 You have one minute, when we ask you your questions, you will have one minute with a 15 second grace period, okay, with a 15 second grace period to answer. Ms. Harold, my mic keeps going off, okay? So, we're going to be mindful of that again. We're going to ask you some questions, and we'll take it from there. So, at this time, to make sure they won't be able to hear you, sir. All right. My name is Matt Pulver. I've been in Athenian now for 25 years. I'm happy to have set my family's roots down in Athens now and love this city like everybody here. For most of the time I've been in town. I've been working toward living wages for people who work here in Athens. As we all know, inequality is something that's been with us for seemingly forever. And so we focused on UGA. It's the biggest employer in town. It's the biggest employer in this part of the state by long shot. So I helped lead a movement that more than doubled the wages and salaries of the lowest paid people on campus. And that's done a lot to help bring the poverty rate down in Athens. It used to be dang near close to 40%. Now we've gotten it down to just under 25%, according to the last census. The other things that I'd like to focus on, of course, affordable housing. Affordable and available housing, right? And that's for everyone. That's for, you know, our unhoused neighbors who need a place to stay tonight. That's for renters who can't afford to, you know, stay in their apartment. The rent keeps going up or they can't find a place to stay. It's like a really tragic game of musical chairs. Middle class families who can no longer. All right. Thank you. My name is John Culpeper. You'll hear me. My name is John Culpeper. I'm born and raised in Athens. This is where I was born, where I started my first job, where I attended the University of Georgia, where I met my wife, Catherine, and where we were raised in our family. And also where I started my business, express employment professionals here in Athens. I love this town. I've got a passion for this town. We've got a lot to be proud of here in Athens, Georgia. But also we've got some concerns. Crime is rising. Property taxes are increasing. And local employers are struggling to find employees. What I'd like to do is for the last 16 years, my business, express employment professionals, has been helping employers find quality workers. I'd like to use that experience and connect, create educational partnerships with the local industries and the schools to set up curriculums for all students who did not wish to go for a secondary education, set them up for successful careers. Also. Thank you very much, sir. Appreciate it very much. Thank you, Thomas. And I'm a part of our project for UMG with a Bachelor's in Communications and Organizational Leadership. I wanted to manage this, but really have a burden for community and a burden for youth development. And so I even started a nonprofit called United Community Outreach, which has several programs including me touring a men in a new program called ICANN that addresses bullying, gun and game violence, and drugs. And so when this opportunity came for me to run, I was in a lot of outreach already in the East Atkins area. And so I just have a desire just to make our community better by way of community and collaboration and building bridges to make sure that I'm advocating for the resources that are needed on the East Side of Atkins. Thank you. Thank you. Won't you please give your district every one of them? I'm running for District 3, which now is licensed in a row. I'm running for District 7. I'm running for District 7. I'm Matt Pulver. I'm running for District 5. And I'm Alan Jones. I'm also running for District 7. I grew up as a product of the public education system, as is everyone in my household. After I got done with my undergraduate, I started my career in the ministry and in counseling. And then 30 years ago, I moved to Athens as a career counselor to help people find employment in that area. Since then, I've founded four businesses. I've worked with a startup company where I went from managing myself to 120 people over the course of four years. And for the last 18 years, I've been working as a work-from-home guy in healthcare technology. I got involved with the government a while back with some of the local issues. And I started out talking with my commissioner. And then I started talking with all the other commissioners and the mayor. And then it was transportation and public works. The police department, the sanitation department, the stormwater people, planning, leisure services, all those people. Thank you. My name is Jared Bailey. And I came here 45 years ago and got a degree in business management and became an entrepreneur. I started several businesses and organizations that helped establish the reputation of Athens as a music and arts hub and helped create a lot of tourism. After that, I became an economic development professional working for the Economic Development Foundation. Then I became a Athens-Cart County commissioner for District 5, which is where I'm running again. So I am the only one of the three candidates running for District 5. It has any experience as an elected official. I think I've got a very good record as an elected official, especially with constituent service. And I think I'm the person for District 5 again. Thank you. I'm going to stand up because I'm short. And I've seen some of you asking people to do that. So I am Audrey Hughes and I'm running for District 1 commissioner. And my campaign is about hope. And I don't know if you've noticed my colors, but they are yellow and blue and green and that's a little tribute to Ukraine. So I'm going to end that there. There's a long story behind that, but it has to do with my son, who's a UGA student. And he said, when I told him I was going to run, he said, well, Mom, if you do, you have to help Ukraine and you have to help kids. And I said, you know I'm going to do that. So I'm a teacher. I have 30 years of experience and I've been in Clark County for 10 years. And I think I'm the candidate who needs to be on this stage. And on the commission, I'm the only one other than Mayor Gertz, who has actual classroom experience and I've held out for 30 years and I will continue that. But I have a unique perspective that I'd like to bring to the commission. I've lived other places that have very low taxes and I'd like to bring that knowledge and that experience to the commission as well. So that's me and I'm going to pass it on. I don't need to. Never mind. Good evening, everyone. My name is Tiffany Taylor and I'm running for District 3 Commissioner. I was born and raised here in Athens, Georgia. I am the third generation here in Athens, Georgia who has endured a lot of poverty living on the east side of Athens, which is the reason why I'm running. I have a nonprofit by the name of Mothers of Black Sons. Most of you may know us by mobs. Our goal and intentions are to teach our young sons how to value themselves in a system that devalues them. So that's all. Thank you. Ms. Thornton. Thank you. I'm Evita Thornton. I am running for Commissioner 9. I thank God. Okay. I'm running for Commissioner District 9, unopposed, but I did want to share with you if there's any questions or concerns about my platform. In 2018, when I first ran, I was very optimistic. I thought we were going to make some changes. I thought my platform was realistic, but now I know there's policies and procedures and things that are barriers to our dreams. I do not plan on being a commissioner for the rest of my life. I want to educate this community on how we can do business in this community and how we work together with other commissioners to not just promise programs for a certain group of folk, but for all groups of folk. And one group that nobody talks about is the elderly, and I've gotten older, so I'll be fine. Thank you very much. Good evening, everybody. I'm Patrick Davenport, and I'm running for the Great District 1 Commissioner and the Great District 1 Commissioner. I'm 8th Generation Athenian. My family has been here for quite some time, or at least in the Athens area. I'm currently the Vice President of the Georgia Legal Services Program, which I've been a member for eight years, and we've been working with low-income individuals across the state of Georgia. I'm also on the board of the Economic Justice Coalition, and for the past 20 years, the Economic Justice Coalition has been helping those individuals who are not registered to vote to get out and vote and to power them to vote. I'm very proud of the work that me and my fellow colleagues have accomplished over the past four years, or three years. Of course, we could do more, and I have been a servant for the resident of Athencar County for all my life. My beginnings began in the church, and 99% is going to end in the church. So I thank y'all for your time. Thank you. Thank you very much, candidates. We do appreciate that. And if your seating needs seem tight downstairs, we do have seats upstairs in the balcony area. We don't have a seat. There's some empty seats up here in the front, but if the seating seems tighter, you want to be conscious about keeping your social distancing. Let me get you to go around that way, sir, because there's a camera right here, okay? You ever have them watching this? Put this thing live streamed, so we won't want to interrupt that with us walking across the front of it. So we're going to be, you know, at that particular time, what we're going to do with our question is that we're going to call out respective districts. They call five and seven, or five and three, or, yeah, we got two candidates for seven here tonight, two for five, two for number three, one for nine, and two for number one. So we may be calling out probably two districts at a time to answer these respective questions, and then we'll move to the next one, and I have an opportunity to ask others. So I hope everyone's taking some good notes out there. Is that right? All right? Again, you have 60 seconds to answer your question with a 15 second grace period on your mark. Get set? Well, I'll ask the first question. What you didn't know is that you had to give an elevator speech tonight, and what Mr. Nonnelly didn't tell you is that you own an elevator with a building with three floors. So now you're on an elevator with a building with one and a half floor. What that means is you better speak quickly, because he's going to call time. So we're glad to have y'all mayor candidates. I think these are going to be his same rules. So hopefully y'all are prepared as well to give some quick answers and a quick introduction of yourself. I'll start with the first question tonight, and Mr. Nonnelly, your math, I'm a lawyer and we don't do too much math except divide by three. So I'm going to let you call out the districts after I repeat the question. After I state the question, the first question is, what do you think Athens Clark County's greatest need is? It's a two-part question, which makes it extra difficult because you only have one minute. And what is your solution and or plan to solve that need? And this goes to district number one and district number three. District number one and three, we're going to solve the far end. If you're a candidate from one of those two districts, start in now. District number three? I think the biggest issue that would add to our community is division. I believe that there's no community without unity and what I plan to do is be a bridge to be able to make sure that the right people connected, the right organizations connected, we come together as a community to solve the