Athens, GA Mayoral Runoff: Tim Denson and Dexter Fisher debate

Good evening and good evening. Good evening. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Athens, Clark County, Georgia Unified Government Mayoral Runoff today. Hey, give yourself a round of applause for democracy. Hey. Hey. All right, Drew. How's it going? What are we doing tonight? We're going to have a great time. All right. All right. Well, I'm Russell Edwards, co-host at Abract. My co-host Drew, everybody. Hello, everybody. We have a round of applause. Mr. building this evening this beautiful dogville theater that belongs to the community of Athens, the Bordon Theater, Miss We have some celebrity ushers. Miss Gwin Looney, give a round of applause. House Thomas Whitehead for breakfast and black futures in Ltown. We have Mr. Fred Smith and we have Mayor Dodd Frell. Also, you can see here we'll remind you all day long that the election day is June 16th. that one off, but you can do early voting if you want to. So, the format today, because there's only two candidates, we're going to give you more time to elaborate some of the policies that you have uh the vision that you have for uh the next four years. Um we're also going to allow for more discourse. So, um if you have questions that you want to ask each other, um we'll keep that within reason and we'll let you know how much time we'll have. But, um we really want to give you all the space to um talk about your vision for for the next four years. Um, maybe I can start counting. Um, but before we do that, we need to figure out the word of who's going to go first. There's only one way to do it. Rock, paper, scissors. Let's go. >> Okay. 1 2 3 shoot. Get ready. 1 2 3 shoot. >> Oh, Mr. Fisher, your opening statement, sir. Take it away. >> Well, good afternoon. Hope all y'all are doing well. Is what a great great great day. First, I want to thank Russell and Drew for putting this on. And what a great great facility to be standing here tonight. It was founded by Mr. Pink Morton back in the 30s and 40s. And think about all the entertainers that came to this stage. Cab Callaway, Betsy Smith, Lena Horn. Just think about the historical connection of that in this particular building here. And then think about the historical connection that you all have an opportunity to collect to elect your first black mayor. So I think Pete Morton would be very proud that I'm sitting on this stage right now possibly leaving this community as your next mayor. Just a little bit about myself. How much time I got guys? Y'all didn't give me a time limit. >> About a minute. >> Got a minute left. A little bit about myself. Well, you know, we've been through this and Tim and I talk about we had 15 of these things just during the regular session and and some of y'all came out and heard somehow spill. But tonight, I think you really going to have an opportunity to really um find out who you want as your next mayor. You want somebody who's an activist or somebody who can govern. And I'm the guy that can do that. So, I'm looking forward to this tonight. I'm looking forward to the anticipation of what you all want from us as the next candidate for mayor. and I really enjoyed being here and thank you for coming out and may God bless you. Good evening folks. Um I am Tim Densen, also candidate for mayor of Athens, Clark County, and I'm running uh first and foremost because we need to have an Athens, Georgia that works for everyone and that is affordable for everyone. Uh over the last few years especially, it has become very expensive to be able to live in this community. Housing costs, food costs, gas prices, all of these things. Um and a lot of those things we don't have control over in the local government, but some of them we do. And we need a local government that's going to work on that. That's why if I'm elected, one of the main priorities I'm going to have is working on lowering the cost of housing for homeowners and renters alike. I also want to focus on child care for a lot of working-class families. as the second largest expense for them when they have young children and creates a local child care subsidy program so that we can make sure that more working-class families can have access to that quality child care they deserve. And the third big plank of my platform is to reduce homelessness here in Athens, clar county. something that's very important to me, something I've been working on for the last few years, uh, directly working in homeless services, specifically working to actually get those who are facing homelessness into housing and to help remove the barriers that caused the homelessness there in the first place. The reason I'm doing this is though because I love this community and it that can sound kind of corny, but it's very true. I moved around a lot as a kid. Uh, my parents were preachers and we didn't stick in one place for a long time. So, I never really felt like I had a hometown until I came here to Athens um o over 22 years ago now. >> And I just want to make sure that the experience that I've had here in Athens, Georgia of having a loving community that helps me, that helped me get through hard times, that helped me prosper, I want to make sure that every other person here in Athens, Georgia has that same experience. And I believe that we can do that. And I enjoy having the opportunity to talk to you more about it here this evening. Thank you'all. Thank you. The hot topics of the day, housing. We have numerous housing studies currently on the shelf somewhere locally. That all show we are short about 6,000 homes. The most recent data compiled by the University of Georgia analyzing our housing market from 2019 through 2023 found that out of 32,681 units for rent, only 684 units were available for rent, a vacancy rate of 2.1%. According to the Federal Reserve, date of May 1st, 2026, the average listing price of single family home in Adams Clark County is $62,000. A housing shortage benefits landlords and home sellers who can name their price. In a quote from the New York Times today, the national pattern is clear. The way to bring down housing costs is to increase housing supply. Mr. Fisher, you won rock, paper, scissors. What is your plan to increase supply and bring our housing costs under control? >> Two minutes. >> Okay. First of all, thank you, Russell. And I think one thing we got to realize first of all that when it comes to our housing, we're landlocked. So, my candidate or my opponent always talk about density. And the four years that I've been on this um commission, every time we talk about adding more density, our neighbors come out and say they don't want density. My idea would be we own land, the government does, and we need to take a look at that land that we long that we own to make sure that we can use some of that housing for people that needs housing. Now, one of the thing we got missing is what I call a missing middle. You know, we can provide houses when we got Habitat, we got the land um bank, and we got other entities, but when it comes to our missing middle, we got an issue here. You can't put houses in place if you don't have the land for it. One of the things I think we got to do, we got to be smart about where we going to put housing. And more density is not the answer. Now, yes, if we had more density, it would bring down the cost of housing. But because we're a landlock and we got to keep in mind that we have to have an infrastructure in place to support that housing. So, we got to look at where we can put housing. We're going to do a new development on Overdoor right now for senior housing. Good project, 130 units. Those are the type of thing we have to look at where we can build at and where we can't build that. We did our future land use. We need to take a look at that. And then we got to take a look at our zoning ordinance. You just can't stick houses out anywhere without having a zoning ordinance that have not been updated for the last 25 years. So just say that we're going to have affordability. That's a pipe dream. We got to really take a look at that. Understand where we can put housing at and build from there. Now we are building housing close to 4,000 single family houses right now. But now but the cost of those housing are high. So again, we got to look at how do we get that mil that missing middle and get those into housing. And I think we need to study that, take a look at it, and make sure we can be smart about when we're looking at how we do housing in this community. >> Thank you, Mr. Fisher. Mr. Densen, do we add density or create more sprawl? >> Here's the thing. Uh the idea that housing affordability, it that cannot be a pipe dream. That is unacceptable. The cost of housing here is too high. It's unsustainable. And the people who are going to get pushed out are workingclass Athenians on fixed incomes. The people who are going to be able to afford to come in here and pay for the high price of housing are people on the outside, people coming from more wealthy communities. But the people who are going to be pushed out are going to be the people who run this community. And that is unacceptable. There is no way that we can have a mayor who's going to say affordability is a pipe dream. I'm going to that is going again like I said during my opening statement