Thirteen community organizations have joined hands to educate voters and engage candidates ahead of the April 8 municipal election. For this election, the Informed Voter Coalition is hosting a series of candidate interviews with those in races for Springfield City Council Zone 4, Springfield City Council General Seat A, Springfield Mayor, Springfield Public Schools Board of Education and Ozark Mayor. The organizations that make up the Informed Voter Coalition include Be Civil, Be Heard; Drury University's Meador Center for Politics and Citizenship; KSMU Ozarks Public Radio; Leadership Springfield; League of Women Voters of Southwest Missouri; Missouri State University's Office of Public Affairs; NAACP Springfield; Ozarks Technical Community College's Social Sciences Department; Rosie; Show-Me Christian County; Springfield Business Journal; Springfield-Greene County Library District; and Springfield News-Leader. Questions for the interviews were submitted by Informed Voter Coalition partner organizations and were not provided to the candidates in advance. The order of the candidate interviews was determined by a random drawing.
Two incumbent Springfield City Council members are running unopposed in the April 8 municipal election: Monica Horton in Zone 1 (northwest Springfield) and Craig Hosmer in citywide General Seat B.
Candidate interviews
I am Mary Ann Wood with Missouri State University Office of Public Affairs, one of the nonpartisan organizations that make up the Informed Voter Coalition. Today, we are interviewing candidates for Springfield City Council General Seat A and Zone 4. They are Bruce Adib-Yazdi, Zone 4; Matt Simpson, Zone 4; Heather Hardinger, General Seat A; and Eric Pauly, General Seat A. Each candidate will be interviewed individually and asked the same questions. They will have one minute to introduce themselves and two minutes to respond to each question. Our first candidate is Bruce Adib-Yazdi. Thank you very much for joining us. Let's begin by having you introduce yourself and tell us why you decided to run for this office.
Springfield City Council Zone 4
Bruce Adib-Yazdi
Adib-Yazdi: Hi, my name is Bruce Adib-Yazdi, and I'm running for Zone 4 City Council position. I ran two years ago for a general seat and got really close, and I feel like we're at a pivotal moment in our city's history of growth patterns and trajectory, especially with our new comprehensive plan and zoning code. And I feel like my experience has led me to being one of the candidates that needs to be on City Council. I've served on several boards here in town, including Springbike Bicycle Club, Ozark Greenways, Downtown (Springfield) CID, as well as founding the southwest Missouri chapter of the Urban Land Institute recently. And I feel like I've trained my entire career to be sitting here today applying for this position.
If elected, how would you engage in and learn about community-wide concerns that might be outside your own interests?
Adib-Yazdi: That's a really good question, because we just had a forum last Saturday where I felt like the one-minute answers that we were asked to give really needed 30-minute conversations. Things — policy-related items are the things I really want to learn more about and listen to some of the constituents and nonprofits relating to things like homelessness here in Springfield. Things like LGBTQ inclusions, things like DEI, I know enough probably to be dangerous on a lot of those items, but I'd really like to dive in and learn more about how we're dealing with those as a community and how city council can be part of that solution, or how we can help provide resources, or delegate those responsibilities to the right individuals and organizations.
Several controversial zoning issues have emerged over the past few years, including the proposed Sunshine and National Development and the coffee drive-thru at Sunshine and Jefferson. What are your thoughts on developing a comprehensive corridor plan for the city?
Adib-Yazdi: So those controversial projects are either in the bounds or adjacent to my own neighborhood, so I have very personal feelings about them. However, as a potential city council person, I have to set some of those feelings aside and just look at the facts and the situations. Backing up a little bit and taking a bigger, broader picture, I feel like those situations potentially could have been — the controversial nature of those situations could have been avoided. There were a couple other projects in similar-nature scenarios that I feel like if, in fact, somebody from the city or a city council member was able to sit down with the neighborhood or neighborhood associations or neighbors, as well as the development team, and help have a productive conversation, that that might have been really helpful. Absent that, I feel like one of the things I want to accomplish in my term would be for each neighborhood, not just the residential neighborhoods, but also commercial districts, to develop their own long-range strategies. I feel like the city has a beautiful long-range plan in Forward SGF, and I think that each area of town — whether it's a neighborhood or a commercial district — ought to have a similar plan, a long-range plan. And to your point, the corridors of National and Sunshine are a specific part of our community that need their own study and long-range plans.
Sixty percent of Springfield residents are renters, and finding affordable housing continues to be an issue for many. What ideas would you bring to the table to ensure every Springfieldian has a safe and affordable place to live?