issues that stand our community. I believe that a lot of times we have one person can solve everything, but I believe as a collaborative effort, we're able to come together, we're able to achieve more. And so the biggest thing that I have seen is just division. We have the resources, we have the people that are giving, we have the solutions. How do we bring that together to get to address our issues to make our community better? Miss Hughes? I think our biggest issue is we have way more need than money we have in this community. They can give the money back. So what I say we do is we have a low tax base and you're probably thinking what does a teacher know about saving money? I've been doing this for 30 years. Saving money living on a two string budget and I've lived in some places that have super low taxes. So I've got some ideas, I've got some ways to do that. We put money back in people's pockets and let them spend it the way they want to. Thank you. I think our biggest issue also is division. There are a lot of high rollers here in Athens, Georgia and a lot of time the low rollers are overlooked. The low rollers are the ones that pay their taxes and go to work every day where the high rollers get rich. I don't stand here for division but I do ask that we all be included and not overlooked. My goal is to inform my community on their rights and on their rights, their political rights as well as their tenant rights so that they may be included so that they know their options. We'll have a church up in here. So the greatest need and access I still feel is true is poverty. Poverty is a multifaceted issue that is hard to come back and also hard to comprehend at time. Poverty has led to homelessness. Poverty has led to increasing crime and the best way we can tackle poverty and also considering the fact that we have University of Georgia here, Piedma, Athens Tech and all these wonderful institutions of higher learning that we shouldn't have this level of poverty in Athens. We got some great jobs out there that are employing at higher wages now more than ever before because our workforce realize that to attract them to keep dependable people they need to pay better but we still have a high rate of poverty and the best way to tackle that is to work for development, get our certificate training, get our people educated and trained and just make sure that we understand the people who are most vulnerable understand what's going to work on time. And I'll ask the next question which follows up on Mr. Davenport's last discussion and which is near and dear to my heart. I used to work for the Clark County school system. I used to be their internship and apprenticeship director for the entire district. So the next question is what do you think should be the approach to workforce development in this community? And that will go to district 5 and 7. 5 and 7. Where we need to be going with workforce development is higher wages. Period, point blank. We have got to push wages and salaries for folks in town. It's been as long as I've been here we've been struggling with this problem and though we've gotten it down some it is the central concern. Everything else is downstream from that. We talk about crime, we talk about poor performance in schools all that is downstream from crime or sorry all that is downstream from economic inequality and poverty. So we have to be focused on that and that's what I intend to do day one. I've worked on it basically my entire life here in Athens and if I'm lucky enough to be on commission it's what I do day one, minute one. We touched on this last Monday talk about higher wages. Workforce development you just can't make people have higher wages. You've got to develop the workers. We've got a huge opportunity in this community tons of jobs, tons of great jobs. We've got to create curriculums we've got to partner with the school district and work with them on getting the local industries involved so when people graduate from high school they can go directly into the workforce if they do not have desire to go to a secondary education. Also I was talking about the work for the school district. He said what goes on outside the four walls of the school reflects what goes on inside the school. We've got to work on that and we've got to help our communities. But workforce development is the key to getting our community out of poverty. We can't require employers to have higher wages. They won't come here. We've got to show them that we have a skilled workforce and they will come. Hi again Alan Jones District 7 I pretty much agree with most of or not everything John said. We do need to expand our youth development programs. I'm glad to see that the Career Academy now has extra space because the school board has moved to another space that that's going to be great that that's going to grow. I think we as a body need to support like great promises and great promise partnership and construction ready and the Athens mentor program and a lot of those pieces which are really important. But our leisure services we need to make sure we're giving them all the needs that they have for programs like Grand Slam, the after school programs and make sure that they're able to give some workforce related training to get the kids ready for their next step in life. I think everyone has spoken pretty well about this subject but I think it's a too wrong problem both sides are brought up. We do need to make sure that there are programs and that we as a county government support those programs to train people for work to try and get people ready and remove any obstacles they may have. The other side of it is economic development. We need to attract businesses here that pay better wages. Now we do, there are a lot of jobs out there right now that pay pretty good wages but by being a high quality community that people love and we make it attractive to employers and they can bring their businesses here and have good wages for our community. So basically it's higher wages recruit more businesses here through economic development and encourage entrepreneurs. We need to do that as much as we can. So it's both help provide training and attract businesses. Now it's a follow up question I'd like to ask District 1 and 3 to come back as well as Ms. Thornton. Athens Technical College has an outstanding program called Manufacturing Ready. I'm in discussions with employers every day on what can we do to hire people for an opportunity to develop a career not just a job but a career. What is your approach? Districts 1, 3 and 9 what is your approach towards an entity like Athens Technical College in this Manufacturing Ready program? So with you. So during COVID we started throughout the prosperity package. We had a collaboration with Athens Tech and the Manufacturing Ready program as well as other community partners in Athens to and Clark County School District to work with our community and to find out better ways how we can, how can we touch those most vulnerable and get them to be work ready. I promise to continue that partnership with Athens Tech and our other community partners to making sure that every person that that are falling by the wayside understand the opportunities that are out there so they can get those jobs and get those highway jobs and higher pay. Mr. Orton? I think that we keep reinventing the wheel. We've had some great great job training programs in the past. We've had JTPA we've had Weed & Seed we've had the DARE program and I'll just be honest with you it seems when programs work somebody wants to come in and change the direction. A lot of the young people that I see are not the young people we're talking about. They got jobs they got a home they're raising families. We do not go back and say how did you make it? How did you get it done? I think what Athens Tech does and has always done has been a reach out to the community but we need to make sure that we connect Athens Tech Marvin shouldn't be out here recruiting himself. Whatever kid we know we need to be sending that way for some of those programs. But we've had programs that have worked but we just erase and start all over again and I think we start all over again so some of us can keep a job. Amen. Tiffany? I would like to piggyback off what President Thornton said. I think that we should also provide incentives because a lot of our youth are about making money. They have responsibilities. Adults as well. So without incentives it's going to be hard to get anyone to come into anybody's program because they don't see the point and I'm speaking from my community and myself as well. Okay. Asia? A lot of times if you can't handle what they don't know and so making sure that people are aware of these opportunities in Athens States and understanding that this is a vegetable to them. I think with this younger generation we want everything, they want everything to be given to them. And workforce program teaches them how to work in building ethnic, work ethnic in the young people that they are looking for jobs and training because everybody then I go to college and they have a gift and they have something that they want to do that's more hands on. So I think having this type of development in youth programs includes and prepares them to be able to transfer into work-ready programs where they can have jobs and build their skills that they can make a little wage. So District 1 I'm Audrey again and my first job out of college was a job JTPA trading coordinator and I worked with high school students that had jobs and I'd go to their job site check with them, check with the employer it was really a good program and I'm glad you mentioned that because we really need that and we also need some programs and I think Athens Tech does a great job and I would support anything that would get more skilled labor because we do have a shortage of skilled labor in this country. I would support and have a second career and do something different to learn a trade. I would love to go take classes and learn how to be an electrician I've kind of been doing some of the side in my house myself but I think there are a lot of adults who would benefit from that maybe they're in a job they don't love anymore and maybe they want to do something with their hands and get out and see the public and work with folks so yeah I'd be 100% on board and I'll stop my time actually let me just make a quick community note here I'd love you to silence your phones I'd love you to silence them or even maybe cut them off alright let's do that and the next person who's phone rings we're going to charge you $5 we're going to give it to Reverend Mosley to put in his basket on Sunday they're going to get $10 but make sure mine cut off yes certainly we can amend our format if you would please state your name and your district quickly your name and your district we will not use that against you as far as your time I do have a question we're receiving some questions from the floor and I will combine some of these questions that we had online that some of the candidates had an opportunity to answer as well let's move to our next question which is the category of criminal justice and crime this is a two part question so pay careful attention the first question is describe policing and criminal justice in Athens and the second part question from the audience is what will you do to reduce arrests and incarceration rates in Athens Clark County Mr. Lonely will tell you your order five and seven five and seven all right so it's describe policing in Athens is that correct and so I'll repeat the question one more time it's two part question describe policing and criminal