As noted previously this week, these are banner days for New Albany.
Tonight at 7:00 p.m., you can join the Uptown Neighborhood Association in meeting many candidates for local office.
Tomorrow, there’ll be a cynical photo-op that you’ll recount for future generations as “that time back in ’07 when I got stuck in traffic so the worst president in American history could come and visit.”
We’ll not be given the opportunity to chat with the current occupant of the White House (I'm quite sure my name is on the Secret Service "enemies" list), but the occupant of the house down the street, the one who seeks municipal office and a place in determining New Albany’s future, will be available for direct questioning tonight.
What’s the one question you would like to see asked of each and every candidate for local office?
Here is my choice:
Can downtown New Albany become an “alternative” engine for making the city’s pie bigger, or must we continue to enable the culture of the slumlord?
Or, as suggested by Lawguy, perhaps it would be easier to ask each how to spell "potato."
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For an exhaustive listing of issues, one currently being referenced by certain city council incumbents as a "cheat sheet" for what to ignore, refer to Randy Smith's "Walk This Plank, Candidates," in the January 31, 2007, Tribune -- and be enriched.
My big one would be where the candidates stand on enacting more strict rental house controls, inspections, ect. To hold the slum lords not only liable for the state of the properties they are renting out, but also the actions of the tenants if the slumlords absenteeism is enabling behavior that is detrimental to an entire neighborhood.
ReplyDeleteI'm going to agree with csd619 and hope public safety will be priority #1 for a candidate, or two. And it'll be easy to pay for it when we get out of the business of giving tax abatements, and back into the basic municipal services business.
ReplyDeleteConsidering our incumbents and the mess were in now, I would have to ask this three part question. Since it basically can be answered with one full answer I hope it qualifies.
ReplyDeleteWhat makes you think you can lead this city? Where are you going to take us? What are you going to leave behind?