In Focus

I can’t believe how quickly the election is creeping up.

I haven’t had time to campaign as I am running for a city council seat in Hewitt.

You won’t see any signs of any kind in my yard as I refuse to make my light show political. It is a neutral space for people to enjoy and it will remain that way. And I am not making any signs either as I don’t have the funds to spare. Also, this time of year, I get kind of annoyed seeing signs dotting the landscape everywhere.

I haven’t posted anything online or really discussed my intent to run for office with many people because in a way I feel like I’d be trying to influence them to vote for me and I don’t want that. I want people to vote for who they think will best represent them.

I’ve been covering the city council meetings for nearly a decade, longer than I have actually lived in Hewitt. I’ve called them out several times over the years for open meeting law violations, procedure and more. No council is perfect but this one has a habit of pushing things aside and not moving forward on actions when residents are asking for something to be done, such as nuisance properties for example.

I don’t want to live next to a dump. Why should anyone else have to? Or let rotting, dilapidated buildings continue to stand? What if a building were to collapse on someone?

Hewitt will never be some kind of metropolis but there is room for developers to come in and make apartments or town homes at minimum or maybe bring in a business or two. We need to clean up our town and make it appealing. This has been an issue for years, and nothing seems to have been resolved.

Sometimes our city council meeting turns into coffee hour and they tend to let citizens run the meeting. There is nothing wrong with being heard and sharing opinions but the council needs to curb the lengthy discussions and conduct their business. Usually the public comment period is limited, especially if the item is not on the agenda.

I cover several different city councils, school boards and county commissioners and have for many years. I have witnessed, been involved in and know a lot about the operation, open meeting law, decorum, conflict of interest and more.

To me, it says something when you have multiple candidates running for the same seat that generally goes unopposed. There are two people running for the vacant two year seat on the Hewitt City Council, two running for mayor and five people running for two four year seats. This just tells me the residents want change.

I am going to attend the council meetings either way as it is my job to cover them. What it comes down to is what side of the table do the residents of Hewitt want me on? That is entirely up to you...

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