 I'm here on a beautiful day with Michael Stopper. We're going to discuss his candidacy for District 4 Commissioner. Why are you running for commission, Michael? First off, I want to thank you for letting me on your show. It's a big honor. But the reason I'm running for commissioner is I love Athens, and I love, more importantly, I love the people of Athens. Being a resident in this district, I have felt and seen a disconnect between the current commissioner and the residents of Athens, especially low-income residents who, as you know, Athens has a tremendous poverty rate right now, and I've seen very little to address that issue in the past four or five. It's been an issue for 10 years, and I've seen very little to address that. And so I saw this need in the community to be able to help these individuals and to just strengthen our community as a whole, make it an Athens for everyone, make it equal for everyone, just where everybody has a good place to live and has the unequal opportunities to succeed as well. Yeah, I think it's been a problem for even longer than 10 years, but it has gotten worse in the past 10 years, that's for sure. So what experience that you have that you feel qualifies you for this position? So the experience that qualifies me, I think, the most, I've worked with students for sensible drug policy here at University of Georgia, one of the clubs here. I worked with them my first two years in Athens. So that gave me a lot of experience just going to city hall meetings. We didn't even just go to Athens, we went Gwinnett County, we went to the state house in Georgia to speak with senators. So that gave me some experience just being able to talk with people and understand how policy works. Moreover, I'm a little bit of a political nerd myself since as long as I can remember. So I know, I understand how a lot of things work. I know a lot of, you can't get a lot of things done first day, just coming in there. But I think the most important thing is to at least try, to at least put effort towards some goals to actually make good change. The other experience I have is just my major itself. I have a lot of experience reading a lot of policy, going through ins and outs of those kinds of things. And I'm continuing my education here at University of Georgia. Part of my degree will be political science. So even more in-depth, which will give me even more in-depth understanding of just how everything works. So I can use that as a commissioner. You said part of your degree is political science? What's the other part? It's an MA and it's international affairs and political science. So my current degree, my bachelor's is in international affairs. So more the international scope of things, but we still deal with a lot of the same things, study a lot of the same theories and just how things work, how people in government work and how everything interacts. Great. So how have you been involved in the local government or in the Athens community over the past few years? So most of my involvement has been limited to working with students for a sensible drug policy within Athens, attending those city hall meetings. I unfortunately just did not have the luxury of being able to go out as much as I wanted to, just between working multiple jobs, being a full-time student. I didn't have that, like I said, that capacity to be able to work with the community as much as I'd like to. Now after graduation, continuing my degree here, I have a lot more time on my hands. And I, like I said, I really love this community. So I had a moment where I just asked a lot of my friends, friends, former professors, just residents within the community about how I could get involved. And I was actually surprised with the amount of people who wanted, who said, just run for it, just go for it. If anything, you at least start a good dialogue for the issues that you're running for. And speaking with certain commissioners on the board, on the commission currently, for example, Commissioner Mariah Parker, she's one of my inspirations for running. And going back to her, Alexa, and she did not have too much experience going into the political field, especially with local politics, one thing that I think that needs to be stressed is you have a lot of people who run, who don't have particularly experience being in office, they're just concerned citizens. And that's how I'm running. Going into any job, going first day on any job, I don't think anybody knows if they're ready for it. The best thing you can do is prepare for it and then go in that first day and start working. So with the knowledge I've had speaking with current commissioners and just residents within the Athens community, I feel like I have a good basis to start moving forward and bring real change to Athens, and especially to the citizens that need it. Okay, great. And so what would some of your priorities be in office if you were elected? I think my biggest priority, and if you look at my platform, you can see everything revolves around solving the poverty issue. And the thing about that is the poverty issue in Athens is just such a complex issue that there's just no one way to tackle it. And a lot of the things I'm advocating for are just things that I feel like Athens should have, in general, just as a city, as a growing and prosperous new city, we need to move towards those things. So one of the big things I want to introduce is a poverty reduction coalition similar to the Athens Civil Rights Committee that's been introduced the past few years, something more citizen-led where we can work with the, that a citizen-led that will work with the commission to not only help better understand Athens' unique policy, or excuse me, Athens' unique poverty situation, but also actively looking for solutions to that problems within Athens. And I think a reduction coalition will go a big step in just showing that the city, especially the commission, is committed to solving this issue because moving here four years ago, within a week, I knew just how bad the poverty issue was in Athens. I remember having an event with my RA first week in and it was just talking about the poverty issue in Athens, the high dropout rate, the school-to-prison pipeline that we, the trend that we have here in Athens. And so I knew that a few days coming in. And I know speaking with members of the community, such as Jesse Hull, who have been here for 10, 12 plus years, and they've seen this same issue, poverty, and it hasn't been addressed at all. So I'd like to seek to go towards that. In addition to a poverty reduction coalition, we'd like to look for a fair free public transportation for all citizens. We already do that for K through 12. It's actually free right now during this pandemic. So it shows that we can do this and we have the capacity to do this. And that will help ease or will help give access, greater access to individuals of low income to necessities in the community. And necessities mean groceries, their job, healthcare services, things like that. Easing access for that helps start reducing the poverty slowly but surely. And then another important thing I'd like to focus on, again, going back to the poverty issue is protecting the rights of tenants and fighting the rent hikes we have here in Athens. Just me personally, my personal experience, I haven't looked for apartment in three years. So between those and