Candidates for mayor and city marshal outlined priorities and answered questions on community issues during a public forum hosted by the GFWC Golden Study Club Thursday night at the Keller Building.

Incumbent Greg Stidham faces write-in challenger Brian Cummiskey for mayor. Acting City Marshal Bo Wells and Officer Brandon Abbott are competing for city marshal. The election will be held on Tuesday, April 7.

Cummiskey, who has lived in Fayette for 20 years, said in his opening statement he moved here to attend CMU. “My vision for Fayette is for every man, woman, and child to be happy when they walk down the street,” he said. He stressed bullying in schools and poor road conditions as top challenges.

Stidham is in his second non-consecutive term as Mayor, and has also served on the city council. He highlighted his Fayette roots, farm upbringing, and longtime career in the insurance business.

Regarding his vision for the city, Stidham said the city is updating ordinances, improving the budgeting process, budgeting for street repairs, upgrading the aging electrical system, catching up on audits, and said he wants to improve D.C. Rogers Lake. Stidham pointed to increasing city revenue, controlling expenses, maximizing grants, developing more residential lots, and economic development. He said urgent and long-term needs must be identified, then assigned to the right people and included in planning and budgeting.

The following are abridged answers to prepared and audience questions presented at last week’s forum. For full answers, watch the complete forum on the Advertiser’s Facebook page.

Howard County Clerk Shelly Howell predicts results to be available no sooner than 10 p.m. on Election Day due to the large number of write-ins. The Advertiser will announce unofficial results on its Facebook page the moment they are tallied.

Mayor of Fayette

Greg Stidham

What is your vision for Fayette? What specific policies or initiatives would you champion to address these challenges?

“One thing we’re currently working on is updating city ordinances. Those city ordinances have been around for years and years and years and they haven’t been brought to current. We need to continue to make revisions and changes on those. That’s one of my priorities in this next term. We need to improve the budgeting process. We’ve made changes to it. We do it different than we have in the past. I think we need to improve our employee annual evaluation process, the salary ranges, and salary increases. I think we need to budget for street repairs. We’ve got a million-dollar project going on in street repairs right now, and they just completed the work on the three intersections on South Church Street. We’re going to do Morrison and West Davis and Spring and Lucky Street. All that should be done by June. We’re so far behind on keeping up with improving the streets, it’s going to take a while to get caught up. We’ve got to continue budgeting to do some of that work every year and not wait 20 years down the road and then try to get caught up. Upgrading the electrical system. Some of this equipment is 50 and 75 years old, and it’s at the end of its life, and it’s expensive. Maintaining current city audits. When your audits aren’t current, you can’t qualify for grants. It is a priority was to get those audits caught up.We should be in good shape by this fall and then be able to start looking for more grants for the city. We need those funds to assist us in maintaining city property and making improvements. Another thing I think we need to be working on is D.C. Rogers Lake. I think we’re missing an opportunity out there.

What do you see as the biggest challenges facing our community right now? 

The biggest challenge is increasing the city income and maintaining or reducing our operating expenses. We need to look at every single line. Is that something we need? Can we reduce it? Should we maintain it? Maximizing our grant opportunities. We need to figure out some way to supplement what the city’s income is, and grants are really a good way to do that. We need to stay current with our city audits. We need to develop more residential building sites and more places for new homes. One of the complaints we hear is when people come to town, they’re looking for housing. They can’t find anything. So, we need to figure out how to get more residential lots, and how to get more new homes built. We need to increase our population base. The population affects our tax income, and supports our local businesses. And economic development is something we need to be working on all the time. The city is involved with the Howard County Economic Development Corp. We need to be recruiting new business to Fayette, and then trying to expand what we’ve got.

If elected, you will likely face pressure to tackle urgent problems while also planning for the long-term health and vitality of our community. How will you prioritize and allocate resources to meet both short- and long-term needs?

Urgent problems and long-term issues have to be identified. We have to know what they are, so we need to do some research and find out what is really urgent and find out where we’re going in the long-term and how we’re going to get there. Once they’re identified, you have to put the right people in charge of solving those problems, and you have to give them authority so they can move forward on that. Both urgent and long-term issues have to be a part of the planning and budgeting process. We need to identify the cost involved with each and make plans to budget for the expenses, as well as planning to implement whatever that solution is.