that is going to be my number one focus because that's what the people here in this community need and we do need to have density that is going to be one of the key ways that we do it missing middle housing is density miss to explain missing middle housing is right now what we get a lot of times is single family housing not dense at all and uh highrises like we have down here downtown of like student housing um which are very very dense but very large and very limited where they can be put the missing middle is the stuff in between which often times is triplexes, quadplexes, cottage courts, um uh smaller apartment buildings like we have in Normal Town and such. Those are the kind of things that we do need to have and we have had studies that have shown exactly the nodes that uh are best fit for that and that have the infrastructure for it. It is much more costly for us to build infrastructure for sprawling houses, single family houses on the outside of the county than it is for us to build it in dense areas that already have the infrastructure for it. That means it's going to be cheaper for all of us. But again, we it's not acceptable for us to say it's we can't make it affordable. We absolutely have to. this outdated zoning. And then you also talked about missing middle and one thing struck me. You know, in our commercial general zoning here in Athens, Georgia, you can only build 24 bedrooms per acre. In our commercial downtown zoning, you can build 200. So, it's quite a a jump or missing middle. Correct. What zoning ordinances would you champion to change with G? I think the one thing that we need to look at is um we're um tied into only when it come to single family homes, it have to be a thousand square foot or more. I would take a look at can we do tiny homes? Can we do manufacturing homes? Those are the type of things that you have to look at when you're trying to look at um when we talk to zoning also. And I think that's important because right now our zoning laws they outdated and that and that's unfortunate that they are and we have not kept up with the time. I think what happened was this town grew so fast. I've been here close to 40 years. When I first moved here, Athens was 75,000. UJ was 25,000. Now we got 130,000 people that live here, 40,000 at UG. So the town has exploded um for it come to population. So again, but we we landlocked though and again and we got too much student housing. My opponent has supported more and more student housing. That doesn't work for me. For example, we did with the foundry property. They doing 1400 beds in that founding property. What to get into is in a predominantly black neighborhood. So that's where all the gentrification happens. And we have done gentrification in this community for the last 20 25 years. And they always pushing out African-American people. So that's where your density goes in those neighborhoods. It's not fair to those people. And he's right. We do need to make sure that people that live here in this community can afford to live here. But if we continue to give people the opportunity to go into those communities, build student housing, and put your neighborhood out, that's not working for me. So that's why I'm saying when I talk about >> Sorry, >> but that's where I'm going. That's where I'm going with that. >> Mr. Dens, same question. What zoning ordinances changes would you champion? And uh go for Can I ask a question here? Is that >> Yeah. >> Okay. Uh so Mr. Fischer, you just said that we should not you're against having more student housing. >> I am. >> But then you also said that you're against the student housing being pushed into these neighborhoods, which I am also completely opposed to. you yourself have admitted that UG is going to have at least 400 new students every year coming in here. >> So where are those people going to go if you're opposed to us having dense student housing but also opposed to having student housing in those neighborhoods? Where are those people going to live? >> So for me, and I've had conversation with UG already, they're also looking at building more dorms on that campus. It's one of the things that they're looking they building a 500 bed um dorm right now right there on Lan Street. And one of the conversations that I'm having with them was how can they build more dorms on that campus to make sure more students stay in that particular area. We made mistake as a community to start letting those um student housing go into those neighborhoods and that and that's bad for us and bad for what the government did for over the last 20 30 years. We got to do better by the people that live here. You don't see these type of student housing in other neighborhoods that look like me. So the problem I got with that is we got to make sure when we start looking at trying to push student housing or any type of housing that housing going to fit that community. Everybody want to push students downtown and again it comes with an infrastructure problem. That particular new um on the foundry project we had to add in more sewer and water capacity to get that project online. So again if you're doing more density downtown then you got to add in more infrastructure. you know, it doesn't fit. >> That's right. >> Thank you. Um, a quick followup maybe for both of y'all. Obviously, this housing is so important and it's what is clearly within the authority of the local government. Okay. So, I hear two arguments often in Athens. One, oh, UG owns too much property and they don't pay any property tax. And then on the next, oh, there's too many apartments being built. So, I guess my question is, would we rather have UG get more land or build more dorms that contribute nothing to our property tax roles? Or would it be preferable to allow for the construction of apartments that do contribute property tax to the tax ro? So no, I think this that's part of this problem and that's the thing. We have to be realistic about this. Uh yeah, UG is building its first new dorm in in how many? >> Four years. >> Four years four, five years. >> So I think right now they have about about 18% uh housing they can house 18% of undergrads. So if that's the case, again, where are the I mean 500 beds, that's enough for one year. That's enough for one year, y'all. And and that's if that UG actually keeps that promise that they're only going to have 400 to 600 new students coming here. We have to have a plan so that we don't have what's happening right now. What's happening right now is that students are moving into our single family neighborhoods and they're taking up the housing there and they're living there and especially in yes historic black neighborhoods like East Athens. So therefore, there has to be an alternative to doing that. There has to be we can dream all we want to, but we have to actually be realistic about this. And yeah, so then we can say UG is going to build more uh apartments. They're not I don't think they're going to anywhere close to the rate they would need to. They would need to be building literally thousands of new beds every single year to be able to catch up within the next 15 years. So I that's why I'm pushing that we create a student housing overlay district close to campus where we can be encouraging the development in a dense way that's right there next to campus so that we don't have those folks coming in and taking up the beds and the houses in our neighborhoods and communities. Mr. Performance or >> Well, I think it's the same thing that we're talking about. Okay, we want to add more housing our community for the people that live here. But why shouldn't we not be having those conversation with UJ about them building more dorms on that particular campus? I mean, those conversations that they are real conversations we need to have and we need to as me as mayor, I'm going to push them. I need for you all to start building more dorms on your campus so we have more people in this community that can live. Now, the reason our rent is so high, you know, and let's don't get it twisted, you know, it's it's a studentdriven market and have driven a lot of our residents out of their, you know, out of their homes. Especially when people die off, relatives may sell that property. So that cause a problem. But we really got and again when I say pipe dream, we got to realize we're land locked. We the smallest geographical county in the state of Georgia out 159 counties. So again, we got to figure out where we're going to do this density, where we going to put those housing. And I'm just, you know, we just need to to me what I what I have suggested Russell and Drew is put a pause on all our construction and let's really find out how many beds do we have in this community. I think that's a realistic look that we need to take a look at. >> Mr. Bishop. Um, following up on the point you just made about a possible building moratorum. How long do you think you would support enacting a moratorum on new construction to find out what we need to find out? >> No more than, you know, for me, no more than 180 days. That would be 6 months. If I had to push it back and I have to push our staff to make sure we do it, I would do a 90-day moratorum just to get a feel, okay, these are the number of beds that we have in this community and then we figure out, okay, who