On the ballot, District 2: Bill Broadaway
By From staff reports
Published in News on October 26, 2015 1:46 PM
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Bill Broadaway
Q: Why do you want to be on the Goldsboro City Council?
A: I've always been interested in politics. I've always felt like it was pretty important to serve the community. If you are not doing something, you're really not going anywhere, and you are not helping anybody. I just think it is important to do that and really for the next four years because we have so many things that hopefully will jell together.
The first thing is that sometime in this period we are going to have a BRAC or (base) realignment.
The second reason I wanted to do that is because Goldsboro is a great place. I just think it is nice to be involved. I am kind of getting the age if you don't stay involved and do things you are going to die. You are going to wither right on the vine.
And I enjoy it. I truly enjoy it.
Q: What government experience do you have? If you don't have government experience, what are your qualifications?
A: I have 22 and some odd years as a Marine. That comes out once in a while. I have nine years around Washington (D.C.). I commanded at every rank. I think leadership is so important and I feel I have that.
It is important to serve. I just enjoy it. Enjoy the leadership. You know the Marine Corps pounds leadership into you and they don't promote you if you don't have leadership.
Q: The City Council has designated four major issues it intends to tackle in the coming years:
* Greenways and pathways around the city, both maintenance of existing systems and bringing new ones to Goldsboro.
* Continue to invest in downtown.
* Develop the city's parks and recreation department.
* Combat blight throughout the city.
Where do you stand on these issues?
A: Those are the main things we came up with at last year's retreat. Two of those go into quality of life. The greenways, the parks are quality of life. When we go to Charlotte, Greensboro or other places why are young people attracted there? Why do people retire there -- because of greenways, facilities, things for them to do.
Now what has more or less gravitated to the top (of the list) in the last four to six months is safety. While I agree with those four -- safety, we have got to be concerned about safety of our citizens, safety of our businesses, and safety of the community as a whole. I am not sure that hasn't gravitated to the top.
Another part of quality of life that went in there was downtown. It is really going to increase our quality of life. We have been beaten up cheek to jowl on that. But we have 30 new businesses. I think that is going to build quality of life. We had to do it for infrastructure anyway.
Now the government has got to get out of it and make it a place that private investors will go in. At some point in time government has to get out in my opinion. I can tell you from being in the government as long as I was, we can mess it up.
We have got to get infrastructure out to some of the areas that don't get a lot of attention. We have got to work on our streets. We have concentrated real hard on downtown, but now we have to look out a little bit.
I think we have to look elsewhere (from downtown) for a little while. We've got to give downtown the time to take its breath and to grow. And it is time for private money to comer in there.
A: People like parks. People like greenways. We have got to make them safe. It all boils into quality of life.
Parks and rec are important, and we are light years ahead of where we were four years ago. We have got to continue that.
A: We taking about 10 or 12 houses a year down. It is about $10,000 to take one down. Maybe we need to increase that budget. Another key is to put added pressure on these homeowners, especially these absentee homeowners. Somehow, legally of course, to put pressure on them to put up or shut up.
Good gracious, you come in off of (U.S.) 70 and come into town, that is blight. The same thing coming up (N.C.) 111. We have to do something about it, and the only way to do that is put pressure.
Litter is another problem.
Q: As for the budget, are there things you would like to see cut, increased or added?
A. Everybody wants to spend all of this money, and the money is finite what we have got. We have got to increase our police force in terms of what we are paying them and what we are retaining. We are also going to have to invest in modern technology. Body cameras are a good example. We need more thermal imaging devices.
The city, just like the hospital, has fixed cost that you are going to have to pay. We have to be creative, and we have to work hard on grants. There is money out there. It may dry up, but there is money out there.
If we are going to be creative they (tax rate) can't go down. I think a lot depends on the inflation rate. I am not saying that in four years that taxes won't rise. But I don't see them raising a lot. I don't think you can ever sit down and say I will never raise the taxes if in fact the cost, and inflation if nothing else, catches us. You are not being realistic if you sit here days before an election and say I will never raise taxes.
Q: What do you think the city needs to do to help curb the violence, particularly shootings, that seems to be escalating?
A. We have talked a lot about Shot Spotter which is wonderful. That is where you triangulate shots fired. We have got to be creative to combat this, and it is not just a recent rash of shootings. But I think it is a turn in society that has been created that we have to work.
People don't fight anymore, they shoot is what I am seeing. And there are so many guns. I don't know what to do. It is above the City Council's pay grade to take care of the guns.
We have to create an environment where we are absolutely not going to tolerate it. We have to empower our police officers and give them the tools to respond.
There has got to be a total community involvement and dedication. We could hire 40 more policemen, but if people aren't helping them get the bad guys off the streets -- they are punk bullies. I hope the people get tired of them. The community has to say we are tired of it.
It is kind of my first priority -- safety.