OCTOBER 22, 2009 ISSUE
Boone Candidates Share Views, Goals at Forum
Candidates for Boone mayor and Boone Town Council shared their views on the issues during the October 20 Meet the Candidates Forum at the Town Council Chambers. Photo by Anna Oakes
Candidates for Boone mayor and Boone Town Council fielded questions about small business, smart growth, consultants, annexation, steep slope regulations and the Howard Street Project at a Meet the Candidates Forum hosted October 20 by the Boone Area Chamber of Commerce and the Boone Kiwanis Club at the Town Council Chambers.
Three candidates—incumbent Loretta Clawson, John Mena and Tim Wilson—are vying for the position of mayor, which this year switches to a four-year term instead of a two-year term.
Seven candidates are on the ballot for three open seats on the council, including Andy Ball, incumbent Rennie Brantz, Harold Frazier, Grant Holder, Jamie Leigh, Matthew Long and Thomas Wilhite. The top two vote-earners in the council race serve a four-year term, with the third place finisher serving a two-year term.
All candidates except Wilhite attended the forum.
In response to a question about supporting small business in Boone, several candidates offered their ideas on ways to help the small business owner. Frazier said the town should relax some zoning laws for small businesses; have simple, flexible rules; “de-politicize” the zoning process with the Board of Adjustment and lower fees for businesses.
Most of the candidates agreed that the town could relax some regulations for small businesses, including in the Unified Development Ordinance (UDO).
“It’s cost-prohibitive for people to come in here and open up business because of all the rules and regulations,” Mena said. “Town council should be bending over backwards helping small businesses as much as they can.”
Added Leigh, “We need to look at some town practices and regulations to make sure they’re not overly prohibitive.”
Leigh said the town should consider a policy of giving preference to local businesses for town contracts, with Long, Ball and Clawson agreeing the town should buy local. Clawson also said she would be willing to hold a small business summit to hear business concerns. Wilson agreed the town should look at waiving some fees for businesses but said the best thing the town can do is to let small business run itself. Holder said the council needs to do whatever it needs to do to make Boone business competitive with neighboring towns.
All of the candidates agreed the UDO needs significant changes. Ball said the UDO needs to be more clear, while Brantz said the ordinance needs to be streamlined and that the town should review some of its archaic zoning measures. Frazier agreed the document is “out of date and needs to be revised.”
Holder said the UDO should help add sidewalks and improve walkability in the town and be more favorable toward business. Leigh said the UDO should be completely rewritten with “greener” measures.
“The UDO needs a lot of work,” Wilson said. “[The UDO should be] more friendly for people to come in here and build.”
Asked about how they would utilize findings of the Smart Growth Plan (the recently adopted Land Use Master Plan), most candidates said they enthusiastically support the plan. Long cited his green building expertise in his goal to make the plan’s green design principles a reality and said he wants to redevelop run-down properties and build up instead of sprawl out.
Wilson and Clawson both said they would like to see more mixed use developments in town, while Mena said he would like to see implementation of the plan begin with revitalizing downtown and then work out from there.
Frazier said he agrees with plans for increased green spaces, pedestrian and bicycle uses and eliminating traffic congestion, but he doesn’t agree with the Smart Growth Plan’s mandate for developers to include affordable housing options in residential developments—that would cause housing prices to increase anyway, he said.
One question aimed to pin the candidates on the bogged-down Howard Street Project, a plan for sidewalks, lighting and other improvements that has been some 20 years in the making. Most candidates pointed to the fact that about half of the property owners on the street are still holding out on signing easements to allow the project to go forward.
“We’ve got to get these easements signed,” Ball said.
Mena said that if other towns have been able to do similar projects, so should Boone. “Easement problems are easement problems—let’s work it out,” he said. Leigh said the town will have to look for creative sources of financing for the project without raising taxes.
But Wilson and Holder said the town should not spend any more money on the project until all parties agree to it.
“If it’s not going to happen…just shelve it and move on to the next thing on the list,” Holder said.
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