Adib-Yazdi: So a couple of things about the 60% statistic is that I believe it 100%. I also have read through our housing study that was performed a year or so ago and understand some of the challenges we face, not only for affordable housing at the lower income levels, but also affordable housing at the upper income levels. There's just not enough stock in Springfield for the demand that we have, and that's not going to change. So we really have to follow the the data and determine where we really need to focus that effort. I also feel like we have an opportunity in our city to think a little more strategically about how we grow, how we grow commercially, how we grow within our boundaries, how we grow residentially and even within neighborhoods. I think there's some opportunity for neighborhoods to step up and say, we have some either vacant pieces of land or some underutilized properties that could be additional forms of housing. I also think that our arterial corridors will offer the opportunity to do more mixed-use projects, like the Forward SGF long-range plan, as well as the new zoning code, says we could be doing. But I really think we've got to step back and take a look at our entire city and understand how we get to what you call affordable housing. And I think one of the components that's missing in Springfield is the ability for us to compete strongly at the state level for state tax credit-driven affordable housing dollars. We have shied away from it. We've treated it agnostically as a city, and I feel like we need to step up and advocate for it.
What stands out as one of the most urgent red flags from the Community Focus Report that needs to be addressed?
Adib-Yazdi: Wow. One of the red flags. Huh? So, there are many of them. We've already talked about a couple of them in this conversation. I think back to a work session I attended two years ago about this same time where an organization called Better Block SGF put together a workshop for college students and young professionals. They were given the red flag issues in Springfield to solve. There were seven teams, and those seven teams had eight hours to prepare ideas on how to solve them. What I took away from that was that four of the seven teams selected transit as the opportunity to solve, or the problem to solve. And that gave me a big clue as to what young people living in our city — and maybe young people that might want to move to our city — are seeing as important. And to solve transit, it's not a matter of just changing the bus routes or changing how we do transit. It's a matter of ,there's two components that are going to, it's going to take. One is we have to create the demand for transit, the demand for transit along corridors, along sections of our roads that could utilize that form of transportation, but also multi-modal transportation with bicycles and pedestrians, making it all available and accessible to anybody. The other part of that is we have to get to a point where people don't see the bus or transit as just for poor people. I think if we can solve those two things, and those are going to take some time, I think that's one of the more important things to solve because it helps attract and retain young people here in Springfield.
If Springfield received a $10 million grant to use in any way that the council wanted, what would you do with it and why?
Adib-Yazdi: $10 million? Well, $10 million sounds like a lot of money, but I don't know how far it would go solving any one particular problem. I'd have to think about how the priorities are and look at our budget and see where it could be bolstered, look at what the issues are, probably talk to some of the constituents in Springfield, some of the leaders, some of the non-profits and understand where it can be best leveraged. That's one of the things I think I would look for is ways to leverage that kind of money, not just spend it, and I really think probably looking at potentially looking at homeless scenarios to solve some of the issues that we're dealing with, but not to just do handouts. I'd like to see some hand-ups, and I think that would go a long way. And then finding ways to help our police officers and our police department recruit and retain more officers so that we can have a fully staffed deployment.
Well, Bruce, that concludes our interview. Thank you very much for taking time to talk with us. Again. I've been speaking with Bruce Adib-Yazdi who is a candidate for Springfield City Council Zone 4.
Adib-Yazdi: Thank you for having me. Really appreciate it.
Matt Simpson
We're talking to candidates running for Springfield City Council Zone 4. Joining me now is Matt Simpson. Thank you very much for joining us. Would you please introduce yourself and tell us why you decided to run for this position?
Simpson: Thank you for having me. I have been serving on city council since I was appointed in 2018, and then I went through reelections in April 2019 and 2021. During my time on council, I've been able to take on additional roles, including serving as mayor pro tem, serving as the chair of our ARPA (American Rescue Plan Act) review committee to allocate our ARPA funds that we received from the federal government, chairing the Finance Administration Committee, as well as serving as a liaison to groups like the Citizens Commission on Community Investment that led to the successful tax approved by voters in November and serving as the liaison to the Police-Fire Pension Board. You know, I think that my track record on those issues and the opportunity to see through that tax issue and keep our promise to voters and continue to make a difference for the community that I live in and love and want my kids to grow up to love as much as I do, is what drove me to run for reelection again.
If elected, how will you engage in and learn about community-wide concerns that might be outside of your own interests?