Is there a plan to be able to keep D.C. Rogers open all year round?

We decided to close D.C. Rogers from December to March. The reason for that is trying to maintain that gravel road that goes down and across the dam. And the other thing is all the vandalism that happens out there in the winter time. Usually, when we go out there in the spring to get everything open back up, there’s been lots of vandalism to street signs and equipment and park equipment. That’s the thing the city has tried to eliminate. If people are interested in opening it up, it’s probably something we could do. It just needs to be presented to the council, and we need to hear both sides of what needs to be done.

What are your plans for attracting manufacturing and new business?

That goes back to economic development. You’re always looking for somebody to come to town that has to be a good fit. Whoever that business is has to be able to see where their employees are coming from. It’s something that you have to work and develop, and that’s what the Howard County Economic Development Corporation is for. One of the things I’ve looked at around town is what are we going to do with the McDonald’s building, what are we going to do with the Dairy Queen building, what are we going to do with the Fayette Caring Center? And I’ve made contact with the owners of the Fayette Caring Center. We’ve had several contractors look at it that might have an interest in converting that building. Economic development is one of those things we’ve got to work on. We’re always looking to get a new business in town.

Brian Cummiskey

What is your vision for Fayette? What specific policies or initiatives would you champion to address those challenges?

My vision for Fayette is for every man, woman, and child to be happy when they walk down the street. Children, they can go to school not worried about being bullied. Parents can go to work, come home from work without worrying about running over a pothole. You know, a deep pothole. And everybody else in harmony because a happy community will bring business here, I believe. Now, if everybody’s miserable about the conditions of the roads, their kids in the school.…I champion anti-bullying big time. I was against Greg [Stidham] and [Kenny] O’Brien eight years ago for mayor. I talked about my platform of streets then. Come on, man, it’s been eight years. And figure out where the money’s being spent and get a receipt. Please, somebody collect the receipts. This is ridiculous. It’s the way things are in my eyes anyway. I know how to delegate authority.

What do you see as the biggest challenges facing our community right now?

“First, the bullying in schools. There’s no reason for that. We have to have a zero [tolerance] policy for that. And the roads. I can’t stress that enough. And the police department needs a new place to go because their building is kind of sad. A new premises, a new feeling for the cops themselves. I’m not sure about the policies. I’m sure the city council would help me with that if they want to work with me.

If elected, he will likely face pressure to tackle urgent problems while also planning for the long-term health and vitality of our community. How will you prioritize and allocate resources to meet both short- and long-term needs?

Hit them head-on. I’ve been to a few city council meetings, and there’s always a county and a city dispute. I’m going to suggest or invite the county commissioner, whoever’s involved over the county side, equal to our side, to visit us once or twice a month. And we need to settle the issues right there and then. No emails, no letters, just take care of everything, squash it, and move on, move forward. And the kids are our future, so we’ve got to make the schools safe and make them feel safe to get there. We had a fatal fire not too long ago. It was terrible, but the street to that fire wasn’t very sound to drive on. There’s got to be a way to find more money to pay for these roads. With the council’s help, I will find it.

Is there a plan to be able to keep D.C. Rogers open all year round?

Hopefully we can make the road not so easily deteriorated by the elements. Just a constant maintaining of it. I don’t see why not. As long as we can maintain the road protect it from the elements, there’s no reason it shouldn’t be.

What are your plans for attracting manufacturing and new business?

I really have no idea. I’m not going to sit up here and BS all of you. I might suggest that the city itself take care of one of these businesses and create something that only Fayette would have. That helps everybody. It might be fast food service or something. I have no idea. These buildings have been sitting empty for so long that we could probably get them cheap. And that would just increase our city income.

Fayette City Marshal

Brandon Abbott

What are the biggest obstacles you face when trying to build trust with residents, and how do you plan to overcome them?

I’ve lived here for eight years. One of the issues that I would see with building trust is not being from here. How I plan to correct that is through transparent communication. Being on Facebook. Allowing the city council to know what we have done, what jobs and what calls that we have been to. Community presence. Being a friendly face in the community. Being out in the businesses, being in the schools, going out and even with the kids, playing basketball, football, and then following through with our actions. Once we say something, we have to do it. If you say something and you don’t do it, it’s not going to build the trust of the community.