do those beds belong to? Are they student housing? Are they single family housing? Are they apartment housing? And we have never done that in this community. I'm not sure why people get so um upset about when I talk about trying to pause construction to really find out what our housing issue is. To me, we need to know that and the housing is just not tied to Athens, Clark County. Housing is a problem all over this country, all over the state of Georgia. Only thing I'm asking is we really want to know what our housing issue is. Let's find out how many beds that are actually in. And right now, I don't think nobody knows the answer to that question. >> Thank you, Mr. Pitcher. Uh, Mr. D, what's your feeling on a on a moratorum for housing construction for 180 days? I'm opposed to it because we know how many beds. Georgia Initiative for Community Housing, we have a gig team. They have proposals coming this this uh next week uh before the commission. Everybody y'all can look Google it. Uh Google the G the Athens, Georgia Initiative community housing study. Uh they they did a study of how many beds we have. Uh how many of them are in uh single residential and mixed residential student housing. They came up with the density number. I mean, we had been coming into this, Russell, you you stated very precise stats. Y'all, we're not a stupid community. We have very smart people here who understand these problems and they have been studied. We have economists. We have worldrenowned economists at the University of Georgia who have again stats presented by them. We know this stuff. And the idea that we going to stop for 6 months just because potentially my opponent hasn't read those studies is not fair because that's going to put us six months further behind actually being able to solve this housing problem and solve this affordability problem. >> Mr. >> Yeah. You know, you know how many studies we have done on um how many housing and like you said earlier that set on the shelf that thing's gone back and forth and yes, it is going to come before the um commission. And the reason I hadn't read it because I want to make sure that publicly right now that all our people that live in this community can see it at the same time I can see it. So once I get it, I'll take a look and if there's good data in there, then no, I would not propose um a pause, but same time we never done that. And again, um not trying to hurt developers. Um but I think, you know, I said 90 days or 180, but we we just need to take a look at and you and and you know what, Tim, you're exactly right. We got a lot of smart people that live in this community, a lot of people at UG that can help us with those things. But at the same time, you know, and that's part of the problem sometime. We do knee-jerk reaction to try to solve problems. We're not really not taking a look at what needs to done, what needs to be done, how we can really solve our housing issue. And it's just not going to go away easily. And we got to figure out where we gonna build that. And and that's my number one thing. Where are you going to put the density at? And again, I tell you all every time we talk about density, people are lining up at the door at city hall saying we don't want more density. So unlike you in one instance where a neighborhood kept coming out again and again and again and said we don't want housing and you voted against those people in Ningham because you thought it was the best interest for those that housing and not for the people that you represented and that did not happen. So we're not going to force feed you all on density and we should not do that as government and I will not do that as your mayor. Mr. Jason, if you'd like to to respond maybe to the question of, you know, these projects get proposed to build housing to to build the supply and folks who backyard may be impacted by a new building come to the podium and they complain. They get very upset and they feel this fear of change that might be coming in this community. What would you say to those people? Yeah, I'll be honest with y'all. I'm not going to say the most popular thing and tell every one of you that I'm going to do exactly what you want me to do as mayor because that's a lie. I'm not. What I'm going to do is what's going to be best for this community. And if we just keep saying no to building more housing again, while we have very wealthy people moving here, because Athens is a lovely place to live, and we keep seeing the people who work at the University of Georgia, the people who work at our restaurants, who work at our retail stores, who run this community, and if we keep on seeing them get pushed out of their housing and having to go and move outside of the county or find a new place to live, that's unacceptable to me. And I am going to work. And you know what? Sometimes some people aren't going to like the choices I make. We That's being a good leader, y'all. >> Uh if we just were going to do what the most popular thing is at one given moment, we can just We don't even need a person for that. Just do a little straw pull. We do that thing. But guess what? We'd have a pretty screwed up community if we had that. So yeah, I will be on uh Mr. Fischer, you are correct. I am I am not going to do whatever people come and complain about. I'm gonna do the make the hard decisions to do what's best for my community. >> Uh supporter of direct democracy, straw polls or representative democracy. >> I think well again you all going to be making decision who you going to want your next mayor. So, do you want a mayor who just going to force feed you and what what he thinks you all should have, or do you want a mayor that's going to listen to you, take a look at what we really need and get the job done? See, you know, this ain't my first rodeo. I understand how to get things done. I understand how to connect the dots. You just can't force feed people. I would not be a mayor who I'm going to slam down my agenda, my own personal agenda down your throat and expect for it to be okay. That is democracy. But you all you all elected us to make decisions for this community. So if you're going to get up here and say I'm going to make decisions based on what I think is best for the um for the community, that's the wrong thing. I'm going to make decision based on what you all have said put us in office to do. That's what we do as elected officials. And that's part of the problem. Too many elected officials stop listening to the people that put them there and got their own agenda. I don't have an agenda. My agenda is the Athens agenda. It's the people that live here and that's what I'm going to support 100% of the time. So, we're kind of frontloading. We're giving more time and space to these first dimensional topics. We'll we'll kind of get rolling. So, uh on a related topic of homelessness, uh Mr. D, this will go you first on two minutes in Michigan. Um on our recent podcast apphat where you can find on Spotify or Apple wherever you find podcasts um we talked about this uh question home with pretty much everyone and I want to contextualize this question by telling you something that Commissioner Mike Handy said. So Commissioner Mike Handy said to solve the homelessness problem in our community we're going to make both progressives and conservatives upset. You don't have to agree or disagree with them. Commissioner Hammy said, "We'll likely make some progressives upset because we will need to come to terms with the fact that it is not compassionate to accept that it's okay to have people sleeping on our streets." He also said, "We will make some conservatives upset because we will need to spend money to fix this problem." Can you give us specific examples of policy that you want to pass here in Athens Clark County that will help mitigate the problem of homelessness? And again, we're going to be asking for specific examples and specific policies. Mr. >> Thank you. And again, that's a perfect example as what Commissioner Hamby said. People are not going to be happy with everything. This is the thing. And therefore, if we're kind of go away that we're always going to listen to every single person, what that gets you is honestly what's been happening a lot at Seahawk lately. Nothing. Nothing gets done because always the easiest thing for an elected official to do is nothing because people do not get I'm talking right now, sir. Thank you. Um and so, so if we want to get something done, hold on. Yeah. >> Okay. Everybody's going to be chill. There's no haggling. All right. We We're in this beautiful theater. We plunk down the cash to rent this thing to hear from these candidates. Okay. Thanks. Go ahead. >> And I'll definitely be in the hallway. I'm happy to talk to you in the hallway. Whatever person we have there. Um and so yeah, and it's it's true. And I think what I've been saying is the one thing that I think this entire community can agree on is that we don't want homelessness happening here. I want to start from there. And yeah, we're going to have to bring the people to the table, definitely some people with more conservative ideas, some people with more progressive ideas to work on those solutions specifically for specifics. Uh, one thing is we don't have nearly enough emergency shelter beds. We have one emergency