Simpson: I think it's important for us as council members to always be able to listen, to always be seeking out different perspectives, as well as seeking out information about the issues that we're dealing with. You know, on council, we deal with such a wide breadth of issues that it's not possible for any one person to be the expert on every issue that's coming in front of us. That's — you see that at our biweekly meetings where, you know, we've got several dozen bills on a variety of topics. And if we are not seeking out community feedback and listening to the community feedback that we receive, whether that's through emails, whether that's through phone calls, letters, but also us proactively going out and making sure that we are attending events, we are seeking out guidance from people who are experts in the subjects when we have bills or issues in front of us, and that we're doing the research to prepare ourselves so we have a good, or at least a good enough understanding of the issue to be able to benefit from those conversations that we're having with the people who are experts in them. So I think that that is our responsibility as members of council is, you know, we are there to do the work on all these issues that it would not be possible for or reasonable to expect everybody to do on every issue that comes in front of us. And a big part of that is making sure that we are listening to everyone. Now, I think it's important there that, you know, as we're listening to everyone a lot of times on issues, particularly ones that are divisive, you know, you will have people who have expertise who will be recommending different things. And when you've got people on different sides of the issue, you know, you're never going to be able to do what everybody wants because what people want are different things. But what we can do is make sure that everybody who we're talking to is heard, you know, we understand what feedback they have that's coming to the table, we use that in our decision making. And then, when we make a decision, we're very clear in communicating why we made that decision, what the factual basis was for it and how it fits with our goals for the community.
Several controversial zoning issues have emerged over the past few years, including the proposed Sunshine and National development and the coffee drive-thru at Sunshine and Jefferson. What are your thoughts on developing a comprehensive corridor plan for the city?
Simpson: I think that that's something that we have the foundation for in our Forward SGF comprehensive plan, which really is the guiding document for land use decisions and other decisions that we're making for our city. And part of that calls for, you know, working on specific corridors. You know, we have, through our ARPA funds that we received from the federal government that I chaired the committee looking at the allocations for, we have allocated funding to the planning department to conduct a corridor study along Sunshine. And there are other corridor studies and neighborhood studies that were called for by the Forward SGF plan that are also in process. You know, I think it's really important when you're thinking about land use decisions to make sure that we have clear guidance, that we have clear plans at every level of the decision-making process to follow, because I think it's necessary to have those to make good decisions. I think it's also something that then helps address some of the controversy that sometimes can arise with these because these are emotional decisions for people on both sides. And, you know, people are understandably passionate about their positions on them, and they should be. But I think we also have to think as a city, that the decisions we're making on land use ultimately affect not just the present, but the future of our city. You know, you can't address our housing challenges without being able to meet the need for housing that we're currently well short of. You know, we can't address the need for people to have good jobs, to move out of poverty unless you have those job opportunities available, which requires us to be able to grow and attract those jobs. So we have to keep those goals in mind. We have to have good plans, and we have to make decisions based on those plans in a way that provides, you know, fair certainty that, you know, this is what we're looking for, and these are the sorts of things we're going to approve. And everybody, whether it's neighbors or people looking to develop, kind of knows the standards that we're making those decisions based on.
Sixty percent of Springfield residents are renters, and finding affordable housing continues to be an issue for many. What ideas would you bring to the table to ensure every Springfieldian has a safe and affordable place to live?
Simpson: So housing has been a passion of mine. It's one of the issues that I think that we need to address if we're going to succeed as a community because, unless you have a good place to live, whether you're a homeowner looking to be a homeowner or whether you're a renter, this community isn't going to work out as a place kind of for you to live. So it's an essential part of what we need to do as a city council. During my time on council, again, we're kind of referring back to the work with ARPA, we've made record investments in affordable housing projects. Both to encourage homeownership, we've invested in organizations like the Springfield Community Land Trust, as well as pilot funding for Restore SGF that provides down payment assistance for individuals looking to purchase their first homes, as well as providing support for renters and also those who are in need of transitional housing options as they move towards permanent housing. You know, we've made investments in organizations like The Kitchen, the Salvation Army, CPO (Community Partnership of the Ozarks) with a purpose-driven day shelter, to significantly expand the capacity in those areas. And those are all important steps. I think the other important step, though, that we need to continue to work on is actually making sure we have the stock of quality housing at every price point and at every type that people need to meet the demand. Right now, you know, we also funded a housing study out of ARPA. We had not had a housing study done in Springfield in a few decades, and it showed that we are several thousand units short of what demand is. And basic economics: If supply is vastly exceeded by demand, prices are going to continue to go up, and we see that, and it's putting homeownership or quality rentals out of reach for many individuals and many families. We cannot change that unless we change the supply demand imbalance. And we have to do that by making sure that we are looking for options to build missing-middle housing, mixed-use housing, you know, creative approaches to closing that gap.
