ARMANI VALENTINO Democrat
1.What are your top priorities if elected into office, and how do you plan to address them?
1. Job creation and business development. Many people struggle to find decent paying jobs to take care of themselves and their family. 2. Housing. We must have affordable housing to handle the current housing challenges as well as housing to handle the potential job growth that will be produced.
3. Transparency and accountability 4. Education and training, especially financial literacy 5. Public Safety 6. Public Health improvement 7. Drastically reduce the number of women living in poverty. The top 3 demographics living in poverty in BOWIE COUNTY are all women. 8. Community involvement 9. #KeepBowieCountyClean initiative 10. #FutureForward initiative to help modernize the infrastructure
2.How do you plan to address and improve the economic development and infrastructure in Bowie County?
Initially, the focus will be to handle housing concerns that we have in the area. One house creates multiple jobs and provides revenue for many individuals and helps multiple families, the city, school districts, county, and the college. For example, when 79 homes were lost at Carver Terrace, it tanked the economy of the immediate area around the community. At $50,000 annual household income for that community, nearly $4,000,000/annually was taken from the community. That started a downward spiral that led to the crime, joblessness, empty commercial buildings, and homelessness that we now see in that area 25 years later. Home ownership is the foundation for building individual, family, and community wealth. In order to get the companies here to create the jobs many desire, we have to make sure we’re training and retaining a qualified workforce. So, this will have to be an investment that must be made and a culture that must be created to inspire people from all over the county to take part in the future of Bowie County.
3.What is the biggest challenge the COVID-19 pandemic has caused for the county, and how do you plan to address it?
I believe the biggest challenge was not knowing what to do or the unknowns from a much higher level, state and federal. Every county is different and has different needs and challenges. I believe in Bowie County it hurt the small business owners the most, which ended up affecting thousands of families. I have a #BuyBowieCounty plan that I believe will help small business owners to recover loss revenues and create an increase in local economic trade and commerce.
4.What are your thoughts about the county’s finances, and what programs would you like to see added or done away with?
NO COMMENT.
5.Under what circumstances, if any, would you consider raising taxes?
Raising taxes would be an absolute last resort! As a multiple property owner, raising taxes would not be a good thing for anyone, including me. Raising taxes as a means to increase income should never be the first resort. Forcing the appraisal values on properties to the maximum in an attempt to increase revenue shouldn’t be the answer either. Individuals vote for public officials they believe will be industrious and creative enough to create income producing opportunities to grow the money they as citizens work hard to pay in taxes. That takes commitment, new thought, new energy, and individuals who look out for all people in Bowie County when making their decisions.