justice in Athens as it stands today and what will you do in your role as a county commissioner to reduce arrests and incarceration all right my name is Matt Pulver running for district five commission you know I think we've done a lot better in town especially over the past three or four years the election of Debra Gonzalez as district attorney has helped you know I think one thing we need to do is relax the sort of prosecutorial aggression that's marked this country for the last 40 or so years ever since Reagan the war on drugs incarceration we've been on a bad path for 40 years 50 years even we must do things like you know decriminalize marijuana there's no need to send somebody to jail or prison for you know possession of simple possession of marijuana and again I'll return to poverty and inequality that is the criminology literature is clear on this the reason that we have high crime rates wherever we have crime rates in this country it is due to inequality you take care of that you take care of crime John Culpepper district seven so talking about the current criminal justice and public safety we're understaffed our police force is understaffed we've got 47 openings we lost a lot of tenured folks and a lot of experience we've got to support them and provide them everything they need for all the training and resources and they need to know that the local officials are behind them we also need to work hand in hand with the community so that the community understands and is working with the police force and understands that they're trying to help them and look out for their best interest the local governments number one thing we need to keep our community safe and secure and that's what we need to work on as for incarceration it starts with our youth we've got to invest in our youth we need to give them the opportunities to have mentor programs after school activities and community centers not everybody has the opportunity to have a positive influence on their life we need to give everybody that opportunity and educate them start with our youth thank you again I'm Alan Jones district seven and policing is really about keeping us all safe every one of us and there's a number of things that we can do yes we do have a a lot of openings in our police force and in our jail staff that we need to fill and we also need to incentivize those people to stay as long as we can a couple of weeks ago I was at a community policing event over in the capital and things like that where the police are engaging with the community they're getting to know the people they're getting to know the kids so at a young age the kids are having a better relationship with the police officers that is key the Divergent Center we put up about 10 years ago to help people avoid going back to crime after they're getting out of their sentence in giving them the skills that they need to work is great if we still don't have the same type of a situation for women or people that are having an ongoing mental health issues which I think we should work on but those are all important work for we've already talked about youth development training up our kids is what's going to keep them off the streets give them productive society and there's a lot that can be done but I think we're doing a pretty good job with what we have we just need to keep going I'm Jared Bailey I'm running for commissioner which I've been for before I ran for commission I was on appointed by the mayor on the community oriented policing advisory committee so I learned a lot about how we we run our police department and how other communities do then I took the citizens police academy courses too which is very useful and I think I've recommended that anybody out here still have a pretty good idea of how we run things and we train our officers better than pretty much any other community in the southeast we do put a lot of resources into that and then we lose them we lose the best ones they get lured away by better pay and jobs in other communities that they're basically getting better incentives when I was a commissioner we voted on some incentives to keep the officers here giving them some stipend for housing allowing them to drive police vehicles home you know if you got well trained police then they know how to deal with the public and one of the new systems new programs that they put in place I found very exciting time they're sending out mental health professionals along with police officers and they're sending out mental health professionals thank you think that was all for that question the next question y'all going to get tired of me in these combination questions but I'm trying to make sure the ones that we're receiving that everyone's question is asked so I'm trying to combine them here there was a question about SPLOS projects there's a question that we're going to do to make sure that grant monies you can fill under blank for whatever monies you won't care SPLOS any other grants that the county receives what are you going to do to make sure that those funds are fairly divided between organizations or individuals who apply and make sure they are representative of the community as a whole that'll be for one, three and commissioner one, three so I think what's important is to advocate for your district as a district it's important to understand what you make of East Side 60% minorities and so we have to be able to hear what the community needs and be able to hear their concerns and so I plan to gather and have meetings and you know kind of rallies what we've had in the past talking to people of the community and they have issues with I've had people come to me about getting speed bumps in the neighborhoods and I think that the big thing is being able to hear what the concerns and needs are and advocate for those that's the job of the commission and to submit proposals concerning what the community needs and with the government to do that we have to be aware, we have to be educated and what the community needs and what the concerns that are happening in our history so that we can advocate for what needs to be done so that's how it works. Thank you. I'm Audrey, district one and I think with the SPLAS projects just to make sure they're equitable and I'm a science teacher what I would do is honestly get a map of the county and plot which areas we're getting the money which areas and look like okay so where's district one are they on this map and if not let's figure out why they're not and some things that I've been hearing a lot from folks going door to door and they're calling me they're emailing me like why are we still without sewer why are we still without trash pickup now I'm not I don't have a solution for that but this is what people are telling me when I go door to door and so what my job would be to just investigate what's going on where's the breakdown they tell me they were promised these things in 1990 and 1990 I was 19 years old so in college in Statesboro at Georgia Southern so I wasn't here making those decisions but what I am trying to do through open records request is I am trying to figure out what was going on so that's step one whether I'm elected or not I'm going to stay on this train and figure out what's happening because people in district one want to know and half of the district says they were promised these things and they don't have them and again I don't know what the solution is going to be in any of these problems it may be that we work with Athens Tech and have somebody come out teach us how to take care of our septic tanks that's my solution I'm Tiffany Taylor running for district three and as commissioner I would listen to my community I wouldn't just go on my own whim to assume I know what they need but I would listen to each and every one of them like now my community is in need of speedometers they feel like we receive speedometers but once they begin to work they got moved I want my community to know that they are heard that they are felt so as commissioner I will with addition to making policies I would see what I can do myself to help my community because my community is always so overlooked the bus stops I feel like on my side of town we don't have the same bus stops as everyone else my neighbor miss many she sees rain sleet or snow at the bus stop with no covering so as commission not only will I submit proposals but I will be a listening ear for my community and I'll take it within my own hands if I have to to get what we need I guess I I'm not as idealistic as some of the other folk that has spoken because no matter what you do you have to have a majority vote you got to have a majority vote one of the things that I think that splice and tea splice should do whatever bucket of money is going to be raised each district should get a pot of money so their constituents can decide what to do instead of having us fighting on youtube every district should get a pot of money and then we work with our constituents and then when we walk around town we can say our dollar our penny paid that our penny paid that I'm sorry most of us do not do the firefly trail let me just say it like it is the other thing is we want to talk about youth development why aren't youths being involved in these conversations that are going much more than some of us we're going to be dead and gone soon and the youths got to make up for the mistakes that we've made when we can invest in them early we talk about you thank you he said raise the floor yeah I'm going to switch seats with Andrew after throwing no more okay so three CEP communicate educate and participate obviously we all know which communities are the ones that are usually left out of the SPOS project and the SPOS process but as a commissioner we need to do a much better job working with staff and the community and educating of the timeline, deadlines of the process of what these processes, when these projects are coming online so just communicate with the public letting them know especially to our marginalized communities and say well you have these septic tank issues you have these sidewalk issues here's a SPOS project here's some funds let's apply we'll show you how we have wonderful staff that will help you educate you on how to apply for these for the process but and as well getting people to participate that's very hard thing to do because most of these activities take place around six o'clock and unfortunately sometimes the working class people are working at that time but just hearing from the public hearing from you people is the best way that we can make sure that each rock is overturned and everybody's voices can be heard thank you sir our final question for district 5 and 7 tonight how will you as a commissioner along with the mayor permanently eradicate homelessness in Athens, Georgia to ensure that we have more affordable housing eradication of homelessness and more affordable housing 5 and 7 well unfortunately there's no way to eradicate homelessness at a local level it's a national crisis we have let people fall through the cracks for 40-50 years now after deindustrialization we don't fund mental health we don't fund drug addiction programs we've collectively failed and so every city of any size in this country faces a homelessness crisis now what we can do for housing we've already done really great work under mayor Gertz and the current mayor and commission we have done things like inclusionary zoning that just passed where there's going to be the inclusion of truly affordable units in the new complexes that go up with just market rates with rezoning we have all these vestiges of a time in this country when basically we lived