City board holds candidate workshop
The city board held a workshop for candidates on June 18 to learn about how the Siloam Springs city administrator form of government works and to meet the department heads of the city. City Administrator Phillip Patterson introduced the candidates to the staff and went over basic rules for the election.
“This is something the last couple of elections we’ve tried to get everybody together … give you an opportunity to meet city staff and we talk about a few things like political signs and communications,” Patterson said.
Candidates in attendance were Position 5: Reid Carroll, James Walls, Kevin Williams; Position 6: Bob Hollaway, Nathanael Stone, Carol Smiley; Position 7: David E. Allen, Bob Coleman, Michael Henry, Frank Johnson; Mayor: Judy Nation.
Mayor John Mark Turner also was in attendance along with Directors Mindy Hunt, Lesa Rissler and Marla Sappington.
Department heads present were Don Clark, community development director; Fire Chief Jeremey Criner; Police Chief Allan Gilbert; Steve Gorszczyk, public works director; Finance Director Christina Petriches; Phil Stokes, electric department director; and City Attorney Jay Williams.
Patterson went over a few items during his introduction, focusing heavily on campaign signs.
“I had a meeting this morning with staff,” Patterson said. “We do it every year we have elections to talk about how to deal with political signs.”
Patterson said campaign signs are not allowed on city property. If someone wants to put one on the front lawn of their property that’s fine, he said. However if someone were to put one on Tahlequah Street east of the hospital on an empty lot that would be a code violation, Patterson said.
If a candidate is in violation of this code, the city will notify the candidate they have 24 hours to remove their signs or the city will remove them, Patterson said. The city will hold them at the community development building for the candidate to pick up.
Patterson said signs aren’t allowed at the corners of intersections, however if the sign is small the city might overlook it.
“We may not truly enforce it unless you put a fairly large sign out there and it becomes a traffic hazard and we’ll call you and ask you to get it out of the way within 24 hours or we’ll pick it up,” Patterson said.
Patterson said political signs are always an issue because enthusiastic volunteers may want to place the candidate’s sign on every street corner or any place they can.
He asked the candidates to bear with the city if they should call asking the candidate to relocate their sign and if the candidate needs 48 hours to move the sign, the candidate should just let the city know during the conversation and the city will work with that candidate.
Patterson also went over the Rules and Procedures of the Siloam Springs Board of Directors. He said the city board votes annually to adopt the rules and procedures. Orientation meetings will be scheduled for new directors, Patterson said. The meetings will be with appropriate department heads and issues like budgets, projects and other matters will be discussed.
“It’s not something where you can maybe grab a book and read in 30 days and (say) ‘I know everything there is to know about local municipal government,’” Patterson said.
The last thing Patterson covered was that all candidates are entitled to the same information. Patterson said candidates are welcome to contact department heads for information, but he also asked those department heads to let him know what was discussed. If the issue is about the budget or a city project, Patterson said he will share that with the other candidates.
“The reason being is that everybody knows what is being said and being discussed so we can be on the same plane as to the knowledge that is being passed around,” Patterson said.
This was followed by a question and answer session where the candidates asked different questions of city staff and the city administrator.
The candidates focused on different areas. Hollaway asked how many emergency personnel the city has on staff. Criner told the candidate there are 51 on staff, six administration personnel and 45 shift workers. He also said there are 21 authorized part-time firefighters, but are not counted on the regular roll.
Gilbert said there are 40 sworn officers, 12 dispatchers, six administrative personnel and three records clerks.
Johnson praised the police and fire departments and asked about training issues in regards to current events. Gilbert said he wants to have a round table discussion on these issues. He did not mention if the round table would be an internal one or involve the public.
Walls asked about the city’s public health initiatives. Patterson said the biggest challenge is educating the public on why they should wear masks and continuing to do what needs to be done to practice good hygiene and getting businesses to follow directives of the health department and the governor.