City Council - Regular Meeting

See, I'm not an awkward silence person. [Music] Hello and welcome to the beautiful Bailey Center auditorium on the grounds of Wallace State College in Hansville. Thank you to our gracious host Wallace State College and Dr. Vicky Carlos. The 2025 Tribune debate series and question and answer forums continues today with municipal elections, more specifically the Hansel municipal election. These events are designed to give the public more unfiltered answers without the questions ahead of time, direct comparisons, and meaningful conversation. Today, we continue our focus on the candidates running for council place one, place three, place four, and mayor of Hville. We now move on to place four with Cameron Row. Mr. Santiago had a conflicting schedule which would not allow him to be present. He did express his willingness to answer questions and stated he truly wished he could have been president. Quote, "I appreciate the invitation to the debate at Wallace State Community College. However, I'll be in Chicago on business from August 14th to the 21st, so I won't be able to participate on the 16th. I'm sure it will be a great event, and I'm sorry to miss it. Thank you for the opportunity and I look forward to future events. Warm regards Oscar Oscar Santiago Hansel City Council candidate seat 4. So we shall proceed with a question and answer format but don't worry I will have some follow-ups. The Tribune works diligently to reach every candidate but a c if a candidate declines to respond to emails or calls there is only so much we can do. The invitation stands. The forum is open. If

candidates cannot attend or do not attend, an empty chair will sit beside those who do. This has been done at all debates in the past and this year. With all of that being said, let's get on with it. Now, for the rules for the candidate, no electronic devices permitted. Questions? Uh since this is a question and answer format, it will just go back and forth between us.

Uh you will have a 60-second open opening statement. It can be prepared. The time allotted for each question will be two to three minutes since this is a question and answer. Uh your closing statement will be two minutes and uh without any notes. uh you won't have to worry about rebuttals etc any questions I may have from your from your answers facts only no accusations without proof uh as this will only allocate more time voters deserve substance over slogans talking points will be enough so let's begin if you would like to uh opening statement

all right hey guys my name is Cameron um I am I've been living in Hville since uh 2021. Um I'm an active member in the community. I serve on the planning board. Um I also have a local business that's downtown Hansville. Um my my personal look into this city is to make it as great as it can possibly be. I'm have multiple conversations with a lot of the locals in the town about building this community and making it bigger than what it is. Besides everything that's happened over the last couple years, um I feel like we can we can stand our ground and make it more presentable for more businesses to come in. Um I wish he he could have been here because I think it would have been a lot more fun debate. Um but just moving forward, I'm looking to build this community as much as I can and with the help of everybody else.

All right. Thank you. And we will get started with the questions. Question number one is city specific concerns. What are three what are the three most urgent needs in Hansville?

Um in my personal opinion and views, I do stand on the statement that we do need the police department. I do think it's going to take a little bit of time to get that rebuilt in place to where we don't have any problems moving forward. Um, second thing is aesthetically, I think coming from a graphics background and a marketing and visual appearance background, I can tell you for a fact that Hansville needs some more publicity visually other than just, you know, from the mail, from um the newspaper, from Facebook. We need to get more standing out like they were trying to talk for um group three was talk about. Um we need to have more signage directing traffic from 31 into Hansville from the very beginning of Hansville at Johnson's Crossing all the way down to Garden City and therefore from the interstate all the way to back towards Holly Pond. Um, aesthetically, everything has kind of went down over time. No one's been doing a great job getting everything rebuilt, but obviously things take money and it takes time. Um, looking at the proposal book that I looked at from 2016, it hasn't moved as much as what I think it needed to be moved since that time. um there's a lot more improvements that could happen a whole lot faster than what has appeared so far. Um my personal opinion, the third thing um would be most of the businesses that are in Hansville need to have more circulation of people coming into the community. um which I know falls a lot more back onto

the whole digital the visual side of things. Um like pushing like these events. We need a better idea in place to basically get people to want to come down here because right now most people see the stuff going on and then they don't even though it's believe it or not our events are like half the cost of most places from Coleman or even down in Gardenale or Fultonale. So, I mean, you would think it would be a plea pleasing to have lower fees for potentially making more money, at least in my opinion. So,

all right. And uh I know you mentioned signage and uh redirecting traffic. So, uh my followup would be how would you go about that? And would you want to put a board together with uh businesses and residents to help strategically place those or just with the council?