shelter in town. I know we people talk about Salvation, Army, Family Promise. None of those are emergency shelters. If you found yourself homeless tonight, right now, there's one place that you could get into tonight, and that's Bigger Vision that has somewhere between 30 and 46 beds at one given time. Um, so we need to have more emergency shelter beds. We need to be also uh we need to have more case managers and people working directly with these folks, the work that I do because that's the only way that you're going to be able to do a housing first model that works. Meaning that you get somebody into housing and then you actually have a case manager working with them to remove the barriers, whether that be addiction, whether that be mental health issues, physical health issues, uh domestic violence issues, whatever those things are to be able to address those things. Um and and then also like yeah the biggest part we're going to have to have funding. It is going to cost us money. But if we actually want this to want this to go away, if we want to stop seeing homelessness here in our community, we're going to have to spend that money and start helping people. And I believe that if we present it right, and I plan on working with all these folks, the university, the school district, the hospitals, which are spending millions to all come around and work on this issue together. Mr. policy uh that we can help mitigate the issue of homelessness here in front. >> Actually um I agree with Mr. Densson. We don't have enough um housing for our homeless population. And again, I think one of the things we got to look at though, where can we put those particular um um facilities? Right now, we're getting ready to build a 60 bed um facility. actually in my district on Mitchell Beach Road with advantage. It's going to um be for people that have deal with mental health issues, substance abuse. So that would give us 90 beds to help us deal with people that dealing with mental health and substance abuse. So that's a start right there. And again, I do agree with Tim. We need more housing for our homeless population. I think one of I think one of the mistakes that we made when we got the $57 million from Opera, we really could have did something right then. What we did do, we did a homeless encampment. I wouldn't have voted for the homeless encampment. What I would have voted for though, there was a building sitting right there on that property. We should have renovated that building. We probably could have served up to 150 to 200 people right there in that facility to help with our um housing situation. I would be looking at spaces that may be available where we can do things like that. And he's right, it is going to cost money. But the way we going to pay for that is we got to bring our faith-based community to the table. got to bring our business community to the table. He's right. UG the school district, our hospital, it got to be a lot of partners involved for us to do that. So, I don't disagree with him where we going with this, but we got to do it the right way. One of the problems that we're having though, and one and don't nobody want to admit it, we got more people get dropped off in our community. And that's that should not be happening. Other communities should not be dropping off people from their community in our in our space. and that takes up the resources actually for the people that are here that need those resources. So we got to take a look at that and see why that is happening on a continuous basis. >> Thank you. So Mr. D first um so there's some talk out there that people are being bust into our community and that it's kind of a disagreement you hear. Some people think it's happening, some people say it's a lie. Okay. Uh a study a couple of years ago said showed that around 70% of the homeless population are Athenians. Um Mr. Benson uh are people being busted to Athens Park County? Um do you believe that you say what you see? >> Yeah. And and they're not. So that with that uh new development that's being built in Mitchell Bridge Road, I work there uh every single week. Um I've been watching they're actually on the second floor now. It's very exciting to see them building it. Um, and that development which I'm very excited about that is that is uh the idea of this busing in people coming in it it's tied to it because here let me explain what happens. I I worked yesterday 12 hour shift at the crisis walk-in. Uh let's just say we had 12 people come in. Uh on average a lot of times people come in on what they call a 10-13 involuntary. They come in from different counties. It's true. They come here because we have the state license for it. uh that's been developed by the department of behavioral health and developmental disorders. So when somebody is having a mental health crisis in Jackson County, Madison County, Oglethorp County, they are supposed to be brought to here to Athens County where we have the services for them. And a lot of times they come in for substance use. They come in for mental health, schizophrenia, suicidal ideiation, whatever those things are. And then yeah, a lot of times they are here for a little while trying to get the services and the help that they need. People are not being uh if they're dropped in, that's already illegal. There is a state law against it. bring in what is happening is yeah those sheriff's departments bring the people here also the Pedmont also the St. Mary's all those counties I just said, they don't have hospitals, y'all. They don't have hospitals. So, uh, as a flyer that was put out, uh, attacking me, saying that, uh, my opponent was going to get rid of all of the magnets that brought the homeless people here, those magnets are our hospitals. Those magnets are our behavioral health hospitals. Those those those magnets are the fact that we have a domestic violence shelter here, only two in this entire area. I don't want us to get rid of those. And you know what the price sometimes is going to be? That we're helping other people, too. Wow. And and I will admit that it's not the perfect system. I would love the state of Georgia to be giving funding and support to Madison County, Ogathorp County, all these rural counties around us so they can have their own hospitals, have their own behavioral health places. And I will fully support that and be at the state capital lobbying for it. But until they don't, we need to stop attacking homeless people, acting like they're outsiders and paras, and that they're somehow suckling on the tit of of Athens, Clark County, and using us. They're not. We're helping people. >> Thank you. Thank you. So, our homeless population is a population all is all our problems, all our concerns. I think one thing we got to look at again and Tim is right when people do come here for mental health and substitute from other counties other counties kick in. What I'm talking about and he knows this is true. I've seen this with my own eyes. I've seen the van from Fulton County pull up to the sparrow's nest and people get out. >> So that's not fair to the people that's here. That's all I'm saying. I want to support and help the people that are here in Athens in this community. That's what we supposed to be about. Helping folks that are here. I've always tried to help the homeless and I always will continue to help the homeless population. But again, what I said earlier, it's gonna take a village, a full community support to help us to curb some of the homeless issues that we have. The go we can't buy our way out of this. The government can't do any all of this. We got to have partners to help us with this. We got to have partner that will help with housing. We got to have partners who can put people in place. and our hospitals do a great job, but they're not equipped to deal with substance abuse or mental health issues. That's why the advantage um property and and the construction that's going there is going to me I think going to be a game changer. It's going to help us and it probably will help cut down on some of the issues that we're dealing with with our homeless population. But I've never said I'm not sure who sent you to Florida, but I never said that the homeless population that we need step I would never say that. So for you to say that is wrong and you know you're wrong and you should not do that ever again. >> Yeah. We uh talk a lot about housing clearly within the authority of the local government planning and zoning. Another clear area of your authority will be road safety planning roads, traffic calming measures, keeping our communities safe on the roads. From 2023 to 2025, three years 45 people have died on Athens roads. So far this year, four have died. How, Mr. Fisher, would you plan on addressing this problem? >> I think one thing we got to look at, and we're doing that right now, look at our traffic patterns and what's happening um with those particular area. We got to put in more traffic common um type things within especially in the road system. Just in our district alone, to your point, had three three fatalities on Newton Bridge and Cwood. That need to be a red light right there cuz people be coming across that hill wide open. So, we need to start really looking at how we're doing our road construction, how we're putting