in apartheid in this state right and the zoning laws were drawn to exclude black people let's just say it from white communities and those zoning laws are still in the books and what they're doing is they're messing everything up because now we can't build the right smart innovative modern types of housing that we need to build thank y'all John Colpepper District 7 there is a way to end homelessness it's a program called Built for Zero if you look at Greenville, South Carolina Chattanooga, Tennessee all around Alabama those communities have gotten to what they call functional zero homelessness where they intake the homeless when they come into their community and decide what program they want to put them in is it mental illness? is it drug? what is it? put them in those programs to get them out of the cycle if we just say there's no way to end it we're never going to end it we've got to figure out a way to end it and Built for Zero is a great program to do that I challenge y'all to go look at these other communities and look at their homelessness and see how it works as for affordable housing there's two offices of affordable housing there's two different things property taxes are going to go up too we need to look at rolling back millage rate to offset these property taxes so people can afford to stay in their homes also for look at freezing property taxes for seniors and low income individuals so they can afford to stay in their homes as for other affordable housing we need to work with local developers and incentivize them to redevelop some of the older apartment complexes we've got a lot of new bedrooms coming online from the University of Georgia students they're going to eat students thank you hi Alan Jones at District 7 again there's a lot of things we can do we have some great organizations here in Athens that are working on the homeless crisis but we're never going to solve it there's always going to be problems mental illness is not going to go away which is a problem for many of these people addiction is not going to go away but we need to make sure that those organizations are being funded are getting what they need but one thing we're not doing is we don't really have a command center that is saying the end goal is to get everybody into a more stable housing situation and funnel all the resources toward that end goal so it's not incentivizing a place to the more beds they fill the more money they get the more meals the more money they get but the more people that we're getting into sustainable housing whether that be their own home or whatever that is is something that we can work to to bring that down but we do have some great partners advantage is doing a great job we need to make sure that we keep working with them because so much of our homeless problem is a mental health problem or an addiction problem and we need to work on those things that we have housing for these time thank you jared bailey district 5 that's a question I need a heck of a lot more time to discuss but obviously not everyone is homeless for the same reason a lot of people who are really not employable because they have mental health issues substance abuse issues which is also a mental health issue I was on the what was the president of the board of the northeast Georgia mental health association for years and a state delegate to the state mental health association just about the time when the state stopped providing as much as many resources for mental healthcare throughout the state and that's when we started seeing a boom in the homeless numbers now there's a lot of folks out there just hardworking folks who can't make ends meet with living out of their car living in the woods and still working too it's a very complex thing some of it is there are people who are not really employable because they've got issues maybe they can be helped through counseling and everything else to get past those issues and then there are people who are underpaid and don't have the skill sets they need to get paid better so there's a lot of things involved and we just need to keep that in mind. Thank you. Let me thank each of you with the candidates tonight with regard to your answers give them a big hand if you don't mind finally tonight candidates you got 60 seconds to convince that voter out there who may be on the line about district 7 or 5 or 3 or 1 you got 60 seconds and this is the elevator speech the final elevator speech to convince that person you'll stand hold the mic close to you so we can hear you real good 60 seconds take it away I'm Matt Pulver I'm running for county commission in district 5 you vote for me because I'm the only progressive in this race if you want a progressive way forward on affordable housing for all from the unhoused all the way up if you want to tackle inequality if you want economic development that values benefits all communities if you want that progressive way forward I'm your guy John Culpepper district 7 vote for me I've never been in politics before this is nonpartisan our community has become divided and I'm here to unify us I'm here to listen to both sides whether it's progressive or conservative and figure out issues and try to come together instead of just saying I'm just a progressive or I'm just a conservative I'm here to speak up to 2 o'clock in the morning commission means arguing we've got to come together I'm here to make this town a better town keep it the classic city the way all love and I love this town thank you Miss Thomas my name is Paige I'm running for district 3 and I think you should vote for me because I believe in unity I believe in coming together and we can't come together unity everybody talks about unity but unity is messy sometimes unity is ugly and everybody knows to unify it's just time to come together and one thing that is very important is communication we have to begin to communicate we have to begin to have conflict resolution how do we solve these issues and a lot of times we're seeing this roll over into our youth and into the things that everyone can do because they don't know how to solve conflict because we don't know how to come together and work through problems and so I think that my sign needs to be a bridge to bring people together so that we can really focus on the issue of a hand and not attack one another but attack the problem Hi, Alan Jones district 7 you should vote for me because I've pretty much already been doing the job for a long time I've never been in politics officially but I've been working with my community in quite detail I founded a group called Timothy Road a number of years ago to help with the Timothy Road corridor which is a main part of my corridor or my district already we've gotten $1 million for planning additional infrastructure for that area and if Tees Bloss passes which was a group that I was on as well we'll get another $6.9 million to actually build out the projects for the Timothy Road area I'm instrumental in working with the commission to get our non-discrimination ordinance passed this year and probably was the instigator of getting them to vote for the Human Relations Commission to make sure we had people from all walks of life that we're getting together as a committee to make sure our government is representing all walks of life and so you should have me because I've been doing it I'm Jared Bailey and I'm running for district 5 commissioner I've already dedicated over 40 years of my life to making Athens a better place and then I spent 8 years as a commissioner I'm the only one running for district 5 that has the experience and actually understands how our government works so if this was a job interview I'm the person who's got the experience and has a proven record so I'm the one that should be back in the district 5 seat thank you Hughes and I'm running for district 1 commissioner and I bring something unique to this commission and that is I've got a science background I'm a trained science teacher and I'm an educator so that's a perspective that we need on the commission we've got a lot of business people and community advocates and we need something different my campaign is about hope and moving forward in a positive way I've got some unique ideas to combat poverty to reduce space to reduce costs for people that live here to protect the environment and allow our community to grow which we are growing and some unique ideas to help fight homelessness to keep everybody safe including our students that go to school here one of which is my own to keep older families safe and just incorporate and get everybody to get along to do it on the commission I'm Tiffany Taylor running for district 3 commissioner and you should run for me because I have the perspective I am a regular citizen just like each and every one of you and so every issue that has been spoken on today I go through that on a daily basis I don't have an agenda to please anyone that's backing me I run for my community my grandma once told me if you want to see a difference by becoming the difference and so that's me I just want to make a difference within my community with nothing to gain from it besides my children growing up in a community that accepts them for who they are with the opportunities that is given just like everyone else so that's why you should vote for me thank God I don't have no opposition but serving these next four years will give me an opportunity to continue the work that I've already started I want people in my district in this area to know how policies and votes make a difference I have worked with my community with community meetings also working with district 2 folk don't have time to come to a meeting but they will come when there's a problem but why don't we divert the problem educate them on the front end and then we're all working together when I ran and I thought we were running non-partisan so I'm not sure no more but I do believe that for us to make this town better we've got to work with everybody I've heard it with all the new voices unity coming together bringing our differences we are falling apart because we're divided I am going to work real hard to make sure those folk that have not been part of the process are part of the process Patrick Davenport district one I'm running because I want to continue the progress of the work that has been done but to extend it even further I want to reach out and continue to reach out to the community to make sure that the marginalized community has a voice I have been a servant for the Lord and a servant for my community all my life I've been working hand in hand with my neighbors I've been working hand in hand with folks I don't know when I first ran I said I'm an apolitical politician I hate the politics I want to work with everybody and my record over the past three years I've shown that I don't care who you are politically I don't care who you are racially let's work together because the only way we can build this community is by working together through my faith God has taught me that and I will continue to do that and in this town I promise hopefully with your support I'll be able to continue that work we're working on affordable housing we're working on equity we're working on all these great things that will benefit our community and I just pray that you have it in your heart to allow me to continue that work thank y'all can we give all of our county commission candidates a hand get ready now for part two for part two I cannot stress the importance of this office as mayor or CEO of any town but more importantly being mayor of Athens Clark County because of its uniqueness because of its uniqueness if you have a