LITTLE ROCK — Why do you want to be mayor? Because I feel like I can provide service as a citizen, I have been on this side of the counter as far as the city is concerned and I can see where improvement needs to be made on all aspects. You always say ‘If I was in charge I’d do things this way.’ This is my opportunity to try to be in charge, to do my best. It’s easy to say I’ll do this or I’ll do that, but in reality ... for instance, politically, things take a lot longer to get it accomplished. You have to get permission from everybody to get something done when it’s political.

Why should someone vote for you? I believe I’ve got common sense conclusions, a way of looking at things. I can think outside of the box, so to speak.

There are lots of situations where someone says something can’t be accomplished that makes me drive harder to get it accomplished it even though you told me it couldn’t be done.

What do you hope to accomplish? I hope to accomplish a lot better service ... getting things done quicker, and accountability.

A lot of times, you’ll have an issue and you’ll want to have it addressed and nobody takes initiative to get it accomplished. For instance, you go to City Hall and have an issue and the mayor is not there and you tell clerk what you need, and you get a hold of the mayor several days later, he doesn’t know nothing about it because the message didn’t get relayed. I want to have some sort of system set up so that when a citizen comes in with issue, somebody will grab hold of that issue, look into within one to two days.

Then get back with me,what the progress is or why it couldn’t be accomplished.

Do you have a specific agenda? Yes, I would like to see if there’s a possibility of getting more cleanups done - quarterly, if not monthly so we don’t have to have trash piling up in our back yards. Sometimes you have something to throw away and you have to hold on to it for five months.

Like, I’ve got tree branches I don’t want to burn in my own yard. I feel that’s a service the city should provide. There’s really not going to be a lot of increase in cost, if do every four months.

As mayor, when somebody comes to me with an issue that they want the city to help with, if it’s only going to help them and nobody else, there’s a good chance that issue will not be looked at with a lot of emphasis. But, I will run the numbers. I will check out the issue to see if it’s feasible at all.

As a citizen, when you come in and ask for information, why do you have to go to the expense or the rhetoric of the FOI? Why can not the city just provide that?

What are the sources of revenue for a city - for Pea Ridge? State, federal income tax ... I’m assuming.

I don’t know.

The city has a budget of about $2.25 million not including the Water/ Wastewater Department which brings the budget to about $4.7 million.

What is your experience in managing a budget of that size? I don’t have any experience at that size of a budget. I have experience with my own home budget and you have to borrow from Peter to pay Paul when you have yourown home budget. I borrow money from my wife whenever I’m running low.

As far as our finances, both of us have over 800 score, the last time we checked.

Me and the wife, she sort of makes fun of me because her credit score is higher than mine even though I generally make more money than she does. I’m pretty good at math and can see where things need to be cut and where things don’t need to be spent so much money on. At this time, I don’t have a clue. What I intend to do when I become mayor before I start coming in like a bull in a china closet, I’m going to sit back and go around with every person or at least every foreman that the city has - I believe you’ve got a street department, sewer head person - I’m going to ride around with the chief of police, and see what’s being done and point out things I think need to be improved on. I’ll look and see if I see things need to be cut, may not need no cuts.

The city has about 30 employees, who report to various department heads, who report to the mayor. What people management skills do you have? I’ve been a foreman on several smaller jobs. I’ve had six men under me at one time.

What do you believe is the job description of the mayor? The mayor’s job is to run the city finances, try to keep ’em in line, try to direct the lead staff tell them what needs to be done. I’m not sure that the mayor is supposed to micro manage every employee; that lead person should micro manage every job.

What are your plansfor the various city departments?

Water/wastewater: I see a lot of times the sewer department people out cleaning the lines periodically. I’m not exactly sure what they’re doing. I believe they’re doing preventative maintenance to keep the lines from getting clogged. From what I understand, some of the sewer lines are all old. There several men doing this preventative maintenance all the time. A lot of labor goes into that. I’ll see about fixing some of these problems, so we don’t have to do all this follow up and cleanup very month. I’m not sure what that will take. We may have to put on another couple of new guys so we can have a crew fixing things - fixing the sewer lines.

But, like I said, until I get in there and actually see what needs to be done and talk with the staff, then that’s up in the air also.

Streets: At this time, probably go with whatever current mayor has scheduled.

Parks: I believe the parks are fine the way they are, from what I understand they’ve just added a new restroom out there. I wouldn’t close the parks.

Library: From the news that I heard, they bought themselves some nice shelves recently, made a big splash with the amount of money spent on them. So, I went and looked at what kind of quality shelves. For the money, looks like we got pretty good quality shelves.

I’m not sure what the status is with the library at this time, with them writing such a big check at the time that they did. It might need a little more oversight. I see it closed all the time. When it is open, I see very few people. I’ve talked to the lady that runs it and, when Ibecome mayor, I would see how many people actually use the library to see if it’s feasible to keep it.

Police: With the police department, I believe we need a sign out there to tell them where it is and one on the door to tell the people which door is the police department. I believe we need to take down the glass that we have to speak through.

That’s not conducive to public service. I talked to the chief of police the other day. I’ve told him we haven’t always got along, but unless we lock horns automatically for any reason or another, I told him I’d like him to stay on and I want to see dispatchers, either at least during the day time. There’s no reason for us citizens of Pea Ridge to call a local 451 number and get ahold of CenCom. If I want to call about something minor, then it should not go to CenCom and CenCom get all this information whether it’s minor or major and then pass it along at their discretion. I don’t know the cost.

I do know that it’s probably going to be about the cost of a couple of cars - I would guess they spend about $18,000 to $25,000 apiece plus gas after retrofitting them for being police cars.

Several years ago we only had two or three deputies, but now we’ve got eight or nine. The budget has grown and I’m not sure where all that money goes to.

Fire/EMS: As far as I’m concerned, I haven’t had a problem with any of them.

I haven’t had a chance to speak to the people who run those facilities to ask them what they’re in need of.

They may not need nothing.

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The reason I’m running, is I believe we need to have accountability and more service instead of reasons why we can’t have it.

News, Pages 7 on 09/29/2010