things together. Um, two projects that I did in in neighborhoods actually, we put in speed bumps. Some people don't like speed bumps, but in Homewood Hills, we got speed bumps. We just started with Forest Heights, we got speed bumps. So, those are type of thing that we got to do. But on our major areas when we start looking at trying to construct those road, one of the first thing I would ask them to do, how do we do safety for those particular roads? What is that going to look like? Do we need going to have more biking lanes? Do we need to have more walking lanes? Those are type of things that we got to look at when we talk about um safety and what happens. And we're going to have a great opportunity with this um North Avenue quarter. They're going to be a perfect example how we take care of that quarter and what happens there when we start looking at road safety. Mr. Dson, road safety. Uh people are dying on the roads uh routinely and uh you know we might put in a speed bump or increase a curb cut but uh the motorists might get mad. So where can we find the courage to save lives on our roads if somebody feels inconvenience as a driver? Again, we're we're talking about one of those complex issues that everybody's not going to be happy about. Therefore, we need a mayor who's going to be able to do what's best for Athens and not just listen to every single person when somebody comes up and says no at the podium, then we vote no. Um so, yeah, we need to have especially for our multimodal transportation here. Um the so whenever I was on the commission, uh Jefferson Road uh was having multiple fatalities, still a very dangerous road, very fast on there. Uh so I worked with community members to get a t-bloast uh project put in place for transportation safety measures to be put in place there which is still being worked on uh cuz things do take too long. I'll give you that. I know I know that Mr. Fisher will agree with you on that one. Uh but we put those funding in place. Same thing with Prince Avenue here uh with us us two laning that uh two laning that road um or three laning that road. um we're we're going to have to take and make some different changes on how we think about transportation if we want to keep pedestrians safe, if we want to keep cyclists safe, if we want to keep people waiting for their buses safe. Um and that's one of the reasons that it's a big part of this is funding. And that's why I have a proposal that I've been campaigning on called inclusionary parking where we can be gathering a new funding source specifically so that we can build out sidewalks, crosswalks, bike lanes, and public transit system so that we can keep people more safe and get them around. But yeah, uh, right now if we're talking about we're going to choose if a person has to take an extra 3 seconds to get from downtown from the county line or we can make our community more safe and less people die, I'm gonna choose the latter. Everything's interrelated here. So, we're going to talk about infrastructure and density. Um, so, uh, Mr. Jackson was spoken first. During the city county consolidation of the early 90s, there were many promises made to different communities. One promise was to expand sewer capacity to various areas of the county. It has been over 30 years since consolidation and these sewer expansions have not happened. A new study estimates that to expand sewer capacity north of the loop in the Sandy Creek basin would cost over $und00 million. Do you believe that we should make good on these promises and expand sewer capacity to these communities? You have a minute and a half. >> I believe that we need to start working towards it, which is what our county manager and our staff is proposing uh with a timeline of different projects that will incrementally get us closer to that. Uh I'll be honest though, I think that uh there was maybe a bunch of uh promises or ideas that were floated back during unification that were not realistic and people were kind of being lied to to be honest. Uh and now we're dealing with the repercussions of that here later on uh many decades later. Uh but I do believe that we need to be working first and foremost I do think we need to be focusing on making sure that everybody has access to clean water which we are much closer to uh than we are when the sewage and I think that is a priority. We still have some neighbors and some communities that do not have safe access to clean drinking water. Uh and that's absolutely that's unacceptable and we are closer there and I believe we can prioritize and get that done. When it comes to the sewers, I think we just need to start taking this incremental steps and slowly get us there and also try to work with these communities to find ways that we can find some costsaving measures where we can have maybe entire neighborhoods or developers uh helping chip in some of the cost to tie in things. Um, but I'm not going to sit here and and and honestly lie and say that if I'm elected, we're going to have uh sewer to every single home cuz it's just not going to happen right now. >> Thank you, Mr. Fisher. Do you believe that we should make good on these promises and expand sewer capacity to these communities? >> And again, I I agree with Tim. We we can't just do this overnight because this probably did not happen overnight. And again, I was I had just moved here when unification was being talked about. And he's right. People got lied to. I was sitting in on those meetings when they was talking about doing sewer and water um countywide also talk about economic development um within east a and none of those things happened actually if you go back and read the charter four years after the charter started suing water supposed to have started in this community and that didn't happen and and has built up and is matter of fact I was surprised at how I thought the cost would be a lot higher than 100 million that's been pronounced but you're right we can't just buy our way out of this one. It's going to take time. But not only do we got to expand it, we got to improve the infrastructure that we got in place already cuz that's crumbling. When I first started this campaign, none of other commissioners, I'm sorry, none of other candidates were talking about infrastructure till I started talking about it. I'm a facilities guy and I understand to get things done, you got to have stuff underneath to make sure it's working. So, we didn't do that. So, so we have failed our community, past commissioners, past mayors, and now we got to play catch-up. But again, it's going to take time for us to do that. I think I want to bring all our um our staff together and start chipping away at it. But also, just keep in mind, we got to fix also what we already got in place. >> Thank you. Thank you, Mr. a little bit of some frustration with our local government at times. And one thing that comes to my mind is that it took 23 years to put a protected bike lane that's about.7 miles. It took 17 years to connect the greenway through Okonial Cemetery. >> Yeah. >> It's taken It's taken 30 years in counting for the Firefly Church. You feel like our citizenry is maybe losing faith in our local government's ability to deliver on promises to build good things with the taxes y'all collect. And what would you do as mayor to speed it up and bring some of these projects to deliver some of these projects? One minute. Great question, Russell. And I've been talking about this. See, I've done splash projects. I did it for the school district. We brought in two schools, a fieldhouse, and a track. I was only there for three years. Within two years, under budget and on time. Problem we got in Clark County is we try to collect the taxes first and then build. You can't do that because inflation catches up with you. In my administration, once a project is on paper and that's a priority, then we're going to design it. We're going to build it and we're going to get it done. You can't wait. We got stuff since 2011. 