What stands out as one of the most urgent red flags from the Community Focus Report that needs to be addressed?
Simpson: Well, the first one I would note is housing that we've just talked about because I think that that is essential to many of the problems that we're dealing with. But as we've already, as we've already talked about that, I think that another red flag that stands out to me is the continuing poverty levels. We have been able to reduce poverty in in the city of Springfield over the past several years. It's gone down from about 25% to about 20%. You know, that's a significant reduction. It does make a big difference for the thousands of people in that category who were able to move out of poverty, but we still have a long way to go. And as you look at other problems that we are addressing in our community, whether that's housing, substance abuse, mental health challenges, public safety challenges, if we're going to take an upstream solution that I think we need to address the causes of those problems and not just the symptoms that we're seeing, that we cannot be successful unless we have an upstream solution that addresses poverty. So that requires, I think, a holistic approach for us as a community to address. It does require making sure that we are partnering with community organizations to provide support for people who are facing challenges in those areas, whether it's substance abuse or mental health or being able to access housing. We also need to make sure that we are prioritizing our work in terms of driving economic growth, to attract good jobs that pay well for individuals and make sure that they can provide a quality of life standard for them and their families. You know, that's something that I see a lot in my professional job as well. I work at Ozarks Tech, and seeing people go through those trades programs and going into a good job with benefits has a hugely transformative effect on not only them, but their family and their future generations.
If Springfield received a $10 million grant to use in any way that the council wanted, what would you do with it and why?
Simpson: So my thought process — because we did receive something similar in terms of the roughly $42 million we received in the federal allocation with ARPA — I think you have to start when you're making that decision by first looking at one-time uses that are going to be the most impactful, because if you, any type of one-time funding, whether it's grants or other, you know, appropriations, if you fund ongoing expenses with that, you're setting yourself up for failure because you haven't, you don't have the revenue in the future to maintain those. The approach we took with ARPA is gathering broad community input. So we conducted surveys to see what the public priorities were for spending that one-time money. We worked with community organizations and community partners because with partnerships, you know, there are things that — housing, for example. Those organizations that are already providing transitional housing have the experience, they have the expertise, and they're able to do things better than we can do, trying to start doing them ourselves as the city. They also are able to provide the feedback on where to guide that spending. So we collected all of that feedback. We took a look at all the projects, and then we also looked at what were the areas where we can get some external matching funds, and most all of the major projects that we allocated our ARPA money from, we got matching funds from the state or other entities so we were able to make our money go further. So that would be the decision process I would go through if we got the $10 million. But just today, without being able to go through that process again, I would again, I think identify, you know, housing as that top priority because, while we were able to make record investments with that with ARPA, there's certainly still room to make a lot more progress. And so looking at something like Restore SGF and Springfield Community Land Trust, where we could turn that $10 million into permanent affordable housing that is something that people can buy so we keep that homeownership dream alive, is what I would look at.
Springfield City Council General Seat A
Heather Hardinger
Joining me now is Heather Hardinger. Thank you very much for joining us. Would you please introduce yourself and tell us why you have decided to run for this position?
Hardinger: Thank you. So I'm Heather Hardinger. I was elected in 2021 to General Seat A, and in my spare time I also work at CoxHealth. I'm the director of consumer experience there, and I lead patient experience efforts for the health system. And I'm running for city council for re-election because I believe in the future of Springfield, and I want to continue building on the momentum that we've created to make our city work for everyone. So there have been so many really cool projects that we've been able to work on over the last four years and so many cool things to come, so I'm very excited to hit the ground running again and keep serving our great city.
If elected, how will you engage in and learn about community-wide concerns that may be outside your own interests?
Hardinger: So one thing that's been very important to me during my time on council is listening to people, and I do my best to respond to every email that comes my way and engage with citizens in that way. So we get lots of emails and phone calls on different issues. And I'm very curious, and I want to know what people think. And there have been several times when speaking with neighborhood groups or speaking with other groups in the community has changed my mind on an issue. And so I think as council members, we don't know everything, we don't have all the answers, and so we do have to rely on citizen feedback to tell us what's going on and learn more about what might be the right thing to do.
Several controversial zoning issues have emerged over the past few years, including the proposed Sunshine and National development and the coffee drive-thru at Sunshine and Jefferson. What are your thoughts on developing a comprehensive corridor plan for the city?
