The candidate forum for the Emporia City Commission had it all Thursday night, including economic ideas, movie references and a call by one candidate to arrest officers of the Emporia Police Department.
That last came from candidate Percy Wayman in response to a question about consolidating the police and sheriff’s departments. Wayman claimed he had not been able to get the police to make out a crime report and that others had had similar experiences.
“These police officers need to be incarcerated for not doing their jobs,” Wayman said.
Other candidates were quick to defend local law enforcement.
“I think our officers, everyone in our police department and sheriff’s department, do a fine job,” candidate Jesse Solis said.
“I am continually impressed with their quality of training, professional deportment and the extra mile our police department goes to,” Commissioner Tom Myers agreed.
Around 25 people attended the forum held at Visser Hall, though not without some difficulty. Due to a mixup, the event was scheduled for a third-floor classroom instead of the larger room on the first floor that had originally been planned. Organizers only found out that day and ended up posting signs and directing traffic.
“The room’s not as ideal as it will be (next time), but it works,” said Kay Calvert of the League of Women Voters. A forum for the general election has been scheduled for March 5 in the original room, room 118.
Because the date for the primary election forum had been rescheduled a number of times, one of the eight candidates in the city primary could not make it Thursday night. Candidate Kevin Nelson, a member of the Emporia school board, was out of town and sent a written statement.
“By drawing on the rich history of Emporia and its great tradition and people, we can make Emporia a city others will envy,” Nelson wrote.
The remaining seven that attended were Myers, Solis, Wayman, Commissioner Bobbie Agler and candidates Phil Dillon, Jeff Longbine and Mike Mercer.
Most answers during the night came back to economics. In a question about business recruitment, Longbine said the city had done well in drawing industries and needed to also take advantage of opportunities in commercial development, an attitude also shared by Solis and by Agler.
“We adopted the attitude that if you get the industrial jobs, retail will come,” Agler said. “We’ve discovered in Emporia and nationwide that that’s not necessarily the case. You have to have both. It’s a quality-of-life issue ... (Having) shopping, having a good place to eat is crucial to recruiting people.”
Myers agreed that commercial development was important, but said the city should take care not to hurt its existing businesses in the pursuit of new ones. Wayman said he wanted to see more factory jobs and Mercer, a former IBP employee, said that industrial jobs could still lead the way,
“When we bring in more industry, I think the commercial will follow,” Mercer said. “I don’t think the city should play a big role in the commercial side of things.”
Dillon argued for a new approach, saying the city needed to look at 21st-century businesses such as biotech. Emporia’s median household income of $31,000 is well behind the rest of the state, he said, but some professional jobs could help it at least catch Salina at $36,000.
“We’ve got to change,” Dillon said. “We’ve got plenty of intellectual firepower. Let’s put it to good use.”
When the question shifted to downtown development, Solis and Myers were quick to praise the work that had already been done through the $2 million Streetscape project and the ongoing restoration of the Granada Theatre.
“The downtown is the heart of this community,” Myers said. “The renovation of the Granada there is especially important to me. ... That’s where my parents were attending a movie when my mother went into labor. So my roots in the downtown go back a long ways.”
Mercer said that more attention needed to be paid to the downtown’s infrastructure by bringing city work crews up to full strength, so that problems could be fixed and not just patched. Wayman said the community should be encouraged to shop downtown with local businesses rather than at big-box retailers on the west side of town. And both Agler and Longbine said that overall business traffic needed to be improved so that everyone would prosper.
“I would like us as Emporians to stop looking at ‘downtown,’ ‘east side,’ and ‘west side,’” Longbine said. “Let’s look at Emporia as a retail center for the entire community. People don’t come and buy just one thing downtown ... There’s a reason that all the car dealerships are next to each other. We feed off each other.”
Dillon argued that looking at downtown didn’t automatically mean he was pitting himself against the rest of the community.
“If I have a broken arm, It doesn’t mean I’m not interested in the rest of my body,” he said. “It just means that my arm needs attention.”
Both he and Agler said the community should work with the university in improving the downtown.
In his closing statement, Myers reminded the audience that he had been the author of the city’s rental housing standards, though he wanted to see more done on enforcement. He also asked the audience to be kind to all the candidates, who had only a limited amount of time to answer each question in the forum.
“If some of us sound like simplistic idiots answering complex questions, keep in mind it’s because we’re trying to squeeze our answers into a narrow time frame,” he said, grinning.
Longbine emphasized his desire to make Emporia “the best place in Kansas to live, work and raise our families” while Wayman presented himself as “the only Wayman candidate in the election of 2007.”
Dillon said the city stood at a crossroads similar to his favorite Christmas movie, “It’s a Wonderful Life,” capable of becoming a prosperous Bedford Falls or a decrepit Potterville. Agler followed up by saying the city needed not just good leadership but a positive attitude.
“We’ve got a fortunate location and a lot of good businesses in this area,” Agler said. “We need to build on that, but we have to be positive in the process.”
Mercer said he was an average guy who wanted to be sure that everybody had a voice in the process. Solis, meanwhile emphasized his ability to work hard, multi-task and get things done, and urged the audience to make their own voices heard.
The forum will be broadcast locally on Channel 20 at 9 a.m., 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. Monday. The primary election will be held Tuesday with the top six candidates moving on to the general election in April.