2011 that's still on the books. We got stuff from 2018 that's still on the books. That's unacceptable to you all out there. There's a better way. I know the better way. I've done this. I've been a hands-on manager, a hands-on leader. So, I understand how to make those projects work and how to connect those dots. And you're going to need a leader who understands that to get things done moving forward. It's a great community, but golly, it takes decades sometimes to build a sidewalk. >> Uh, Rust, what were those three projects that you mentioned in the in the question? >> Uh, 23 years for the protected bike line on Prince Avenue, 17 years to connect the greenway through OK Cemetery, 30 years in counting for the firefly direction. So, uh, very proud to say that during my four years as a county commissioner, before the state legislature removed me from office by redistricting, all three of those things were done whenever I was on the commission and got passed. Because one of the big things that we need is we need to have elected officials that are going to have a bias towards action, getting things done, and that are going to have the political will to move forward. All three of those things also had massive uh uh amounts of people and a lot of times not a large amount of people but people coming to our podium saying they didn't want it to happen. And from what I'm understanding from Mr. Fischer is if that people coming to say they don't want it to happen then he's not going to do it. And if that's the case we need to have someone who's going to push things through. Again we need to be doing having a government that's going to do what's best for Athens. It's not my personal ideas, my personal things, but but we actually have studies. We know these projects, these things, and we need to move forward on them. And if we are we if we are delaying them constantly because people come up and complain about the Firefly Trail or complain about having the Greenway connected, uh you're not going to get things done. And that's one of the big reasons that things didn't get done until we had a commission and a mayor that was willing to move forward. >> Actually, but the problem with that is, you know, you all had it, but you didn't get anything done. And what I'm saying is we know what those projects are. You price them out. And I give you a perfect example right now. We voted or this group voted on the judicious center. It started out as a $40 million project. Right now, we're looking at playing $200 million for judicious center. If you had commissioners on it that understood that, let's go ahead and bond this particular judicial center. Let's get it built. The judic system would be in place right now. That's the type of mayor I would be. I would watch your pennies and watch your dollars and make sure things get built. That's part of the problem. That's why you all don't trust us because we wait 18, 20 years to get things done. And that's unfortunate that these things happen with elected officials cuz they don't want to do the job and do the work. >> Mr. Speaker, to public safety, um Mr. Vincent, when you were serving on the county commission, I remember clearly I was serving as mayor pro 10 and we were going through the budget discussions in the wake of uh co George Floyd meeting virtually u and you had a proposal that you worked on with another one of our colleagues known as the 5010 plan which would have moved to reallocate funds from the police department 50%. Within 10 years, um there's been a lot of discussion about this plan over the years and I wanted to ask you um now that you have this experience, years have passed since that proposal was floated, how do you feel about it today? >> Yeah. um for the general idea of it that was behind it. I I I still believe that we are putting so much responsibility on our police officers to be the people who are social workers, to be the people who are homeless services resource officers, to be the people who are uh responding to uh uh family violence issues. um all these different things that we have shown, studies and studies have shown that are best dealt with when there's done through a mental health specialist, through a social worker, through the co-responder units. And and I I'll admit I I believe that this community uh is not ready and was not ready for uh to to the to the level of what the 5010 plant was. But I am also very proud that over the years, every single budget almost has expanded those co-responder units that we put in place during that budget so that we can actually be uh reacting more to those kind of emergencies and mental health crisis uh better than we were years ago. And right now, we're just still not responding to public safety in the way that I believe we should. talking about back in the blue, Mr. Fiser. Uh let's talk about back in the red. Uh there was a a vote uh I guess almost a year now ago to site a new fire station on the east side of Athens. We went through a search committee twice over two years of public meetings trying to figure out where to put this fire station to expand service to provide diligent service. Fire chief was very outfront with his recommendation that this be built. um you made a decision on that vote and I was wondering if now the time that has passed have you thought more about that vote and thinking about uh do you maybe wish that you had approach that differently? >> Well, you know, um Russell, safety should always be priority number one in anything that we do in this community. And again, um, for those people that lived in that particular unit, um, in that particular part of the county, um, they was adamant that they did not want a fire station. I went and I went and talked to some of those folks. So, and it went in my district. So, I did talk with those, um, residents in that particular area, but they was pretty adamant that they did not want a fire station. Now, the vote passed. So, one thing about me, um, you win some and you lose some, and that's okay. And we move forward. They got a fire station out there. It's going to add more safety to the, um, to that particular community. But why you didn't ask me about the blue question? But that's okay. But uh but but but you know, I I feel I feel adamant about you know, let me tell y'all something. I'm never going to apologize for the last four years that I've been on that commission for any vote that I've taken. You know, I'm I'm if it was the wrong vote, it was the wrong vote. I'm mad enough to admit that. And we keep it moving. Then we we live the fight for another day. But I'm never going to apologize for any vote that I've taken over the last four years that I've been on that commission. Let's move on to another another area here um to a new segment on debate series uh where we ask the current commissioners to ask you questions. >> We didn't know what those questions are. >> Get ready. >> Um so Mr. Benson, I'll just go to you first and then Mr. Fisher. Melissa, Commissioner Melissa Lyn from district 2 asks, uh, "What accomplishment from your time on the commission are you most proud of? What decision from your time on the commission do you most regret?" >> Yeah. Okay. Great question. Uh, I think the one that I'm most proud of would be, uh, getting the eviction prevention uh, program put in place. It was a lot of work. uh worked with uh officials in Gwynet County pulling them together to help uh us model what they've had in place over there with our own staff. Um and it it took a while again longer than it should have to get pushed through because there was uh a lot of political push back at first, but we got that program put in place and because of it uh kept over 830 families in their homes instead of being evicted. and want to talk about the best way to combat homelessness is to make sure that people don't become homeless in the first place. And that's one of the biggest reasons I think that eviction prevention program has been so successful and that uh if I'm elected that will become a a a fully funded program that we will move forward as part of our budget. Um also definitely zero public transit system in place. Very proud of that one too. Uh and then the the one that um the one that I would regret um and I've I've talked about it publicly. >> Okay. um you know that uh whenever we had the police uh uh the public safety civilian oversight board and we were picking the who was going to serve on that board and um there was uh a group of folks who really didn't want to see that board existing uh and and that was their prerogative and some of them applied to be on the board and I uh sent text messages to some of my colleagues which was completely illegal way because they were open record uh and uh the way I addressed it was was improper and I should not have saying that, you know, work make sure that these Republicans and I should not have been saying that because I think that was unnecessarily divisive and and unfair. Um, and so I think that was uh yeah, and I've I've owned up to that and I've learned from that and uh will continue to. >> All right. Thank you, Mr. Fisher. What accomplishment of your time on the commissioner and proud of and what what do you have as the most? So one of my biggest passion is the young people in this community our youth development and one of the things that we've done and that u my colleague we had money sitting from opera u for youth development that wasn't getting used so one of the things we did was we made sure that we opened up four community centers in our Athens housing project to make sure those young people will have somewhere to go on a daily basis. I'm really proud that we did that as a ongoing um um program that's happening now. All those kids this summer will spend time at um um HT Edwards and um and also at Shallow um Boy and Girls Club. So that's going to be very beneficial to them. And then when they come back in the fall, those four community centers will be there for those young people to help them with educational needs, help them as growing needs. And so some of the things um for me anytime it comes to our young people is is really part of my passion. Um be honest with you guys um there hadn't been um a lot of regrets for me. Um I think one of the things that um has bothered me is that our community has lost trust in us as a um government and I want to build that trust back and I think we need to do better from a transparency perspective from accountability perspective. So for me, we need to build that trust back because I regret that our community don't trust us to do the work that you all actually hired us to do. So