be your focus as mayor for the next four years? A governments primary responsibilities are to provide for the safety and security of the citizens, to maintain efficient city operations, and to create an atmosphere that encourages everyone’s prosperity. With that in mind, our top priorities would be to focus on progressive improvements to infrastructure, including streets and our water and sewer system. Pocahontas is experiencing traffic pressure that will continue to increase. Providing relief in this area is multi-faceted, but it is important that we are proactive and fiscally prepared. While the city council controls the city finances, as mayor I will always ask the question, Are we getting the greatest value for the citizens money? Finally, I want to develop a positive working relationship with the city council, the city employees, and the citizens of Pocahontas. I want to create an environment where people are free to disagree without fear of retaliation while working toward a consensus. As mayor, I will be a spokesman and champion for our city.
Posted on: Wed, 01 Oct 2014 21:22:26 +0000
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