Cedartown candidates square off at forum
Central themes include growing small business, expand auditorium use, reduce blight
many things proposed that the current Cedartown Downtown Development Authority be disbanded because “in my opinion, they’re incompetent.”
“They have not accomplished anything,” he said.
McNally proposed forming a new development authority that he believes would better serve the community by reducing the number on the board to six, “made up of a cross-section of the community -- getting Hispanics, blacks and whites involved and try to get some monies after the development authority took a look at ideas from local people.”
He then proposed the newly formed development authority work with city and local banks to provide bridge loans to small businesses that will make a return off the repayments over time.
Tuck, who was the last in line to answer the question, defended the track record of the city thus far in relation to small businesses, saying there is ample evidence of what the Downtown Development Authority has achieved in the past years. As examples, Tuck cited the Authority’s work in providing local businesses with façade grants and its efforts to attract entrepreneurs to open shop with tax incentives, grants, low interest loans and more.
She also pointed to recent openings of Cedar and Smoke and Jefferson’s restaurants as examples of what’s been happening locally in the past months.
“We have plenty of incentives for downtown, which are all available on our website at downtowncedartown.com,” she said.
Tuck also defended the city’s position on financial stability following another round of complaints from McNally, who cited the lack of a solid tax base as one of the many problems plaguing Cedartown.
“Without having jobs coming in, you aren’t going to have that tax base you need to be flush and invest in other projects,” he said.
However, Tuck, and later Carter, both pointed to the city’s $1.1 million surplus in the fund balance when the commission approved the 2015 budget.
“We’re very careful about how we spend taxpayer money, and there’s no tax increases because we don’t need one,” she said.
Carter pointed out that the city has typically had to take out a Tax Anticipation Note (TAN) each year, which is a loan cities can use to cover costs during the gap between a new fiscal year and collection of tax revenues. Carter said due to fiscally responsible steps now in place, the city did not have to take out a TAN last year to pay its bills.
Carter and Jameson both said they would continue steps to ensure that the fund balance continues to grow.
Jameson said he also would ensure that the city would always have matching funds for grants, thus avoiding the problem of “overtaxing the taxpayers” to pay for projects.
Each candidate agreed that keeping a city clean was important, but it was McNally who again threw charges out that the city wasn’t doing enough, with Tuck this time defending the work of Joseph Martin, who until recently was the lone code enforcement officer for Cedartown.
McNally pointed to problems with blight and as an example, pointed the finger at scrap yards along East Avenue. He said he doesn’t “understand why they haven’t been made to clean them up, up to now.”
“I think that there’s people in charge, and if they are in charge they aren’t following up and doing their job because they look at it every day of the week and they should be able to see what’s needed to be done and should have made people do it,” McNally said.
Tuck said she agreed to an extent.
“Our public is just not educated,” she said. “It’s not the people our age, you have to start younger…”
She said that she feels that “you want to help people clean up, not take them to court,” and that ultimately it’s up to local residents to take pride in their own property and keep it up.
“If you try to force people, you’re constantly going to be making people clean up what they really should be doing on their own,” Tuck said.
Carter added he felt the first focus should be with students, instilling pride in where they live.
“If we instill that into our young people, we’ll be fine,” he said. “It’s common sense. If you want to live somewhere nice, you have to take pride in it.”
Jameson suggested the city develop a tax incentive for people who take care of problems on their property, for example, a 10 percent decrease in their water bills if they correct code enforcement violations within the time period allotted.
“We should provide something to get the people and the community involved,” he said.
The four candidates also agreed that looking into a local recycling program is a good idea, but McNally took it one step further, proposing the city get into the recycling business directly, bypassing re- sellers of metal, plastic and paper goods collected. He pointed to plenty of empty industrial spaces that could be used, and the fund balance surplus as a means of making the initial investments.
Carter, Jameson and McNally pointed out that recycling starts on an individual level.
Tuck, who is running for her third term as a city commissioner, said thus far the city has found that the return on investing in recycling, including purchasing and placing bins, is too small to warrant the initial outlay of funds.
Tuck, Carter and Jameson also agreed on the final question of the night concerning events in Cedartown. Tuck pointed out that downtown has a great venue space in the Performing Arts Center, but that it is difficult to book bands into the space due to the sometimes large upfront costs needed.
All four candidates agreed that getting bands back into the auditorium space is a priority, but McNally also said he wanted to see more outdoor music festivals in the area to attract people.
Local residents will get a chance to elect two of the four candidates to fill the open seats on the council during the Nov. 3 municipal elections.
Candidates from Rockmart and Aragon did not participate in Tuesday night’s forum, since all are running unopposed on the ballot this year.
Rockmart’s election was called off when no challengers filed to run against incumbents.
Aragon’s ballot will be contested following the second round of qualifying for the seat being left open by councilman Hunter Spinks.