question she's walking down the aisle you have an opportunity to put your question write your questions down okay you have an opportunity to do just that so thank you very much wow that's a long one there I tell you what now once again shhh I'm gonna ask you all to please silence your phones I'm gonna ask you shhh once again silence your phone if you want to hear their answers uninterrupted if you want to close that door just close that door people want to fraternize outside let them fraternize outside by themselves so if you do us a favor tonight silence your phones so we can move forward and again we can hear their answer just like the commissioners their answers are very important to all of us particularly candidates for those individuals who may be on the cuff sitting on the fence so your answers tonight may convince that person who was undecided so they're gonna take a moment they're gonna give them one minute to introduce themselves with a 15 second grace period two minutes okay we'll go two minutes with you guys with a five second grace period how about that and we're gonna say time we're gonna go back to temptations over here alright so we're gonna prepare that and then we'll get into the questions with the questions you have up to a minute and a half two minutes to answer the question and we're gonna call time on you alright we're gonna call time on you but we have some really good questions for you they've been feeding us these questions lord have mercy I tell you what so we're gonna start on the very far end Miss Pearl if you would take one of those microphones and when you talk folks pull the mic close to you so we can hear you okay that's very very very important so we can hear you loudly and clearly Miss Pearl good afternoon and thank each and every one of you for coming out tonight I really do appreciate it my name is Pearl Hall I am a retiree of Clark County School District I've worked on every level elementary middle and high I believe in the community and I like to serve the people I want to make a positive impact on Clark County so that is why I am running for mayor because I want us to be one unified community thank you and I solicit your vote hello my name is Benny Coleman I'm one of the candidates running for mail but I need to get a clearance on that I'm the candidate who's running for the people of Clark County I'm here to make sure that the young black men and young black women has affordable chance to live and succeed in this county so that is my main platform it's not necessary to run them have the mail tie on my neck or ride around in town say I'm the mail but to unite the people here in Clark County good evening everyone I'm grateful for Mount Pleasant hosting this event and grateful for the moderators being here and candidates here on the stage on May 25th the election will be done but I know that everybody here who is around us at these tables cares about this community because they put their name on the ballot and nobody does that lightly I was drawn into public service through the 20 years I spent working with middle school and high school students here in Clark County as much as I loved that work beginning with the 7th graders who I saw roll into the classroom every day at Coil Middle School in 1998 forward I recognized that there was more that needed to be done to make sure that those families and those young people had a great experience and had an optimal experience Athens is blessed to be rich with resources but we need to make sure that those resources are commonly available to everyone in this community and so in the 12 years I spent on the county commission and now the last 4 years that I've been able to serve as your mayor we have worked together and we of course in the last 2 years have worked for very challenging times but we've come through stronger we've come through as the community with the lowest COVID mortality rate of any urbanized county in the state of Georgia we brought thousands of new jobs including just 55 new high wage jobs that were announced this week and we are continuing to make this community safer and stronger and more prosperous for everyone and that is owed to all of you and your commitment and your wisdom that you've entrusted me with so thank you hello everybody I'm Mikesha Ross as y'all know I'm running for mayor for the last 3 to 4 years I have collected information from the community on what the concerns are so I felt like people should be tired of being abused, neglected and not heard so using my voice as my platform to bring unity, community and collaboration is what I do every day as community outreach the other thing I have a nonprofit organization called Youth is Life and building your own brand establishing a betterment platform to be yourself unapologetically so what I do every day I work as community outreach making sure that everybody has the proper resources to uplift them from poverty to sustainability I'm Mikesha Ross, thank you thank you everyone for coming tonight my name is Mara Zoniga I am an immigrant from Nicaragua I came to the United States in 1972 I have 7 brothers and sisters when my father came to the United States it was very difficult back in 1969 for him and they encountered challenges in poverty and when we came to the United States we encountered poverty as well as immigrants, normally when you come to the United States you encounter challenges in education, in language in culture but we were able to get ahead of the church and the support that it was given to us I moved to Athens and I am a business owner, CFO CEO, I've been in business since I was 9 years old with my parents business so I have a lot of experience in the business industry my children went to Clark County schools and I have advocated for them many many times I know the difficulties and the challenges including I have two years when I saw that he lacked in some of the education that he was receiving I'm also a homeowner in Athens here so I do face the challenges of the ever increasing taxes and I also face the challenges that we have as business owners here in Athens because we own a business, we started a business here three years ago but we've been in the same type of business for about 20 years, my husband and I we I look forward to using that experience that I have to help in the issues that I have seen grow in the past couple of years but it was amazing to me when I was looking at some of the issues like homelessness or affordable housing I looked at videos back from 1990 when the Athens Clark County unified and I heard this video and someone was talking about trying to tackle the issue of affordable housing and I said oh my god it's been that long thank you for your introductions we're going to move into the questions segment we have questions that have been submitted by the audience we also have some questions that we as moderators have generated we also have some that you have pre-answered which ones are we going to ask it's a surprise and as a mayor think quick on your feet because people are going to pop out at you at the grocery store and ask you different things so it's good to be ready my cousin always said if you stay ready you don't have to get ready so we'll move into the first question and this is don't you listen to the question closely the theme of this question is innovation a lot of times at forums, at candidate debates whatever we want to call them we hear a lot of the same stuff so through this question which theme is innovation we want to hear about innovation what new process what new method is a part of your platform and you want to see executed during your tenure as mayor we will start let's see we start with Ms. Hall on the end we'll start this time we're doing one minute one minute answers you want to give him a grace period he's so gracious and he's timing we'll start with Mr. Niga right here I think one of the biggest problems that I see in the community is the lack of trust that community has with the local government part of that is with the financial aspect and the communication among the commissioners I hear from people a lot that they want to be have available those financials where is the money going to how is it being spent to whom is it going so part of the innovation that I'm looking at is having to provide public access to this information we don't have that we have to go through a bunch of loops to get information how money is being spent where is it going you have to get open records request I want to bring back that trust to the community and the local government and the only way we can do that is by having that kind of information out there for the public easy accessible understandable and quickly so that would be one of the innovative things that I would bring is to have people understand what's going on within the local government I think we need that and I think we need to get that trust back thank you thank you I see that was a different question but innovation solution for me would be proposing the time for people in the public to know and be notified of the projects that's coming up cause a lot of times when they have the Mayor and commissioner meetings as Ms. Mara said they we're not aware of those so having the software, the technology the data collection, all of that information provided to the public whether it's through mail whether it's to creating better solutions of a social media platform for people to be able to capture what's going on in this community and how can we start creative solutions through community outreach. I would propose a community outreach committee. That way you can really focus on the community and what they would want. So that's my innovation project that I would propose. Thank you. So it's great to ask about innovation particularly in this community because we have so many innovators, many of them are in this room. We know that the University of Georgia has for the last five years been one of the top three universities in this nation for bringing new products that is new innovations to market. And we've benefited from some of that. We brought RWDC who invented a new technology on campus to the Athens community and they're employing over 200 people in this community because of something invented right here. And we want to extend that to everybody who has a small business that they've launched from their dining room table because many of you and many people across this community have brought great new ideas that have benefited young people, benefited employees and others. And so what I'm launching this year is a new position in our economic development office to focus on creative entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs of color and women entrepreneurs. And we're also launching a public access portal so that when you have a challenge in your neighborhood or on your street or in your community, you can bring that quickly to us and we can find resolution. Oftentimes, you've probably had the experience of having to take many steps to find resolution. And we want that to happen rapidly. So you're going to be seeing that this year. My idea of innovating at the Claude County is family wise, bringing the United families together with the church becoming one. We need to share information, not so much by the computer, not so much about the internet, not so much about the paper, but relationship with the one another. We need to bring new innovation in and make sure that kids who don't have an idea of going to college at all, being able to graduate from high school, make sure those kids who are attending school are able to do their basic. My innovation will be to let Claude County know in the