KWC hosts city commission candidate debate

Economic development, affordable housing and homelessness were among the issues addressed by candidates for the Owensboro City Commission during a debate Friday night at Kentucky Wesleyan College's Jack T. Wells '77 Activity Center.

The forum was hosted by KWC's Stanley Reed Political Science and Pre-Law Society. Members of the group asked the candidates questions.

Current city commissioners Bob Glenn and Sharon NeSmith, former city commissioner Jeff Sanford, and Rafe Buckner, Curtis Maglinger and Robert Morris participated.

Many of the questions were related to economic growth and what Owensboro must do to lure industry and have the workforce talent that's needed available.

Maglinger said the city must do all it can "to make sure we're attracting talent, developing it and retaining it," while Glenn noted that through incentives to new businesses, such as property tax and occupational tax abatements, Owensboro landed the headquarters for Kentucky Legend and Big Rivers.

Sanford believes creating an industrial park should be among the city's highest priorities.

"If you don't have somewhere to put people, they're not going to come looking for us, they're just not," he said. "You have got to have somewhere to put industry. That should be the next thing we look at."

Morris said the city "definitely" needs to have sites ready to build on for factories or storage facilities, including having all utilities ready. But he said the city needs more land to meet that objective.

"Somehow we have to increase our city limits," he said. "I'm a firm believer that you have to have growth in the city. I think an outer loop is a good idea we could look at, and possibly a merger. But if you want to talk economic growth, that's the only way it's going to happen, and (creating) the industrial parks. That's got to happen.

"If you just want to be where baseball tournaments are held, (have) boat docks, a bluegrass museum — that's what we're going to be until we grow."

Glenn said the city is "moving ahead and moving in a good direction" economically, as he noted the recent expansion announcements by Mizkan and Swedish Match.

"The biggest issue is we need to provide challenging, technically-oriented jobs, either in the ag-tech industry, banking or financial services," said Glenn, who also stressed the importance of the community caring about each other. "If we're going to attract new businesses to this community, we have to let people know that we are caring and open to everyone.

"The attacks on LGBTQ citizens that have occurred over the last few years are absolutely ridiculous. They do nothing but harm our community. The attacks on immigrants do nothing but harm the image of our community. We need to really start there."

Maglinger said the city needs to be ready to embrace high-tech companies, citing examples as those in automation and artificial intelligence.

Buckner said he's been pushing for a Disadvantaged Business Enterprise zone be created around West Second Street.

"I would love for us to start that program here," he said. "It serves disadvantaged folks; veterans, disabled, minorities, women, LGBQT, all of that falls under that. It fosters business."

Buckner harkened back to a long-ago plan then-mayor David Adkisson led to revitalize the west end, noting that plan was incrementally cut back and the vision was never fulfilled.

"I have been pushing for lighting, pushing to incentivize small businesses to open in buildings in these areas that are blighted," he said.

Sanford said he agrees with Buckner's vision.

"I really think the city is in a position to create an enterprise zone, Second Street west, to provide incentives for businesses that invest in the area," he said.

Glenn said Abby Shelton, the city's community development director, has done an excellent job leading renovations of areas in the city.

NeSmith noted that the city isn't done with its rehabilitation work downtown.

"There are a lot of positive things that have been done and are being done,' she said. "We are moving forward, we just can't move forward fast enough."

Sanford said the key to downtown reaching its potential is people.

"The thing is you have to have people living in that area 24/7 in decent houses," he said. "If they live in that area, that supports the downtown businesses. It's about putting people there."

On the issue of affordable housing, Buckner advocates for refurbishing properties to help achieve the objective.

"The senior center — the old Elizabeth Munday school — since we're getting a new senior center, I'd like to see us go in there, rehab it and turn that into some type of affordable housing for seniors, for veterans," he said.

Sanford agreed that rehabilitating properties is a viable option.

Maglinger said he believes the issue "needs collaboration, and create strategies to address it."

Glenn said, "to address the homeless issue, you need to also address hand-in-hand the affordable housing issue. You need to engage in rapid rehousing. The way we do that is probably look for federal and state government to build another Roosevelt House, to build another Lee Manor that can accommodate lots of people."

While having more affordable housing would be a weapon to combat the city's homelessness issue, other factors were noted that need to be addressed.

"We've got to address the mental illness issues," Morris said.

Maglinger said it will require "collaborating with our local and state agencies, mental health facilities, shelters, churches; just help provide the support they need."

Sanford noted that a lot of the city's homeless population are people who have been kicked out of treatment or assistance facilities and are not from the area.

"You can build facilities to put people in, but they have to be willing to go," said Glenn, who noted that many are dealing with mental illness and/or drug addiction. "Many of them will not go into housing we provide."

NeSmith said, "until we find the root causes and start fixing them, we're always going to have homeless people."