Given the challenges in recruiting and retaining officers, what is your strategy to boost morale and keep experienced officers in this department?

Pay would be our biggest issue. Past applicants find other places to work. Looking at possibly eliminating one of our higher-paid positions. Look at moving money towards raising our starting pay. And then finding out what our needs of the officers coming in and the ones that are currently here. We just got our dash cameras. I’m very big on safety, and getting those dash cameras made me feel that I can protect myself and somebody else with that simple technology. Training is a big thing. Making sure that we are properly trained as officers is a big morale booster. Knowing we’re properly trained to serve the community as a police department.

What are the top crime-related issues in our community, and what specific, evidence-based strategies will you use to address them?

The first one is loose animals. I know it’s a topic on every platform that people are on, and even to the public. We’ve had 78 calls this year for loose animals. Looking into a countywide shelter. Fayette has a shelter. It is not, in my opinion, a very good shelter. It’s not climate-controlled. I wouldn’t put my dog out there. Implement an animal control officer that would be hired by the county, getting paid for by Fayette, Glasgow, and New Franklin. The second one is theft and property damage. We’ve had approximately six calls this year for thefts and property damage. Being out continuously, being seen. If somebody sees a police officer around, they’re going to be less likely to commit that crime. Set up a neighborhood watch program, and having weekly or monthly meetings. Patrolling those high-crime areas. Looking into a safe camera program. And traffic enforcement (DWIs) is one thing that I hit on a lot that I find. Out of approximately 110 traffic stops that we’ve had, about six of them have been DWIs this year. And being in the schools and being in the college and educating the youth and even the college students on the dangers and the consequences of DWIs would be what we would do. Working with the highway patrol and getting training set up for that.

What are your main goals if you win this position?

My main goal is looking at the inner workings of the police department, getting our policies set up, getting recruiting more trained officers, looking at keeping the officers that we currently have. And what we can help the community with for each crime or issue that we have in the city.

What is your plan to address the loose dog issue?

Just enforcing the ordinances that we do have and responding to the calls. Getting it taken care of and writing citations.

The previous city marshal has stated in public that he was only accountable to the citizens of Fayette because he was elected. Please share your thoughts about this and what you know about statutes and ordinances?

We serve everybody that comes into Fayette, not just the citizens of Fayette. We have Howard County, plus the ones that are visiting, especially college students.

Due to some recent, very unfortunate events, what involvement do you have planned for the schools?

Just being there. Looking into a school resource officer, if we can find the funds or even a grant to provide an extra set of hands and set of eyes. I think that right now the biggest concern is the bullying, whether it does happen or it doesn’t happen in the schools. Educating the students on what happens with making threats or harassing an individual or even bullying them. Getting in there, talking to the students, and letting them know that we are trusted individuals, and we will take down anything that they say to figure out a situation.

What are your plans to prioritize the police department budget?

I’m not 100% on what we need to prioritize first. Looking at the equipment, figuring out what we need to do about getting new officers, and even keeping them up to date on the equipment that we have.

Do you ever drive around the city just to see what needs to be done or improved?

Yes. Working night shift, I have a lot of time just to drive around the town and see what safety hazards the town brings, noticing that if there’s a stop sign that needs to be placed, figuring out what is out of the ordinary, looking at things and noticing if a door is shut and. It’s not just driving around, it’s walking around as well, getting out and actually physically trying to open a door that’s supposed to be locked.

What are your plans for obtaining grants for equipment and training?

Sitting down and finding what grants we are eligible for and making sure that we are up to date through our department to receive those grants.

What are your plans for juvenile justice?

Educating the youth and parents on what our ordinances are. Working with the juvenile office on what crimes they commit and trying to make sure that they know that we will prosecute.

Timothy “Bo” Wells

What are the biggest obstacles you face when trying to build trust with residents, and how do you plan to overcome them?

One of the biggest things over the years has been transparency with the police department. There’s been a lot of transparency issues. I recently purchased new body cams for everybody. I also installed dash cameras in all four vehicles. When things happen, you want both sides. We need to be more transparent, and I feel like we’re working that direction lately through social media, through just being available for people to come talk to us. I have encouraged our guys to be out there and talk to the people. We have to address negative interactions that have been had over the years. And we have to reduce the amount of negative interactions, which means we have to stay professional. I think we’ve had a problem across the board with consistency in enforcing things. The whole department needs to be on the same page about how we deal with things. The way I see addressing those is through more training, policies, dictating community interactions, listening to community concerns, and trying to find solutions to their concerns

Given the challenges in recruiting and retaining officers, what is your strategy to boost morale and keep experienced officers in this department?