now, between that and looking for an apartment now, I've seen from my personal experience to $300 if not more increase on rent. My pay hasn't increased that much and I know that the residents of Athens have the same story. So we need to fight for that. So I'd like to propose, if in office, I'd like to propose a tenant's bill of rights to help ensure the rights of tenants and also working to prevent those rent hikes. Okay, awesome. Well, so I'm asking all the candidates about taxes. So I just wanna know how you feel about taxes generally. So do you think Athens is adequately funded right now? And if not, how would you change that? I think anytime anybody hears the tax words, they freak out. And I think if you ask any city, just not just Athens, they'll always say that they could use more money. And I think that's true for Athens. I think we could use more funding, especially for certain programs, like youth development programs, job training programs, funding fair, free public transportation, things like that. Unfortunately, there's little that is a commissioner that we could do to change taxes. One tax that I would love to see change would, for example, be the property taxes in Athens. Moving to a more progressive system that doesn't treat your local businesses the same as it would treat these large scale developers, such as the mark or the standard, and these other large scale student apartments that you've seen come in. I think the solution for that is seeing what we can do through city fees. There's a lot of things that we could include. I'm a big proponent of just getting UGA to pay their fair share into Athens. They are the biggest employer in the county. And to be frank, they don't give as much as they could or as they should be. I'm honestly surprised just talking to a lot of my friends who are students, then themselves saying, yes, UGA should give back. You can ask almost any student. I feel like the answer will be the same, yet we struggle to find that. So going through fees, going through things like that, I'd like to see funding increase through that. And any new taxes or any change of taxes, I'd like us to see what we can do to exempt or give special benefits to our low income workers in Athens, the people who are really struggling making ends meet, who just can't afford anything extra being taken out of their paycheck. So do you think you would need a lot of extra money to pay for your platform? Or do you think most of the money is there? I think most of the money is there. It's just a matter of using it more efficiently and using it where it's needed. Part of my platform to make public transportation fair free is Athens, even though it is a fairly large city, has two transportation systems if you count the one with UGA. So we could work ends around that just to find a way we could work efficiently to have one route that serves all of Athens, not just specifically the campus and then the rest of the city. For example, there's a upkeep cost just to maintain where you put your money in for the buses. So there's money we can save by moving away from that and using it to better areas. And why should voters choose you over your opponent? I think the biggest thing is, I'm not running because I need or want a second job. I'm running because I care about the people of Athens. I don't have a business interest, no interest with UGA, nothing of those sorts. My only interest is the people and fighting for the people. So those are where my interests lie and I'm very open with talking to the community. Like I said, I feel like there's been a disconnect between the commissioner, between the current commissioner and just the community at large where yes, sometimes you're available to talk but then those talks don't translate into meaningful change that citizens want to see. So I think that's the biggest reason people should vote for me. And I'd like to work with, I'd like to follow the wave that Athens set in 2018. I was very happy with those elections. We got some good progressive candidates into the commission. For example, commissioner Tim Denson and commissioner Mariah Parker, as I mentioned before. So I think me being able, if I was elected, I'd have an opportunity to work with similarly minded people where we could actually get meaningful change passed through rather than just sitting and being content. As you mentioned, as I mentioned, poverty has been a big issue, 10, 12 plus years, but we've done very little to address that. And now that the pandemic is here, we see a lot of those problems exacerbated. And some people are surprised by these problems. They're like, whoa, why is this in Athens? We can't be, as a commissioner, you can't work as a problem arises. You have to work proactively to look to solve those issues. And that's something I'm very committed to. I'm very committed to working with citizens in my district. One of my ideas is to open up a forum. Perhaps a monthly forum where I meet at, jittery Joe say at five points for an hour every week. I'll be there no matter what, whether people show up or not. And people can come talk to me, vent their problems, see what their issues are, especially I think it's important to see through their perspective because everyone sees things differently. So they're important to take everybody's perspective and look for a solution through that. So I think that's something I offer that the current commissioner unfortunately has failed to capitalize on. Okay, well, is there anything else that you would like to talk about that we haven't gotten to yet? I think everything has been well covered. I would like to stress my further support for affordable housing in Athens. So I think that's a big issue as well. I think Athens has reached its limit on large scale developers such as the student complexes that have arisen in the past few years. And for any new future developments, the city needs to use its leverage to make sure that any developer coming in gives back adequately to the community through perhaps a community benefits program or some things of that sort. Then for affordable housing, any new developments that include residential developments need to include inclusionary zoning, which is simply zoning for what the government defines as affordable housing. That coupled with, this is something big in district four specifically, is eliminating the single family ordinance. That limits a large portion of potential residential properties. It limits the opportunity for low-income individuals to be able to rent these properties, which I think is unfair to residents of Athens. But overall, I think that as a candidate or as a if elected commissioner, I'm very open to residents talking to me. I want to work directly. You can't do change if you don't get the change from the community, because then you're just doing what you'd like rather than what the community wants. So I think I'm very open to that community feedback, working with current commissioners to actually make real change happen. For any more information just regarding me and my campaign, I encourage people to visit michaelstopper.org or text me, call me at 678-490-4053. I'm always available and always very well in the talk just to see what you think about Athens and what other people think can be done. So other than that, I'd like to thank you again for having me on your show. Sure, thanks for being here. Thank you.