Um we could do it but with just the council. Um we can put a board together but personally I think that's kind of funds that have kind of already been allocated. That would be a lot easier to have the council just manage that. Um obviously with the elected mayor on that approval. Um, aesthetically it's not as expensive as what most people think. Now, when you get into bigger like monument signs, that's when stuff starts getting more expensive, but we only need something like that in the main part of downtown. Like entry signs and stuff like that for the uh the DOT signs, they direct traffic better than most people think. Um, but it's more of a consistent thing. People don't pay attention going down 31. They put blinders on and don't look left and right. That's from my point of view of being a business for two and a half years. So, thank you for that. And we'll move on to question number two. And this involves public works projects. Which infrastructure project in Hansville should be addressed immediately and why? Um, for first off, in my opinion, I personally think that the road systems need to be fixed first. Um, because it's goes back to the appealing side of things. When you're looking at roads that have potholes, they have dent, they have cracks, people are feeling this. They're they're focused on what the road is doing instead of what's around them. Visually, people can pay attention to more than just the road if they're not having to deal with problems. All right. And uh we'll move on to question number three. Community services. What additional programs or services would you advocate for in Hanswater?

There's in my opinion from what I've heard and what I've seen there is a little bit of a drug epidemic that's in Cole or in Hansville more than a lot of places. Personally, I think I know we already have a company that's in Hansville for like um women for pregnancies and stuff like that. So, if we could get more on the other end of the spectrum of people that have problems that need assistance and taking care of to better themsel and the community, it would potentially lean more to pour to pour more back into the citizens and take care of our community.

So, follow up to that would be how would you go about uh paying for that? There's a lot of ways to do that. Uh grants are definitely one of them because it goes back into a governmental disability. Um you can you can kind of push more of the lead with that. Um if we look back more into like I mean I know it's kind of hard to say this but like more back into the arrest of the population of our community that's had those problems. you can kind of guide the government and guide the ability to add those grants by seeing a need for the help.

Okay, thank you for that.

Um, we'll move on to question number four, which is residential quality of life. How would you ensure new development does not does not negatively affect existing neighborhoods? I think it's more of a perspective. So when you're looking at a new development, yes, in one side of the of the story, you're looking at it as well, this is impeding on in my property and causing problems in my property. But being on the planning board, when we developed when we agreed to help the reszoning for the 76 houses that are going up behind Dollar General, we tried to account with the six people that were in the planning board to try to figure out a way to get them to force the help infrastructure. So from the plumbing, the sewage, the roads, the lighting, um directing traffic where lights needed to be, the developers had to help fix those situations and not let the city just rely on the situation.

Yeah. And so if someone, since you said you're on planning committee, uh if you had a uh new development that came in, let's say a strip mall or shopping center or small shopping center and it was trying to or it was trying to reszone from residential to business, what would be the steps that you would take with the neighbors? The biggest thing is getting everybody's in the community's opinion. Um, kind of letting people see what the potentials are of letting that growth happen. Um, personally, like if we let's just use an example. Let's just say Costco, okay? Everybody around here, I know we go to DWG, we go to Walmart, we go to Dollar General. If we were to get a Costco just revenue-wise into Hansville, there's not a Costco besides Huntsville, Madison, and Birmingham. No point in doing the one that they're about to put in Irondale because it's still just as far as Hoover. Um it would draw everybody around our community all the way from Decatur to basically Birmingham. um which would lead more people into shopping in Hansville, drawing more people to the little small town of downtown Hansville. um getting more people and it gives more of an incentive to other companies like uh Home Depot um more eating vicinity or more eating places um that are not just strictly franchise places um more locally owned places. How was the phrase? So yeah.

Okay. All right. We'll move on to question number five. This is a fun one. Budget responsibility. How will you review and analyze budget items before approving them? Coming from a business owner, budgeting is not fun. There's so many things that you have to have a leeway with, like you have to learn how to make one thing work and another one not for that situation. Obviously, a budgeting plan for a four to five year window is going to be a lot easier in my opinion to budget for instead of yearbyear. Um, I know we have to go year by year for the most part. Um, I will be honest, I'm not personally a good numbers guy when it comes to that. I'm good with numbers, just not on the budgeting side of things. Personally, Nolan is the perfect person on council for that from everything that I've talked to and deal with him as as a tenant. It he's great with numbers and that's how I can go around.

So, you would seek out as I would seek out personally. Okay.

All right. Well, that brings us to conflict resolution. How would you mediate disputes between residents, developers, developers, and city departments and department heads? Personally, I think I'm pretty good at conflict resolution. Um, I'm not a very hot-headed person. I I analytically analyze everything down to a tea. So, I look at all the perspectives all the way to figure out where the problem is and see if there's a resolution for that problem. Um, going between our different departments, I know that would be great insight because I'm going to bring up different conclusions that they're not thinking about or looking at. And they're also going to do the same thing for me. They're going to show me different perspectives that how they're looking at doing their job versus me looking at it as an outsider.

