How soon we forget....

I like Lioneld Jordan.  He is a nice guy.  He has been a relatively good mayor.  To his credit, he had the good sense to follow much of Dan Coody's extremely well laid out plans. Dan solicited massive input from the people of Fayetteville so we could all contribute to how our growing city would enter the 21st century.  Prior administrations showed little regard for trails, green spaces or planned growth.  

When Dan became mayor, he inherited a decaying infrastructure and a dying downtown.  By the end of his eight year tenure, we had a trail system, a thriving downtown, a sign ordinance, and curbside recycling.  College and Gregg looked like real main streets with trees and well maintained rights of way. Existing sidewalks were repaired, maintained and new sidewalks went in where there had been none before. All new construction required sidewalks and a minimum tree canopy.  The protection of existing neighborhoods became imperative. Dan created brand new lines of communication between neighborhoods and the city. It was a long hard road uphill to the place of beauty that Lioneld Jordan walked right into.  

While I am grateful to Lioneld for what adherence there has been to the plans set in place by Dan, I am concerned about the recent deviations from these plans and how they will affect our future. Multi story structures are under construction with insufficient parking, adjacent to well established neighborhoods. The redefinition of how many unrelated people can occupy one house or apartment opens the floodgates to unsupervised private dorms.  This will overburden our EMS, and our underfunded fire and police departments. It will add to traffic and the parking mess. Fines are punitive for shoppers, diners and business owners alike and it is unconscionable for the handicapped to be made to pay for parking on a public street.

Lioneld has a reputation for being a humble guy who gives credit where credit is due. To my surprise, he has made much of all the awards our fair town has amassed with not even a nod of recognition or appreciation to his predecessor, without whose tireless efforts, these awards surely would not have been possible.  We have seen attack ads insinuating that Mayor Coody wrongly appropriated city funds for personal travel.  If you have seen Dan's ads, they tell us of the many great new ideas he has for Fayetteville. 

Once in a long while, a town the size of Fayetteville is lucky enough to find a mayor like Dan Coody.  He has shown how well equipped he is to create the kind of award winning small city that Fayetteville has become. Now we have the great opportunity to re-elect him just as our town is getting ready to experience another growth spurt.  This is something we should not miss out on. 

I thank Mayor Jordan for his hard work, but, I will be voting for Mayor Dan Coody.  I hope you will also.

To see some of the great ideas Dan Coody has for the future, visit: 

http://www.coodyformayor.com