By Chris Walker
walker@emporiagazette.com
“Friday Conversation” is an interview with a local person. This week’s interview is with Jeff Longbine, Emporia’s new mayor.
Q What are your goals as mayor?
A Working through the budget process, we want to make sure we are running as efficiently as possible. We want to keep taxes to a minimum but still fulfill our obligations as a city providing services to the residents of the community.
Q What is going right with the city?
A City staff has done an excellent job of looking for efficiencies and doing things better with less money. In the last four years, we have gone from a $700,000 deficit in the general fund to a surplus of $1.6 million and we have done that without raising taxes. I think that is just an incredible job the staff has done.
Q What does the city need to improve on?
A One of my goals is to get back to work on restoring our infrastructure. Our streets, sewer and water lines aren’t in total disrepair, but they need some work. Once the sales tax kicks in, we promised the voters we would use that sales tax money for infrastructure upgrades and repairs. I am excited for that opportunity to upgrade the streets, waterlines and sewers that we are having problems with. We will look at some storm water detention projects that we never had the ability to do because of funding. We will also be able to do some quality-of-life enhancements and some things to improve our appearance and image.
Q How is our economic development doing and are we on track to bring jobs to the community?
A I think the RDA staff and board are doing a great job. We are positioning ourselves very well for when the economic recovery comes in the United States. We are doing a lot of prospecting activities right now. We are making sure we are in tune with all of our lead generators, such as the Department of Commerce as well as the various consultants around the country. We continue to have discussions with commercial and retail developments to bring that aspect to the community and we are out visiting with our existing industries about opportunities for expansion. The construction of the Hill’s plant is very exciting, and if people have not had the opportunity to drive by, they are making a tremendous amount of progress. We are anxious for Hill’s to start hiring people and become operational.
Q Retail-wise, how are things going?
A In an economic recession, we have a natural slowdown and people tighten up on spending. That can make the economic downturn worse. It’s a phenomenon that is not unique to Emporia but it’s happening all across the United States. We would encourage people to continue to spend and spend locally. That is what really helps. Spending money locally not only helps the businesses but also local government, because we rely on sales-tax dollars. If we can keep the sales tax strong, that keeps the budgets in shape and we can continue the services that are needed throughout the community.
Q How have our sales-tax numbers been?
A Sales-tax numbers in 2009 have been down slightly compared to 2008. We might be down 3 percent. Not a huge decline, but one we are going to have to watch.
Q Emporia didn’t get its share of the federal stimulus dollars. Do you think the city could have done more to lay out a better plan to get a bigger share of the money?
A A lot of times we didn’t know what the criteria were. They said they wanted shovel-ready projects, but when we submitted some of our projects they said we were too far along. We did just get a nice stimulus package on some improvements for the sewer treatment plant. Maybe one way to look at it is some of the communities that are receiving money are much worse off than we are. Maybe that’s a good sign. We applied for all that we felt we were eligible for and I think we made good presentations, but there must have been other communities that were more deserving than we are.
Q What’s your opinion about Emporia?
A We live in a great city. Sometimes we don’t take the time to realize that, but we have a lot of things going for Emporia. We have a great university, great transportation system, and a great community of people. Building Futures is working hard both internally and externally to build community pride. I just congratulate all the citizens of Emporia for the community we have.