future that will be a new chain. The whole system will flip on you. It doesn't matter how long and what people are talking about, what is coming on the way up and everything, but there's going to be a new flipping here in Claude County. Thank you. My new innovation will be to focus in on family and the community, to bring all of us together on the one umbrella, to focus in on where we are going because we have fallen behind in this new generation. We need to catch up with this new generation, find out the new ideas using our youth. I like to bring the youth together, teach us what we need to know because there are so many things as older people that they say that we need to tackle into and we need our youth to come in and help us on this new journey. So minds would be focus on our youth, focus on this new technology and let's bring everyone together for a new learning period. Thank you. Law enforcement, law enforcement. I received some reports from Clark County Sheriff deputies who share with me in writing. They're and statistically written that they get about a seven to $8,000 less pay than Athens Clark County police officers. You as mayor or anyone who's as striving to be the mayor, what would you do? What are your plans, folks, to equalize that pay and equity between the Sheriff Department and the local police department? Help us out. So I'm gonna start with you. Mama, that was a two part question. So can you just I want you to do there's a seven to $8,000 pay differential with officers of the same experience from the Sheriff Department and the local police department. What are you going to do, Madam Mayor, if you're elected to equalize the pay and equity between the Sheriff Department and the police department? Help me out. You're the mayor now. Okay, do it. That should be pretty easy, Marvin. I will look at the budget and see why one group is getting more than the other. And what I would do is sit down with the commissioner and we all balance this budget and give everyone equal pay. Well, what I would do also is the city policemen and the Sheriff Department are all on force here in Clark County. We all should have pretty much the equals pay. We all are responsible and we all are people. So we all should have the same amount of money as possible. But when you get back to the budget, budget is a strange animal. The budget only shows what you wanted to show. But when a man or woman comes up to protect us, that shouldn't be a budget. That shouldn't be a limit for them to be protected so they can protect us. And what I will do, I will bring the whole community together. If that means we must stop some of these frauds that we have in order for them to get more paid, stop the program. That's what I would do. So about two and a half years ago, chiefs of all the public safety units got together to look at a pay plan across public safety departments, the fire chief, the sheriff, the police chief and the probation chief. And they came up with the format that we have in front of us now. We know that that's created some challenges. But that was created because of analysis of the work tasks of those positions in the same way that in a school, a guidance counselor may not be compensated exactly like a teacher is. But we've had new people move into those positions. They've described those challenges to us. And so the first step we've taken is we've made sure that there's a lateral transfer opportunity. So if you've been 15 years in one unit and you want to move into another, you're not starting back at square one. So we've done that. The next step is going to have to be to look at the entire pay study with the new people who are in those positions. Sheriff Edward is no longer in his role. Sheriff John Q needs to be at the table now so that we can take a fresh look at that. I would definitely start with looking over the budget. And with that budget, I feel like that sheriff and police definitely need to be paid with their work. But also that's why we have a shortage of staff because the sheriff office, they don't get paid enough. Finding out that the police department is having to buy their own equipment is one thing. The other thing is the lack of pay and their overwork the shortest of staff in our jails and how the inmates are suffering as well because of the shortage. So I definitely would increase the pay no matter what it would it cost increase the pay and have equality throughout the system. I think the first thing I would do is try to understand why that disparity exists. You know, I mean, it's a week. I don't think that getting a hypothetical question like that really does a service, you know, to anyone when there are plenty of information that needs to be looked at. Definitely it would start by me going out and speaking to the police department, you know, and questioning what is going on. I think that a relationship has to exist. You know, between the mayor and the police department, you know, with the manager you're looking at the budget like we spoke and all the data would have to be looked at. So anytime there's any disparity is a time that I would have to sit down and ask questions. I think when you begin to ask questions, you can come up with solutions, but the questions have to be asked. Why? Why is this going on? Thank you. Thank you all. Our next question and I'm gonna look at a few of these and try to figure out the theme here. One of them was this was a question for the commissioners, but I think it's a question that the mayoral candidates can answer as well. They're speaking of beds, kind of the school to prison pipeline, our youth education. They, although this is not a school board forum, I think it is important for the city, the county to be involved in youth development. So the question is, what is your approach to youth development? And I would like to hear specifics because I'm a specific type of person. So I don't want to like hear like broad stuff. I want to hear some some nitty gritty. And I think the people would like to hear that as well. So your approach to youth development from the standpoint of a city county government. This is very dear to my heart because I know, as you know, that our youth is our future. And there has to be preventive measures to have a bright future for them. Having come from a large family, four brothers, and boys are difficult, you know, I mean, they in a borough where two million people exist and so many problems arise. We were involved in many things, you know, having thought of this question, and you want specific, I thought long and hard about having a youth services division in the local government, a program that would specialize just on youth. And I wrote it down here because I believe in internships, guaranteed summer jobs, work training, STEM programs, drug and gang awareness and entrepreneurship, as well as having a parent resources for children dealing with drugs and gangs. Because as you know, we have a gang problem. It been estimated about 3000 gang members and I know mothers that have difficulty with their children fighting drugs right now, fighting the that that feeling to go and belong to something else, you know, so if we have a youth division program, I think that's a preventive measure. When addressing the youth development, that's my job. I have two of my children here. As a mother, as a black mother is really minimal resources for us as a local citizen here, we have a lot of youth development. But are they getting funded? No, they're not. They're rejected every time they put in a proposal, or it's not enough. We're not actually getting those trainings to the people that really needed to address the youth. As of yesterday, we rallied to talk about the decisions that's creating gang violence. But we're talking to the wrong people. So in order to address those things, we have to have a youth coalition to be able to establish a better meant for our youth and doing so you have to implement community outreach local community because how can you address the youth when you've never been in poverty? You don't stay in the projects. You don't know how it feels to walk out your door and hear gunshots. So how are the people in leadership addressing those issues? You can't if you've never been through that. So every day as a black woman, I fear for my children because we get an email every other day from Clark County School District talking about there was a gun broke. So that would be my main focus. And it will it will have to have intervention prevention and mental mental health aid to support our youth. Thank you. We know that every young person wants to be involved. Every young person wants to be engaged. Every young person wants to be loved and cared for and given identity. Unfortunately, we know that if that identity and that engagement and that caring doesn't come through positive means, they'll find it through negative means. And unfortunately, they're predatory people who are more than happy to have that young 10 or 12 year old become that corner boy or that drug runner. But what we can do is we can intervene and we can make sure that there's a positive pipeline for our young people. And so while we are not the school district, we can engage with them and we can also engage directly with the host of fantastic nonprofit youth support providers in this community. And so in this coming year's budget, I've programmed support funds for those nonprofits because we need to make sure that they can get on their feet and do their jobs to the greatest degree possible. And I've also proposed to the school district that we initiate an information sharing system so that when that football coach out in Stonehenge, when that sewing teacher, when that drum instructor finds out that that young person has a problem, got kicked out of their trailer, has a mental health need, that that counselor and that social worker and that school administrator can be alerted of that time. The thing I would do for youth development is contact the Honorable Brian Kemp and ask him to drop that law at will. You can find anybody at any time. And that way you will get a parent's opportunity to be at home with their kids. You get a parent opportunity to work so that kids can be home with them and that you'll keep kids off the street. You keep the economy growing and everybody will win. Parents are the main focus when it comes to game violence. And when it comes to you, it doesn't matter how much we talk about what we're going to promise this and that. If you don't keep your parents together, you're not going to keep your kids together. Your question was what is the approach for youth development? And minds is, I think we should focus on supporting our education system and all the families and youth, including those that at risk can somehow become successful. We should set the standards for a world class education system. And this system should include every family knowing how to do whatever the school system allow their children to do. Even in the standard of learning, we should have a system where parents can go and learn how to do math, science, and social study. I know that's hard to say, but we must find a way to help our children during this crisis time. In the early 1960s, low income housing was built in Athens, Georgia to address poverty. And today, these developments of low income homes are being purchased for pennies on the dollar remodeled and sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars. How will you address the adverse effect of gentrification in the poor neighborhoods? How would you address the adverse effect of gentrification in the moderate to low income neighborhoods? Ms. Inneka, I'm going to