So, would you keep an open line of communication or would it be difficult to get in touch with you? I'm a business owner. My doors on my numbers on the front door. Anybody can call me any day. I answers the phone 24 hours a day just about.

All right. Thank you. And that will take us to question number seven. Citywide policy impact. What is your stance on the absence of a police department? Would you be for or against bringing back the Hansville Police Department? Please elaborate. Yes, as an open-ended question, yes, I would bring back the Hansel Police Department. It makes it more a communitydriven approach instead of having, you know, outsiders of Coleman Police Department down here 247. I do personally think that it's not going to be uh we're going to push everything under the rug and then it's just going to flip and the covers are going to be perfect. It's the best way I can look at it. It's going to be more of like a two to threeyear plan. Um, going back like the other candidates were talking about it, you're going to have to have a lot of things in put in place to force the negativity and the problems out of the situation before they ever start the situation. going through with a fine tooth comb of what the background is, figuring out how to get them approved, get them their qualifications correct, and making sure there is no way that there is a loophole when you hire somebody for the div for the department for the for the town. So,

okay.

And that takes us to question number eight, which is long-term city development. What is your 5 to 10 year vision for Hsville and what first steps would you take to get there? My five-year vision is to going back to aesthetically pleasing. Being a business owner for two years, we've got to get Hansville. you I know a lot of people go out and they see all these things like up in Hansville you see these signs everywhere that say beautifification all over the place. You got to make h we've got to make Hansville more appealing to have people come in once they get past the stigma of what all the problems that have happened over the past year and a half. It's going to get people to not pay attention and look forward instead of behind at the recent situations. Um, personally me to help move that forward is kind of put put to help put together basically a new action of the proposed appearances of everything in Hansville to basically give mockups to show what the buildings and what the places could look like being brought back to life. Make them restored. make them help Nolan restore most of these buildings downtown to where people actually can see them and we can actually see signage on them and where we can like say like the the thrift store helping them get signage back up to where people know that it's actually open instead of there's just one sign up and there's like a half a sign. It's fixing problems that make our town a lot more beautiful. Even though it's beautiful right now for the most part, it just needs an uplift in my opinion.

Okay. So, would you uh want to sit down with the community members? Would you want to have a town hall to kind of see what they want to to do? And would you be open to that type of forum?

I'm perfectly open with if we could we could have a an open debate. Now, I do agree that I do think that our meeting times would need to be changed. I don't I do kind of agree that we don't need to be at a 5:00 meeting because most people get off at 5. So, how are you going to have the community there if nobody can make it there? That kind of defeats the purpose of having an open community conversation.

And I'll ask one more on that. Um, since all council meetings have a pre-counsel meeting, usually last about an hour, hour and a half, and then they go into the meeting, what time would you what time would you be uh feel most appropriate for the meeting to start?

Personally, I think we could just push it out one hour. That gives people because a lot of people in my that I think a lot of people that are in Hansville, most of them don't work in Hansville. Most of them are typically within 30 to 45 minutes of our building. That gives them a 15 minute window to get everything ready and then a 30 to 45 minute drive to the meeting if they want to attend the meeting. Okay. Thank you so much. Now we're going to go to an audience question. This may sound familiar. Will you make a commitment to be at each and every community event as a city council member from grand openings, business milestones, events, and so forth? And if if you cannot make it, will you make a public statement as to why you will not be there and follow up with a local business when you're available?

I'd be happy to either way. Um, personally, I know who asked this question and he knows I'm all about helping everybody in our community as much as I possibly can and especially the def the new businesses because it's it's what I do for a living. I mean, I enjoy making businesses look better. So, if I can be at their meeting when they grand opening, I'd be happy to be there to help to assist. All right. Thank you so much for answering the questions. We, you know, it's kind of short, you know, a little question to answer, but uh we're going to move on to your closing statement, so

feel free. Okay,

just a couple more things that I would personally like to elaborate. I do think we need to start looking at different zoning situations throughout our town. Um, there's a few things that I personally think that Coleman and other cities throughout around Hansville are trying to approach into Hansville, which is making us smaller. So, we need to figure out ways to annex more places in to help situations. Um, it just brings more growth and then helps our community, helps our community grow, make our, you know, housings more affordable, more houses in, bring more people in. So,

all right. Thank you so much for coming out today and uh being willing to uh answer our questions. And uh we want to thank Wallace State College and Dr. Vicki Carlos for allowing us to uh participate in this debate and forum here on the campus. Uh, I also want to thank everyone who came out today that's in the audience and everyone who watched at home. Um, and uh, we wish everyone the best. We thank y'all again and we'll move on to the mayor debate next. Thank you. [Applause]