City candidates meet voters face‑to‑face

There were no speech­es or debates. Winchester city gov­ern­ment can­di­dates sim­ply met indi­vid­u­al­ly with vot­ers who came to Whiskey & Wiles on the last night in April to talk with their com­mis­sion­ers and may­or, and those chal­leng­ing them in this year’s election.

“For me, per­son­al­ly, I like this. I like one-on-one. I like get­ting to know peo­ple,” said James Bowman, a can­di­date for the Winchester Board of Commissioners, who was there with his wife, Bree.

“I think it was a good oppor­tu­ni­ty to meet the vot­ers and hear their con­cerns,” he remarked.

One of the con­cerns Bowman heard about was that drug addic­tion is a seri­ous prob­lem in the city, and more should be done to sup­port recovery.

It is a con­cern shared by Bowman, who was a sub­stance abuse con­trol offi­cer dur­ing his time of active duty in the Marines.

Another area of inter­est he had a chance to dis­cuss with guests was the vital­i­ty of down­town Winchester, where he and his wife have estab­lished two busi­ness­es and live in an upstairs apartment.

Bowman said he’s pleased to see major busi­ness devel­op­ments, such as the Publix gro­cery and shop­ping cen­ter planned for Bypass Road at Colby, but he also wants to main­tain some sep­a­ra­tion between Main Street and the Bypass.

“Because down­town has the charm, it has the his­to­ry, and I think small busi­ness own­ers real­ly thrive down here, espe­cial­ly if they have the right resources,” he said. “That’s a thing I want to focus on: pro­vid­ing those resources.”

Brent and Michelle Peterson, who moved here from Lexington six years ago and live on West Hickman, say they are impressed with what is hap­pen­ing down­town. Brent has been part of that, doing con­struc­tion work on Main Street.

He also wants to see more indus­try jobs and leisure oppor­tu­ni­ties for children.

Having more activ­i­ties for kids was anoth­er recur­ring theme.

Tim Cornett, who has made youth activ­i­ties a pri­or­i­ty of his cam­paign, said he wants to see Winchester attract fam­i­ly enter­tain­ment cen­ters like Galaxy Bowling in Richmond or Main Event in Lexington.

“Maybe ask those folks, how did they go about it?” He said. “I just feel like we’ve got to look at everything.”

Kevin and Susan Nally, who live on Milwood Drive near where the new Publix super­mar­ket will be built, said they didn’t live in a flood plain when they moved there years ago, but they do now.

They want to make sure water runoff from the big devel­op­ment doesn’t adverse­ly affect them and their neighbors.

“Yes, we want growth, but we want to see respon­si­ble growth,” Kevin said.

Susan said she and her hus­band liked being able to meet with local offi­cials and those vying for office.

Everybody talks nation­al pol­i­tics, Susan said, but it is at the local lev­el where cit­i­zens’ voic­es are like­ly to be heard, and where they can have influ­ence, she noted.

“We are just try­ing to make a bet­ter effort in being more informed vot­ers and being more involved in the local elec­tion,” she said.

Sam and Catherine Keathley said they had spo­ken with Commissioner Joe Chenault and can­di­dates Jim Caldwell and Robin Kunkel, and were impressed with Kunkel’s ideas for pro­mot­ing afford­able hous­ing, such as appoint­ing ten­ants to hous­ing boards and oppos­ing dis­crim­i­na­tion against those receiv­ing pub­lic hous­ing assistance.

Image gallery

All pho­tos by Randy Patrick.

Asked what was on vot­ers’ minds, Kunkel said: “Transparency is a big one. I think peo­ple want to have more discussions.”

That includes, she said, open­ing up the pub­lic com­ments process dur­ing pub­lic meetings.

“I would love to see us do that more often so that there’s more of a dia­logue — more back and forth, rather than let­ting the audi­ence watch the meet­ing hap­pen,” she explained.

On the sub­ject of afford­able hous­ing, Kunkel men­tioned that she had got­ten some push­back from a friend who said he was sup­port­ing her cam­paign, but told her why he thought she was wrong about loos­en­ing reg­u­la­tions to encour­age more afford­able res­i­den­tial development.

“This was a man who had 20 years of expe­ri­ence in plan­ning and zon­ing, so I take his opin­ions very seri­ous­ly,” she said. “I know he wants hous­ing to be afford­able. It’s a mat­ter of find­ing the most effec­tive way to do it. So I think we should con­sid­er look­ing into the reg­u­la­tions and see­ing if there are things that need to be changed, but I’m also open to being told that I’m wrong and that that’s not an effec­tive way to do it.”

Caldwell said ques­tions he heard were: “What are we going to do next? How are we going to grow, and grow efficiently?”

He said he thinks Winchester can grow with­out los­ing what makes it attractive.

“Lexington’s a great city. It’s got every­thing in the world — but it’s got every­thing in the world,” he said. “Here we’ve got that small-town charm.”

Chenault said some­thing vot­ers asked him as an incum­bent was, “What have you accomplished?”

He men­tioned the new down­town streetscape, the exten­sion of Fulton Road to the bypass, the replace­ment of the Jackson Street bridge, and oth­er projects.

“We’ve still got a lot to do,” he said. “If we get re-elect­ed, it’s boots on the ground.”

Kitty Strode, a long­time com­mis­sion­er, said she’s encour­aged by planned devel­op­ments, includ­ing a big truck stop near Winchester Industrial Park, the new Publix shop­ping cen­ter, and the exten­sion of Veterans Memorial Parkway from Irvine Road to Boonesboro Road.

“Winchester is grow­ing,” she said. “We’ve got to have growth.”

“I think peo­ple are eager to see growth, but the ques­tion is, how do we get there with it being sound eco­nom­i­cal­ly, but also (with­out it) over­ly impact­ing green space?” Commissioner Hannah Toole said.

Toole, who lives near the Publix devel­op­ment, said the loss of green space and increased traf­fic near the Colby and Bypass Road inter­sec­tion were con­cerns of some of the peo­ple she talked with that night.

Three of the can­di­dates for the Board of Commissioners in the May 19 non­par­ti­san pri­ma­ry did not attend the event: Kenny Book, Ralph Harrison, and Tara Asbury.

One can­di­date whose name will be on the bal­lot, Logan Hall, recent­ly dropped out because he was appoint­ed Clark County’s new emer­gency man­age­ment director.

Winchester Mayor JoEllen Reed and may­oral can­di­date Perry Williams attend­ed, but because they are the only two vying for that office, they will not be on the bal­lot until the November gen­er­al election.

Most of the can­di­dates said they wished more peo­ple had attend­ed the event, but oth­ers said they felt less pres­sure because there wasn’t a big crowd.

“I’m just glad some­one want­ed to do some­thing,” Toole said, com­mend­ing Jon Paul Martin and Whiskey & Wiles for host­ing the event.

“I think that with the num­ber of can­di­dates, it was prob­a­bly appro­pri­ate to do a meet and greet,” she said. “I think a debate would have been quite lengthy.”

However, she added, she thinks that a debate might be good for the gen­er­al elec­tion in the fall when eight of the 10 com­mis­sion can­di­dates advance, along with the may­oral candidates.