Council hopefuls state cases
How best to move Pine Bluff forward is the message candidates in the city’s Ward 2 City Council race are working to get out to voters as early voting continues at a furious pace in the run-up to Election Day on Nov. 3.
Both Steven Shaner and Yvonne Denton acknowledged the city has serious, deeply rooted problems, and both said current gains on the economic development front are encouraging. Each also pointed to themselves as the best candidate to help keep that economic momentum moving ahead.
Shaner, 44, is a service manager with Smart Auto Group in Pine Bluff.
Denton is a retired teacher from the Pine Bluff School District who taught for 35 years.
Shaner, a Democrat, won a runoff during the March primary election, and Denton filed as an independent candidate for the General Election ballot.
“Most people in Pine Bluff know the reason I’m running is because I want to see Pine Bluff keep going in a positive direction,” said Shaner. “I want Pine Bluff to keep going in a positive direction. That’s what I ran for and that’s what my platform is about, to address some serious issues we’ve got going on right now.”
Denton said her focus will be working with the City Council to meet the needs of the city while also making sure the Ward 2 constituency is well represented on the council.
“I’m running for the betterment of the people of Ward 2 and Pine Bluff,” Denton said. “We need more unity, to bring the wards together and to bring the council together to make things better for each ward and the city of Pine Bluff.”
Some immediate goals Denton said she has for Ward 2 is to improve the lighting, repair damaged streets, and to promote more community involvement with young people. She said that she also wants to work to ensure that recent gains the city has made in infrastructure and new construction continue and expand.
“I’m very positive about it,” she said. “It’s going in a great direction, I think so.”
Shaner said an area that badly needs attention is workforce development, which he said is critical if Pine Bluff is to experience continued, sustained growth.
“That’s an issue that is holding us back from industry moving to this area,” he said. “One thing I want to do is work closely with Steve Bloomberg out at SEARK, work with UAPB, and address that issue with our workforce.”
Shaner said Pine Bluff has an abundance of vacant, unused buildings, some of which, if the right connections were made, could potentially be used to develop specifically targeted workforce training facilities.
He pointed to the difficulty he has had in trying to attract qualified automotive technicians.
“A good technician can easily make $40,000 to $60,000 a year,” he said. “Those jobs are here but the workforce is not here to fill those positions.”
Denton said public safety is critical to the city’s growth, and to that end said she wants to work with police and fire administrations to ensure both services have what they need to function effectively. She acknowledged that crime is a serious problem the city needs to get a handle on, but said much of the reputation the city has gained as a dangerous place to live is undeserved.
“We want to ensure that Pine Bluff is safe and secure, and that means we have to support one another,” she said. “But that’s more of a perception to me in that we have a lot of people on the outside looking in. Pine Bluff is a great place to live. I’ve lived here all my life and I love Pine Bluff.”
Denton said current initiatives such as the Downtown Streetscape project, the resurrection of the city’s Urban Renewal Agency, and efforts put forth by Go Forward Pine Bluff are examples of diverse interests in the city coming together toward the common goal of revitalizing the city.
“It is very positive and I’d like to see Go Forward doing some work in Ward 2,” she said. “It takes time to do things.”
Shaner pointed to Go Forward Pine Bluff as a major reason he decided to run for City Council, saying it is important to make sure the city’s elected officials continue to support its initiatives.
Denton said she wants to work for the betterment of the city in a variety of ways, but said she wants to make sure the needs of those who live in Ward 2 are taken into proper consideration as well.