um as the next mayor, we're going to have transparency. We're going to have accountability and we're not going to do anything illegal or unethical. So we'll be embarrassed by as we move forward. >> Commissioner, uh Mr. Benson, why don't I go first? So, uh well well this one this this one this is coming to you with the bark on from one of your former colleges. All right. Uh from Commissioner Allison Wright. Oh, this is indeed a great question and I spoke with Commissioner Wright before reading this aloud. Oh, this is indeed a great question for Tim. No team in Tim, only an I. I would ask how he plans to work with folks he never worked with before. I experienced him as a dude that only had his agenda in mind, not woman friendly and never collaboratively beyond his small circle. In four years, he never asked for my opinion, not once. A great question for your podcast would be aligned with what skill set do you have that helps improve community relations and commissioner support. Tim is divisive and portrays himself differently for campaigning. His wish list of mending his divisive past is not realistic. Well, Commissioner Wright's not a fan. Um, and that's fine. It is fine. Um, you know, I uh I can definitely tell you that um you know, and I that got pretty personal and I'm not going to do that back because I think that's kind of almost like what's trying to get me into there. Um, this is the thing and if anybody who's ever took the time to get to know me, anybody who's worked with me over the last 15 years as community organizer, um, they will they know that I'm going to I meet people where they're at. I will listen to folks. I will um I I dra I desperately want to work with people because as as one of the big parts of community organizing is that you're not organizing for people, you're organizing with people. And that's why a big part of my when I was on the commission, I came on and said that I'm going to hold a uh you know a town hall uh basically every month that I'm on a commission. And I did I held uh at least 10 every single year, more than 40 town halls when I was on the commission for those four years. And I will do the same thing as a mayor going into the communities not expecting them to come to meetings uh where oftent times you know some especially for public comment where you have uh certain commissioners I won't say names uh who would leave early before the public comment ever happened almost every single meeting um uh and I want to make sure that I'm sitting there listening to people working with people uh I was out knocking uh over 40 doors just this afternoon before coming here over on Fourth Street talking to folks folks at their door, listening to what their issues are, listening to what their concerns are. That's how I govern. Um, and that's how I will continue to govern. And I will happily meet with every single commissioner and every single state rep. Uh, I mean, Houston Gaines also worked to get me redistricted out of there. But you know what? I met that guy for coffee multiple times a year, every single time. And I will continue to do so if I'm elected. rough and tumble world of politics. Mr. Fisher, any any remarks from you? >> Sure. I have a question. >> Yeah. Well, you know, for me, I've always been a collaborator. Um, always been one who can bring people together, you know, and that's my superpower. I have sit down with people that's different from me. People have political um ideology from me. That's what I've done my whole life. Um, I've always gone, you know, and Tim say he's been to Fourth Street with I've been going to Fourth Street in those areas for years. Um, not sure how how many times he been on it, but I've gone into these projects and talk to those young people. One of the things I pride myself on and I tell people is if I get an invitation to go talk to young people, no matter what I'm doing, if I have to change schedules, I'm going to do that cuz they need to understand that they can achieve and do whatever they want to do. when I worked at UG and you know I worked for three different presidents um Chuck Knap, Micah Adams and Jerry Mohead. All three of those presidents had me at their table helping them how we can shape things at the University of Georgia. When I ran my department I had over 500 employees. I had more women, more people of color in leadership positions. We set up GED program. We sent them back to Athens Tech. >> We doing all those things in my career. I know how to build um coalitions. I understand coalition. You can't do these things in silos and sometime people try to do that because they think they they smarter than everybody else. But me as your next mayor, I'm going to work with the whole community. That's why I said my first 100 days. We're hitting the ground running. And I told these people who's getting elected, you better put your running shoes on cuz we're going to be out in these streets talking to this community and you all going to help us shape our strategic plan over the next four years. All right, questions. >> That's all. That's all. That was terrible. All right. Commission. >> All right. We had a couple commissioners ask multiple ones. So, all right. All right. We'll keep it going. Okay. Uh on the heels of of your remarks, Mr. Fiser. Um who wants to take this question first? >> Okay. Mr. Fisher. >> All right. We need to interrupt it. Is it important to work with UG? If so, what are specific actions or policies you would work towards with UG? This question comes from Commissioner Alita Thor. I think we cannot work with UG. I mean, it's the largest employer. It's the elephant in the room. It's the largest employer in this community. I spent 32 years on that campus. I understand the ins and outs. We got to have a relationship with them. Nothing happens in this community without UG. Right now, at least on the upper um um echelon, there's not a relationship. Now, our staff, they get along great. But from day one, I will have an audience with Jared Mohead. And some of the conversations I'm having with them right now is reducing the number of cars that freshman can bring on campus. To me, that's important. having those conversation about building more dorms, having those conversations about how we can collaborate together to make a better Athens for everybody. I'm the only candidate and just the two of us who can do that from day one. Same thing at Athens Tech. I spoke at their commencement last year. Same thing with the school system and I worked in the school system. So, I understand how those relationship work. This last commission, they talked bad about UG. They did not want to have anything to do with them. They said nasty things about them. That's not how you build relationships with the largest employer in this county. Now, do they have issues there? You're darn right they do. And I understand that there's not a perfect uh employer in this town, but at least we need to be having some meaningful conversation for how we make all the Athens better for everybody. I know how to connect those dots. I understand how to connect those dots and we'll have a seat at the table on day one in my administration. for everybody or for everyone. All right. So, same question. Work with UG. What are the specific actions or policies you work for UG? >> I think everyone just rolls off the tongue better, but um so, so yes, I mean obviously we do uh the Athens wouldn't be Athens without the University of Georgia and University of Georgia wouldn't be what it is without Athens. Um we're very much tied into this and um you know but I do I do believe that UG needs to do more. I do um for too long wages were stagnated here and uh it's the largest employer yet for so long in some positions they're still not paying a living wage. I I expect more from state institutions who are the largest employers here. Um and but yes, we the way that we get those things changed is by having a healthy relationship and conversation. And I do believe also that our the relationship right now is pretty unhealthy. Um so we need to come to the table with both of them, but not give UG not just give everything up. You know, we're not going to just settle for that. We need UG to step up. Uh right now, yeah, UG has owns a ton of property. They don't pay taxes. Obviously, that was a big part that they do not pay any kind of taxes into the system. Um there are ways that we can work with them to maybe that again this student overlay district that we have on the edge of campus possibly University of Georgia uh uses some of their property for that overlay district and gives puts it in. So finding those ways that we can find common ground and move forward again homelessness I think a big one finding that common ground the ways that we can move forward but at the same time not selling out our community because our community deserves better. Yeah, just responding to that. Um, one of the taxes that UG does play our storm water fees. So, that's one of the things that they do. But again, I think what we got to do and again, as your mayor, I'm going in as a mayor, not as a former employee. So, they they understand that. And what I'm what I'm bringing to the table is let's start this conversation right now because I am at that table. And yeah, they can do better. And one thing that we need to really