start with you. Ms. Inneka? Right here. Yes, ma'am. I'm going to start with you. I live on the east side. And I see this problem happening. I know I went around and I drove around for three hours with community members that were being affected by gentrification. My family was also affected by gentrification in New York. It's a difficult situation because sometimes the powers seem to be stronger than what you can handle. And that's what I got from the east side community members, is that refining a situation that we don't know how to approach it. It's plain and simple. We don't know how to approach it on the east side. We have a community of people that have been living there for years, family members. And then you see these great structures being built and being rented by students. And then the taxpayers in the area have to pay more taxes. And a lot of these people are on a fixed income. So we have sat down and we have thrown ideas around. And I wish I could tell you that I know the answer, but I don't. It is a problem. And we still continue to sit down and throw ideas around of how we can do that. But I feel that once I would become mayor, that would be something that I would try to address immediately, at least for the east side. Because we see it going on so strongly. When addressing gentrification and housing in Athens-Clarke County, learning that 20% of the poverty rate is coming from the UGA students. And in that, it's because they don't have an income, their rich families are paying for that. So we're counted as being poverty when it's really addressing the UGA students. How is that possible? So that would be the number one thing on my list is to address gentrification, zoning, the zoning laws. If you don't really know zoning to me, I would define as segregation. So that would be another piece to add. But looking at other models that will work for our population of our city is what we really need to do. What's working, what's not working, and building on acres that's available to be able to provide tiny homes for homelessness and single families to be able to have a sustainable plan for their lives. So that's how I was addressed it. Thank you. Thank you. So in the years that I worked on the HD Edwards campus, I'd often leave the building after students left and go out for a stroll, clear my head, and I'd walk down Waddell Street and Parris Street and Deering. And unfortunately, some of the families that lived there in those years aren't there anymore. Now there are attractive houses in those places, but many of those families have not been able to retain the places where they grew up and their grandparents live. And so there are a couple of tangible things happening this year. One is that you're going to have on your ballot this November an opportunity to put a freeze in place for moderate income families so that their taxes will not rise. The other thing that I want us to do is put a new tool in our box and use the Land Bank Authority, which is a public authority that already exists that's been dormant. And I want to work through the Land Bank Authority with those families where those properties have become what are known as air properties where a dozen cousins own that house in common. And what that authority can do is clear title when it's unclear because half those cousins are out of state and it can also steal the property taxes so that family can leave it to just that one cousin that's the one who's going to be able to renovate that house and live in it for the rest of their lives. Thank you. Addressing gentrification is to me is just like this. The contractors are the one who are causing a lot of these problems. You look at it, they can build affordable homes. They really can build affordable homes. Material is not as expensive as it says to be. This is a money making business. So what we need to do is, well what I would do as the mayor, I would bring in public contractor, not private contractor. The contractor that the city and the people of Clark County would put together, make sure we'd be represented in affordable homes. As mayor of Athens, Georgia, I would make sure that children and parents live in a stable home. And it just a blessing when a child is young, he do not know he's poor. And that is a blessing. He thinks that he's happy and living in a nice environment. But when we as adults look at the environment that the children are living in, it brings tears to our eyes. So there is no reason that anyone in Athens should live in an unconditional good home. That is just unbelievable for the city of Athens when there's so much building going on in Athens, Georgia. And the children don't have a playground and they make their playground and that hurts. When you can go into a project complex, where are the basketball courts? Where's the playground? At least if you don't give them a decent home, give them something decent to enjoy, why they are where they are. Thank y'all for the answers to that question. I was going to pick a last question, but I'm having trouble. So what I'm going to do now is be like Oprah. And I'm going to let somebody from the audience ask the last question. But it's going to have to be a good question. And I'm also going to be like Oprah. I'm going to give all of y'all something. Look under your seats. Y'all look under your seats. Ain't nothing up under there. But if y'all ever need a lawyer, call me. I'll give you a free consultation. How about that? All right. Who wants to ask the last question? Last question. This lady right here, she waving that hand, shaking it like a tambourine. And I know it's a good question. Come on, we're going to give you the microphone. Yeah, so they can hear you. Tell them your name. My name is Barbara Daniel. I stay on the east side and really we have a hard time over there. But the question I want to ask is about the rental property that we have over here on the east side. We have people over there on the east side stays in a rental property hadn't had heat the whole winter. The landlord hadn't came by to give them a little kerosene heater or nothing. They stayed in an apartment the whole winter without heat. What would the mayor do about these landlords out here? Slum lords. And we'll let y'all take the last question. We'll start with Ms. Hall. Ma'am, let me ask answer your question. What would the landlord do? First of all, we have to understand do the landlord know is this is going on? Yes. Okay now, thank you ma'am. If the landlord know this is going on, then we need to report it. We need to get this reported because there's no reason for anyone to live in a home all winter long. And I understand and I feel sorry for you please that they should live in a home without heat. There are even you can contact your mayor and I'm sure he will find out what is going on. And if he doesn't... Now right now you're the mayor, you're the mayor, you're the mayor. What's you gonna do? What's you gonna do? What I'm gonna do? Oh, I'm gonna go out there and fix it. I'm gonna find a way to fix it but when I become the mayor of Athens, if there is that kind of problem, I definitely will get it fixed because if I'm warm, I want you to be warm. So I will not make myself any exception to Athens that you can't do or have. So I want everyone to live like I live and I thank God that I live the way that I live and I want you to live the way that I live. Time. Thank you. When it comes to slum laws, I got a thing with slum laws. We just don't get along. With this situation about this heat, a water, a food, a broken window, licking roof, car driving through you, neighbor cussing and fussing and fighting, the problem has started when the government publicly announced de-farming the police. When you de-far the police, you de-far protection. When you de-far the police, you de-far protection. All right, so when it comes to slum law, they have rights just like we do and they should spend time in the county jail just like we would do too. Alright, thank you for that question. I want to start real high and then get down to your specific circumstance. On the high level, what we need are good places for people to live that are nice to live, that are well maintained, that are taken care of and are healthy for you and your kids and your grandkids. That's what we need and so I'm proud to be part of a government that's put policies into place that's going to bring thousands of new apartments in, including ones that are permanently affordable. Very specific to this question of an unmaintained rental apartment. In Athens-Clarke County, we've adopted a large portion of something that's called the International Building Code and what that code says is that your apartment has to have access to electricity, to heat, to air conditioning, to safe running water and based on Georgia law, if you have a lease, you are allowed to let code enforcement into that place. Your landlord cannot stop code enforcement from coming indoors. You call up code enforcement and open the door and they will come in and they will cite that, this is the place of worship, that landlord. So when addressing your situation ma'am, just recently I connected with the landlord over on Emperor War rule and they were going through the same thing on the east side. So I connected him with Georgia legal services because what he didn't know was his tenant rights and he's very for his tenants. So we have services and resources here that people are not even aware about. What we do is do resources, resource fairs in those neighborhoods so that you can identify your rights, so that you can be able to connect with the right partners to get your answers and if you didn't know a lot of the landlords don't even live in Athens. So that's the big issue. So with me, I'm all about unity, community and collaboration, we would have to get the landlords here at a table to be able to address our tenant rights. So that's the approach I would go and I'm sorry you're going through what you're going through. This problem is quite common, I would say. The President Mayor probably doesn't know because he doesn't have an open door policy. I would have an open door policy. You would be able to come to my door and knock and I would hear you. The Mayor talked about the homestead tax. I would like to remind the mayor you voted, you actually wrote to the state representative against the homestead tax that would freeze the taxes for people. So I say that because we need communication with the mayor. If any one of us does not turn out to be mayor, I would say that every community member should demand that your mayor should have an open door policy because there should be no reason that people should have a problem with their taxes or not paying their gas or not being able to repair some of their things in their homes. They should be able to go to the mayor's office. They should be able to knock on the door and ask what can you do for me. You're the leader. You have the connections. You speak to the people in the departments. Help me out. I don't hear that. I don't hear that. So I would demand that. Thank you very much. Let me uh there's one burning question that a lot of people are really ticked off about the West Broad Street School. There were plans to renovate the school. Recently those plans stopped and they're stalled. There's nothing going on. Candidates, a lot of people in this community feel that there's some kind of underhanded deal going on. I don't know if there is or is not, but the West Broad Street School, what are your goals to gain the renovations started or let's say restarted again? How do you feel about that Ms. Hall? Marvin, how do I feel about West Broad School? I love