Hardinger: So I think developing a comprehensive corridor plan for this area is really smart. This is a very high-traffic area. It is primarily commercial, but it's also residential. And so in each of these, the developments that you mentioned, you know, I have had lots of conversations with the developers and lots of conversations with neighbors and folks that are impacted by these zoning decisions. And so there there aren't any easy answers, but we do want to do what's best, not just for the new businesses that are coming in, but also for the people that live around the neighborhood. So I think that a corridor plan makes a lot of sense. Again, it's a high-traffic area, and I want to make sure that we're considering the safety of folks who live there now and also consider the future infrastructure needs for for that area.
Sixty percent of Springfield residents are renters, and finding affordable housing continues to be an issue for many. What ideas would you bring to the table to ensure every Springfieldian has a safe and affordable place to live?
Hardinger: It's a great question. So housing is one of my top priorities. I've lived in Springfield for about 20 years now, and for about 15 of those years I was a renter in Springfield, and so I've rented great places and had wonderful landlords, and I've rented in places that weren't so great and had a lot of problems. And so I've really appreciated the opportunity to chair the Community Involvement Committee where we've been working on a lot of housing-related priorities and engaging with different stakeholders in the community. We're working on a rental inspection program pilot that hopefully will launch this summer. So investing in initiatives that really help ensure the safety of our residents is important and then thinking about future development. I mean, we need more housing. We've got essentially a $4 or $5 billion, you know, gap in our affordable housing market. And so I think that we're making strides to work to resolve those issues, but we have a lot more work to do.
What stands out as one of the most urgent red flags from the Community Focus Report that needs to be addressed?
Hardinger: So, something that continually gets brought up is our poverty rate, and it continues to be too high. I think that the best ticket out of poverty is a good job, a good job that pays livable wages. And so Springfield's not always been known for having the high wages that, you know, a lot of folks are looking for. But if we want to, you know, continue to support our existing residents that live here, if we want our young people to stay in this community, I think we need to continue investing in current businesses and helping them expand and grow and then also new economic development coming in, ensuring that when we do welcome new companies, that they do offer wages that support working families in this community. So I would say poverty is one of the biggest red flags that we see, but again, that's also an issue that we are making progress on. But we have a lot more work to do there, too, you know, working with those in our community who are unhoused, that's another big red flag for our community. We've got a really great Continuum of Care that works to provide services to those folks, but we don't really have the adequate infrastructure to make sure that everybody has the care that they need. So continuing to focus on mental health efforts, continuing to work on just developing, you know, different housing initiatives to meet those needs, I think is really important.
If Springfield received a $10 million grant to use in any way the council wanted, what would you do with it and why?
Hardinger: $10 million? That would be a dream. We did have that opportunity with the ARPA dollars that came through the city, about $40 million. And we had about $40 million to spend, and I think the requests, the amount of requests we got in was like over $200 million. And so I think if we had $10 million to spend, I'd take a look at some of those projects that folks were interested in funding. And, you know, we've got a lot of data, the city has quite a bit of data on what citizens would like for us to spend tax dollars on. So I think that we could spend $10 million in a lot of really positive ways. Some of the funds from the ARPA allocations included a teen center, which is something that Springfield doesn't have. And so that's also going to provide housing for those kids aging out of foster care. So thinking of cool, new innovative ways to meet community needs would be how I would spend those dollars.
Eric Pauly
Joining me now is Eric Pauly. Thank you very much for joining us. Would you please introduce yourself and tell us why you decided to run for this position?
Pauly: Thank you for having me here today. The reason that I'm running, I got involved with community engagement about 10 years ago to the level that I am now. I joined the neighborhood association in the neighborhood that I lived in. I was then elected up to the president position, which I held proudly for six years. After that then, I got appointed to Springfield's Planning and Zoning Commission. So looking at all these different levels of community involvement, it just made sense that the city council position was the possible next position to take a look at. Additionally, my family has been very involved with the city of Springfield for over 150 years. My grandfather built a lot of what we still see in the city of Springfield, and while he was very good at masonry and woodwork, I don't have those skills, but I do have the skills to build community.
If elected, how will you engage in and learn about community-wide concerns that might be outside of your own interests?