Standing behind our officers as well as holding officers accountable for their actions. And taking the time to make sure that we’re checking on our officers and making sure they’re good, and they have what they need. Training is huge. Training is imperative. Equipment, whether it be computers, tasers, investigative equipment, cameras, things like that to better help them serve the community and do their jobs more efficiently. The benefits and pay, I think, comes with time and figuring out over the next few years, trying to pull everything up. Positive community interactions are a huge thing that keep cops happy. If you can go out here and have conversations throughout your shift and have good interactions, even on calls, that’s going to help them want to stick around.

What are the top crime-related issues in our community, and what specific, evidence-based strategies will you use to address them?

One of the biggest problems that we’ve got in our community is narcotics. We’ve got a huge problem here coming in and going out. I know that we recently had several ounces of narcotics seized coming into our town, and it was prevented from entering the hands of our citizens. I’ve got a very close and good working relationship with about all of our local departments, and they’ve helped tremendously. We work very closely in monitoring and taking those dangerous drugs off our streets. We’re not going to get them all, but we’re going to try. Another way of combating that is MOSIC, an information-sharing program. They also can loan equipment such as poll cameras that we can get for hotspot operations if we know where something’s happening and need to put something up for serious crimes. Narcotic-specific drugs or training that I want to send everybody to and get everybody through so that they can recognize drug activity when it’s going on.

What are your main goals if you win this position?

I am very big into community policing and keeping the community involved. It’s how we get information. It’s how we police properly, and we’re able to get that information to solve crimes. I want to have a stronger community involvement in the schools. And I want to get us technologically more advanced. There’s more equipment that we need to help us do our jobs.

What is your plan to address the loose dog issue?

We’re going to have a more across-the-board way we handle the loose dogs, whether it’s with warnings, citations, impoundment, and making sure that everybody is in compliance with city ordinance as far as licensing and vaccinations and everything.I think that if we keep a consistent enforcement action, it will clear up a whole lot of that.

The previous city marshal has stated in public that he was only accountable to the citizens of Fayette because he was elected. Please share your thoughts about this and what you know about statutes and ordinances?

So, we are accountable to the citizens. We do also have a responsibility to report to the council and the city officials as to what’s going on. It’s also a professional practice to do so and keep everybody in the loop of what we’re doing. I think everybody has a right to know that we’re out here doing our job. I’m a little unclear on the knowledge of the ordinances and things. I’ve had several classes on state statutes. I’ve combed the ordinances.

Due to some recent, very unfortunate events, what involvement do you have planned for the schools?

Prior to me breaking a leg I was putting us in the schools a lot more than we had been previously. I would like to continue that as we build our department. We don’t have a school resource officer. But I want to be there for the staff, for the kids, for whatever needs they may have. My feeling is that we’re here for everyone, and I want to put us back in there again.”

What are your plans to prioritize the police department budget?

A lot of our budget is obviously salaries and benefits. It’s hard to bring that down. A top priority is keeping that where it is, at least so that we can continue to keep officers and bring new officers in when we need them. Equipment, a very big thing. We need to be able to function, and you can’t function if all of your computers and things are going out of date. The other thing is training, making sure we have enough of a budget for training so that we have qualified officers and competent officers out here to serve our community.

Do you ever drive around the city just to see what needs to be done or improved?

I’ve spent a whole lot of time driving around and checking properties. I definitely know where some problem areas are as far as nuisance properties, things like that. I want to be out there with the people and out there on the street seeing what’s going on and being there for my guys.

What are your plans for obtaining grants for equipment and training?

I would like to send somebody through grant writing class. I’m willing to do the work, but I also know that delegation is important.

What are your plans for juvenile justice?

Trying to work closely with the juvenile office and making sure that those referrals get sent over whenever we have those juvenile incidents. Making sure reports are properly done, On property crimes, making sure that we’re enforcing the curfews and things like that on the juveniles and making sure they have that knowledge and that we’re watching.