West Broad School. That would be one of mine as mere top priority. That is the only living school for Afro-America and we're going to get it back. We're going to do everything in our power to get it back. That is our school. It's just a building, but it belongs to the black and the white who has a school and if I bring somebody in from New York who say where is our school, we want to tell them West Broad is still standing. West Broad is still standing. I love West Broad. I went to West Broad and I would do everything in my power to say let's rebuild. Let's bring her back to life. There is enough yard on West Broad that we can build and keep it going. Every school, some are smaller in land than West Broad, but they are there. So if they can go, let's let West Broad go. Build it up and let's put a smile on her face on Broad Street. When it comes to West Broad School, we talk about investors. People coming in and out of state, got a state with that piece of land. They want that land. And if I'm the male with respect to Mr. Gert, the male kind of Gert, I can understand how he's feeling at this time. You can only do so much, but when they come to West Broad School, like what Pearl said, we got to make a difference my people. We don't give away too many things here in Clark County. We got to have at least one thing, one thing, one thing other than God. West Broad School can be that thing. So I would get the funds together, get the contract together, I would come together with Attivotech and College, get some kind of construction class at that, get the students to work on it, or whatever it takes, we can do it. I was grateful that among the many experiences I had when I was working with high school students, one of those was helping to start the first cohort of the young urban farmers on the West Broad campus. And so for three years, young people who I worked with walked from H.T. Edwards over to West Broad and tilled the soil and picked trash out of the soil and planted plants and learned to garden like their grandparents and great-grandparents had and learned to cook the food from that garden. So that place is very important to me. It's also important to know of course that the West Broad School is owned by the Clark County School District. And so ultimately the West Broad School has to be the decision of the school board. Now a great benefit that the unified government could bring to the table is that we have granted three million dollars for a youth development center and should the school district want to avail themselves of those funds, that youth development center could be planted at the West Broad campus. So there are public funds that are ready to inhabit the West Broad campus. But ultimately that's going to have to be the decision of the Clark County School Board. Thank you. Well honestly I'm a true believer in historic preservation and with that as Mayor Gertz stated that the Clark County School District does own that building but I would definitely propose an American proposed to have partnership and collaboration and take that initiative to have a word with the Clark County School District because what people don't know is a mayor can't appoint a superintendent. It's been done in other places so that would be the first thing I would do. With that I would allow to be able to get the community trailblazers who have paved this trail for a black woman like me but those people who went to that school to start it's this it's this model called Wembley Center that's right up the street at Winder. That model can be duplicated here and that will give non-profits and the elderly the opportunity to continue the work of the garden as well as children to sit with the elderly to learn different lessons from them. So that would be my proposal with the West Broad School. It's to reopen it, re-renovate it and to have partnership with the Clark County School District and I just sit back and let them make the decision. May I repeat the question please? The question was the West Broad Street School there on West Broad Street. Historically there was a started out as an African-American school. But the question is what would you do to get the project back going again? What would you do to get the project installed right now? There's nothing to happen. You said something about underhandedness in the question? There's been let's just say in duendo as to some people who want to get a hold of that particular property. You need to do your research now. Well the reason I asked you to repeat the question because I don't think anybody really addressed about that in duendo and it happens a lot with many different projects. I mean the way that I see it there's a lot of gaps in the picture of what's going on with things. So I can clearly say I don't have a good picture of it. I would love to have a clear picture of things that are going on because there is a lack of transparency that is the issue. I hear it a lot from people lack of transparency. We don't see the whole picture. I do want to see it come forward but I would like to see everything involved. You know I would like to see a clear picture of that because there is a lack of transparency and people feel that way too. Great. So while you're standing while you're standing now's your opportunity to give you a closing 90-second infomercial about why the citizens of this community should vote for you tonight. I think you should vote for me because I came into this race because I felt compelled. I listened to a lot of people with different voices in different parts of Athens and I heard the same thing. We are not being listened to by the local government. They have a quorum. They pretty much make up their minds by the time they get to you know to the sessions. I'm listening. I don't like it. I think that the public should have input and I feel that we should create a process where the community would have direct decision-making in this process. My passion is what I heard was that people are not being listened to and I saw that. I kept going to the mayor and commissioner meetings. That's what I see. So if you want to see more transparency, if you want to be part of the decision-making process please vote for me. I will be an open door mayor. So when deciding to run for mayor it was concerns of the last three to four years when COVID hit two years ago nothing was being done. As a prosperity leader actually I shadowed our mayor. I shadowed the commissioners but I was doing their jobs. So that was a problem to me to see like we're addressing lack of insecurity. We're addressing lack of food, lack of clothes because with my organization Youth is Life we were addressing the families that was going through these issues. So it wouldn't be what will I start doing. It's what I'm doing. I will expand it and continue to bring unity community and collaboration and the people that are on the ground running because they are the ones who's really doing the work. So as mayor I propose to really unify this city and not divide it between the Democrats and the Republic as a non-partisan city that's what I would propose. I want to thank again all of the candidates for being here tonight and I want to thank each of you who's here and everyone who's watching online. It's you who have been the inspiration for every good thing that has happened in this community and so much greatness has happened because of your wisdom and your strength that you have provided to me to be your mayor these last four years. We have again the lowest death rate of any urbanized community in the state through COVID that's because of your wise behavior. We have new affordable housing tools in this community our inclusionary zoning code that's going to transform seas of asphalt into housing including permanently affordable housing. We have thousands of new jobs, high wage jobs at Bowringer Engelheim and RWDC and Johnson and Johnson and Caterpillar and more coming we have groundbreaking in the next month for the new classic center arena and for the Wayfair digital facility on Newton Bridge Road. We also have done great work with our youth to make sure that they are going to have strong lives for the rest of their lives. We spent half a million dollars making sure that 13 community facilities were fully digitally prepared so whether it's in COVID or every day those young people had a good place where they could study on weekends and after school they don't have to sit in a McDonald's parking lot and so I thank you for your work and if you are looking for a solution or your time is up thank you so much I ask for you to vote for me on May 24th thank you ladies and gentlemen. I thank each and every one of you for giving me the opportunity to pay my fee to run for the mail giving me the paper to give a permission to run for mail. Looking at the panel here today each one of them have more experience than I do and I really believe and I respect them but if you want to change if you want to switch flip think about who you want to vote for and that person could be me and if it is me believe me it will go on and off at times. All right thank you sir. I am Pearl Hall and I have great quality leadership. I know how to lead. I have a great passion for Athens Clark County. I believe in community service for the people. I want to have a positive impact that will help have a better life and quality for the people of Clark County. I want everyone to be on the same page make the same decision we all live together in one unit so I say to you if you want someone who love you care for you make sure you're protected in every way through our police department to make sure you're loved through the politics religious anywhere you go call me as your mayor. I'm not going to promise you I can do everything but I promise you I will do the best I can so vote Pearl Hall for City Hall. Some of you I've seen since the County Commissioners have spoken so I want you to give yourselves a round of applause. I've been standing a long time and I remember why I used to say no when they used to ask me to be a usher at church because these feet just weren't called to do it but we want to give our mayoral candidates a round of applause. We thank our sponsors tonight we thank Ms. Linda Davis I know she did a lot she called me and she's been working very diligently and very hard and I just want to say to the community what you did tonight is very important but what you do next month is even more important I'm really passionate about politics my wife's always like why are you watching stuff on the news and reading the newspaper and all in the politics my mom was a city councilwoman and she ran for mayor twice in my little southwest Georgia town the first time she ran for mayor she lost by 16 votes the second time my mom ran for mayor she lost by two votes so it is very important that you go vote that your mother goes and votes that your sister goes and votes and whoever you know there's a lot of people that says and this is the biggest thing when I when you used to knock on the doors it looked like we have a former mayor in the crowd you knock on the doors and this is what people say they're gonna do what they want to do anyway as long as you stay home and don't vote they are gonna do what they want to do anyway so make sure that you're active make sure that you go vote and make sure that you're holding your elected officials accountable don't just go vote for them but follow up with them and say hey I voted for you what what happened to this thing you talked about when we was at Mount Pleasant on April 26th at 7 34 p.m. let them know that's what they're there for so everybody give everybody a round of applause