Pauly: A lot of that comes down to actually listening to different people around the city itself. And I found that, through working with the neighborhood and the neighborhood association as well as the Neighborhood Advisory Council, it's a matter of communication, talking to people to find out where it is that they see things at, the concerns that they have and be able to go ahead and hash those types of things out. We have a lot of good resources media wise, here in the city of Springfield, and I'd like to take advantage of all of them. I don't think there's any one that would be head and shoulders above the others, but I do listen to you folks quite a bit.
Several controversial zoning issues have emerged over the past few years, including the proposed Sunshine and National development and the coffee drive-thru at Sunshine and Jefferson. What are your thoughts on developing a comprehensive corridor plan for the city?
Pauly: I think it's really important, and we have requested this several times through my neighborhood association, to go ahead and actually do a corridor study along Sunshine and National as well. That hasn't completely come to fruition yet, but we do continue to ask for it. As a planning and zoning commissioner, I have had the opportunity — when both of those particular issues did come forward to us — to be able to listen to the developers, listen to the neighbors and make my vote on both of those issues. As you know, all three times for the two different issues that you mentioned right there, that when they came through the Planning and Zoning Commission, they were denied. And the reason that they were denied severalfold — and I'm not going to give you the line about I want to make sure that we're developing any type of commercial and trying to balance the whole idea with neighborhoods. I think that rings rather hollow. I think that what you really need to do is get in there and get your hands dirty to find out what it is that's going to work. And looking at these two different proposals that came before us, at that time, I didn't see where that was something that was going to be an improvement for the neighborhoods and particularly the city of Springfield. I saw that as being very detrimental. So my vote on those all three times was a no vote. It was a declined vote.
Sixty percent of Springfield residents are renters, and finding affordable housing continues to be an issue for many. What ideas would you bring to the table to ensure every Springfieldian has a safe and affordable place to live?
Pauly: You know, housing really does cover a wide gambit, anywhere from those that are unhoused currently, to those that are renting and do not have any type of of rental inspection that goes on, to those that want to actually move into an owner-occupied, that they do want to own that property themselves. We do have some different areas here in the city and some some different groups that are working on some things that — Restore SGF, I think is a wonderful idea. The Drew Lewis Foundation and what they're doing over on North Broadway I also think is wonderful. These are small steps in the right direction. So I do think that we need to take a closer look at what our housing stock looks like right now, which I was part of the housing study that the city did a couple of years ago, and where it is that we can go from there. I know that city council currently has the goal of a 50-50 split between rental and owner-occupied. I think that we need to get more in line with the national average, which is a 60% owner-occupied to 40% rental. And in order to do that, we do have many properties that are available out there that, unfortunately, have been allowed to fall into disrepair. I think that we need to take a more proactive approach with that and bring those properties back online again so they are available. There are some other things that could happen out there with tax incentives, things like that. So yes, I do think that we we need to be very aware of this and make sure that we are headed ourselves in the right direction.
What stands out as one of the most urgent red flags from the Community Focus Report that needs to be addressed?
Pauly: A lot of that, I think, is going to come down to where we want to be as a city itself and this area of southwest Missouri. I think we have an opportunity to really become much more of a larger economic area, much like northwest Arkansas has done. I think that we do have the building blocks in place in order to make that happen. It's just a matter of how are we going to put those together? Are we going to put them together the right way? So not only do we support everything that we have going on today, but are we putting ourselves in the right position for the future? It's my hope that at the end of my term on city council that my grandkids can look at the work that happened and say, you know, Opa had it right. He did a good job, and he set us up in a position where we can go ahead and grow from that point.
If Springfield received a $10 million grant to use in any way in which the council wanted, what would you do with it and why?
Pauly: I would look at housing as being probably priority number one. At this point, there are some opportunities, and I'll use this as an example that with Jarrett Junior High School, we know that at some point in probably in the not-too-distant future, that that particular piece of property is no longer going to be used as a school. And with that particular piece of property, the way that it's structured right now, if we were to go ahead and allow that to become some type of of rental or owner-occupied, where we had a variety of different people that were able to rent in there. You could do student housing as part of it. You could do low-income housing as part of it. You could do, you know, high-rental places as part of it. The thing is, you do not want to segregate people once they get into a development like that. You want people mixed together. Studies have shown over and over again that when you have people that understand financial markets and how those things work, and they're able to become neighbors and work and know their neighbors that may not understand the financial markets quite as well, it raises those boats up, so everybody does so much better that way.
Additional information
The election is Tuesday, April 8. We hope you continue to research the candidates to see how their values and positions align with yours. On April 8, you're encouraged to exercise your right to vote. If you have questions about where or how to vote or the status of your voter registration, please contact your county clerk's office.
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