8) What are the key mistakes that have been made by the City Council in the past five years?
Mayor
James David (Pete) O’Geary (no incumbent in race): No response submitted.
Jeanne Hight (no incumbent in race): 1. SPENDING TOO MUCH MONEY ON TO MANY PROJECTS.
1. BUILDING THE NEW POLICE STATION.
Ward 1
Mary Emma Evans (Incumbent): No response submitted.
George W. King, Sr. (Challenger): Well, I don’t want to talk too about mistakes of the city council. We have to deal with where we are and move forward. They have done a great job in the recreation of Henderson and also in education with the new library.
Ward 1 At Large
Bernard Alston (Incumbent): No response submitted.
Sara Coffey (Challenger): By failing to acknowledge the impact of our loss of industry, the city council did not make appropriate adjustments to our budget, plans and activities. As a city, we have too many large newly acquired buildings for our level of income and our population size. In addition, our city has failed to promote racial harmony and as a result interracial tensions have increased.
The present council has many achievements. They have moved the city forward in developing a more open and honest government. They have made tremendous progress in restoring our financial health with the unrestricted fund balance as well as having identified new sources of grant revenue. One of the key achievements made by the city council has been the progress in cleaning up previously neglected areas of the city.
Ward 2
Bobby Gupton (Incumbent): Mistakes—-The city should never have used the fund balance to support the building of the new library. The library is nice but we spent money for a much larger building than was needed, and more than we can afford to operate. Operational cost were ½ million dollars for the old library and will soon be over 1 million dollars for the new library. We could have accomplished much of what has been done by better use of VGCC and the many instructors and computers available there.
I am much more comfortable discussing the accomplishments for the last twenty months.
1 Curfew (Youth Ordinance)
2 Paving of our city streets for the last two years.
3 Insured a sufficient supply of water for our citizens and future growth
by signing the contract with the Corps for 20 MGD for the next 30
years.
4 Reactivated the I&I (Inflow and Infiltration) Dept to keep our sewers
clear.
5 Minimum Housing Ordinance
6 An Ordinance that resulted in the cleaning up of the many auto repair
shops and junkyards within the city. (Amortization Ordinance).
7 Yard Sale Ordinance
8 Hiring our City Manager (Jerry Moss)
9 Increasing the unreserved Fund Balance from a low of $22,000 to over
$1,000,000.00.
10 Resolved the long-standing issue of the Armory and old Library.
11 Purchased the E-Civis software that enables all city departments to apply for State and Federal Grants.
12 Closed the Beacon Light Complex consisting of 108 units due to the
deplorable living conditions.
13 Hiring a full time attorney.
14 Hopefully we will pass the Certificate of Occupancy at the next council meeting.
15 Purchased a new 20 passenger bus for the Recreation Dept.
16 The public is now more informed of the cities (Peoples) business due to the openness of the City Council.
Mike Rainey (Challenger): No response submitted.
Ward 2 At Large
Lynn Harper (Incumbent): It is difficult to specify a mistake by a previous Council–I am sure there was a good reason for this at the time, but, in hindsight, a key mistake made by the city council has been the lack of oversight of the engineering consultants for Kerr Lake Regional Water and our sewer system. Millions of dollars have been spent for plans for projects that have not yet been built. Further, there is no immediate priority to build these projects. Will the plans still be state of the art? Even if so, how much interest could the City have earned on this money if we had waited until closer to construction? For this reason, the current Council voted early on to not hire any further water and sewer consultants until a certified Professional Engineer is hired–applications are now being accepted.
A key achievement was jointly made by this and a previous council. A previous council agreed that our Police Department could participate in the federal Drug Seizure Program. In 2005, the income from this program was used for overtime, training, and some supplies. In 2006 and 2007, the FAIR Committee encouraged the current Council to approve Police budgets that expanded funding from Drug Seizures to include Community Policing, equipment including 16 new police cars, the K9 program, and Volunteers in Policing.
Michael Inscoe (Challenger): No response submitted.
Ward 3
Garry Daeke (Incumbent): The key mistake was probably the continued spending on capital projects when industry was slowing, at the same time the State ended some revenues. There was a point, if long term planning was in place, which was more than obvious that there would be a revenue shortfall in the near future. This council inherited this problem. One key achievement would include the expansion at the water treatment plant and the storage contract with the Corps of Engineers, thus securing our water resources and distribution. Support of efforts to clean up the city and create a better housing environment is another achievement that city officials have supported most recently.
Frank Terry (Challenger): No response submitted.
Ward 3 At Large
Brenda Peace (Challenger): No response submitted.
Elissa Yount (Incumbent): Prior to two years ago, a key mistake that the council made was our lack of financial oversight. In June of ’03 the Council was presented a budget by then Manager Williams that could only be balanced by taking $439,000 out of our fund balance. John Wester prophetically warned the council that “if it doesn’t change its course in the coming year, the city will be in trouble next year.” He was right on target. The next year came and $1.2 million had to come out of fund balance to pay the unbudgeted items for the Embassy project. In addition to this poor financial oversight, the council did not insist on good business practices. In my opinion the city was slack in competitive bidding, verifying work before paying invoices, and keeping up with inventory. In addition the council did not acknowledge the serious problems with our sewer system and our housing stock. It was a very frustrating job for me to sit on the council because I felt the people had entrusted me to look after the interests of the city, and I could not change the bad practices with only my one vote. I felt like the people of Henderson had lost confidence in their city government because of lack of stewardship of their public money.
Now, I think the key achievement in the last two years has been to restore this confidence to our citizens. This came about under the direction of our very capable finance committee, Lynn Harper, Bobby Gupton, and Ranger Wilkerson.
Ward 4
Horace P. Bullock (Challenger): No response submitted.
Lonnie Davis (Incumbent): No response submitted.
Ward 4 At Large
George Daye (Challenger): No response submitted.
Lora Durham (Challenger): No response submitted.
Ranger Wilkerson (Incumbent): Going along with ex-City Manager’s recommendations regarding “overbuilding” of new City facilities.
Current Council is key achievement for City in their accomplishments and stability in their decision making.