focus on, not so much at the top, but those a number of departments I have had um had conversation with some of those deans. They are willing to kick in money with us to do the things that we need done. But again, you got to go ask the question. You got to have a seat at the table. Last commission four years before me that didn't happen because everything was, you know, there was a big devil in the room. That's not how we need to handle or talk with the people that, you know, that live in this community. That's not what we do. We're better than that. >> Thank you, Mr. Fisher. >> Okay. We've got a uh our next portion of the debate where the candidates can ask each other a question. And before we do this, uh audience members, uh we'll be asking you to ask some questions after this segment. So, put your thinking caps on and we'll give you more instructions in a minute. Okay. All right. So, Mr. Fischer, how could you ask the first question, Mr. Benson? >> Sure. One of um things um Tim has um sort of accused me of is um I think it may be in our first forum where he said that um a developer gave me Well, let me back up. One of the things he said on his um website that all the money that I've taken in came from corporations and packs. And I need you to tell this audience tonight that's not true. And you know it's not true. Every penny, every dime, every dollar, every $100 I've gotten came from individuals not only in this community, but people that I've developed relationships over the last 40 years of my life. My college roommates, people from my hometown. So for you to put that on your website to say this is what I raised, hardworking people. This is what this guy raised. Corporations and packs. You need to tell this audience that that's not true. What would you tell this audience? >> Um, yeah. Uh, so, and I'm I'm I'm I'm sorry you took that personally. I'm actually looking at the the post now cuz you brought this up to me before and it says some of Tim's opponents have deep pockets. Uh, and it goes into uh that, you know, we're not taking any money from uh says some candidates who have relied on donations from corporations and packs. I will say this. It never states your name one time, Commissioner Fischer. >> It you can use my phone. You got I >> just wanted to make sure you knew it does not say your name one time. Um it's kind of the situation of like, you know, don't protest too much. Like it doesn't say anything about you on there. Um but what I h what has happened I think all of us have experienced is that there are packs involved in this campaign >> and those packs they might not have given you money directly which is not often times what packs do but those packs have sent derogatory uh uh mailers to our entire community in support of you calling me out for my working-class background which I'm very proud of uh for leaving out every female candidate who has been running for mayor. And yet that Athens Forward pack uh has sent I have received four mailers supporting you in that. Um and so I am not and I have not personally and I will say this right now. I am not accusing Commissioner Fischer of taking money directly from packs or incorporations. I am not I have not said that and I'm not saying that. And if I have say anything that's made that construed, I am not saying that. But what is going on is that we do have a pack right now with absolutely thousands of dollars for some reason pushing you putting your quotes and quotes from your uh endorse endorsees onto these things trying to lead voters astray here in Athens County. I don't think that's right and I'm not accepting any of that kind of money. My campaign is running something very different. And I know that wasn't coming for your campaign, but it's still happening. And I would love to hear that you would denounce this pack and ask them to stop doing that, not to do that during the runoff. >> I'm You know what? And I'm glad you said it cuz I did. Matter of fact, my team, we got together and again, so Russell and Drew, so you'll know. We don't know who the packs are >> and he's right. We don't >> know. Yeah. Athens for >> Yeah. So we don't stand up. >> So So, so we don't control our campaign. Don't so so you all understand how pack work. No candle controls u what pack put out. >> I had no control. They didn't they didn't reach out to our team and say we was going to do this and I have said we don't want you to put out anything about my campaign >> without our permission and my campaign manager sitting in the front seat would tell you that. So I've said that publicly. So I don't control that and to you I don't appreciate that. I I don't think nobody toot my own horn. I got a pretty good horn to myself. So I don't need nobody, you know. So I don't need Pat to tell me, you know, you know, and that was and you're exactly right. >> You're exactly right. They put that out, had me in your picture. Three other candidates were in the race. What a dumb thing to do. That should have never happened. But again, I don't control it and I'm saying this publicly. Um I don't want I don't need their money. We run a clean campaign. Have not taken any money from corporations or from tax. >> Thank you. Um and just to be clear and forward is not pack. It's a independent. Okay. >> There's a difference. Google it. >> Okay. >> All right. >> There are actually more important differences between Mr. Dson, please ask your questions, Mr. Fisher. >> Sure. Um so, uh Commissioner Fischer, at at uh previous um debate, you said that you did not believe that we can afford to have zero fair public transit anymore. Um yet you have been very uh forcefully pushing for us to have a subsidized airline to be at our airport here in Athens, Georgia. So I am curious why it's a higher priority for you for us to work towards having a commercial airline which back in the reason we lost this airline is because we could not average more than six passengers a day. Yet, we have an Athens transit system that has 2.1 million rides that working-class Athenians use every single day to get by, to get to work, to get to get their jobs, and to get the things they need to do. Why do you will you not support Athens transit subsidies, but you will support subsidies for a commercial airline? >> Okay, thank you, Jim. >> Thank you, Jim. And that's a fair question. First of all, um not that I don't support free fair. The problem is how do you sustain that? The legislator just passed legislation right now where in the tlash project they're taking away any free fair type subsidies in our community. So how are we going to pay for that? That I mean that's a real question. That's all I'm saying. I'm not saying I'm against free fair, but that's a legitimate question. How are we gonna sustain free fair? And if we're talking about expanding into other counties, expanding into our routes, that money got to come from somewhere, Tim. So, how are we going to pay for it? Now, on the airline, you're right. Back in 2014, we lost our airline. Right now, 1,600 people a day leave Athens, Georgia to go to either Atlanta or Greenville to catch a flight. To me, that doesn't make sense. And we already got three airlines talking to us. And we don't have to have subies for these airlines. Those airlines would pay for theel right now. Our biggest how we make money out there right now is through private charter and with our and with our gas tax. So for me in it brings economic development and we had even talked about that. I'm not sure why y'all guys have not talked about economic development which is so critical to grow this community and nobody has talked about it the whole 15 times that we've been on these forums and we need to talk about economic development in this community and how it's going to help expand our community and possibly help people get off of um out of housing and to get them into homes. So we need to be really having some really um good conversation about our economic development here in this community also. Audience cares about economic development. Does anybody care? Let's see. So probably two or three questions. Anybody care? Anybody care about the economy? Anybody? >> Oh, right here. Richard Whitfield. Hi, both of you uh speak about affordability and generally focused on prices, levels of rent, potentially mortgage payments, the like. But what I have been spoken about are the levels of income and the levels of retirement and disability benefits. I think all of you know that there are too many people in Athens who are working full-time, have poverty wages, and receiving poverty, retirement, and disability benefits. What do you think you can do as a mayor to eliminate or decrease poverty and poverty benefits? >> You got to repeat that, Russell. >> Mr. Bishop, go ahead. I I I'm I'm not exactly sure what he's asking. You he mentioned retirement. Can you sort of give me a scale, Russell, about what he what Richard is asking? Just is it more about retirement, Richard, or is it more about affordability of wages? Um I'm just trying to understand the question. That's all. >> How about you just shoot us your economic vision development? >> Well, I think one of the things we need, >> okay, one of the things that we need to really talk about is is breakable industry to the community. Right now we got a company um a miser 1,700 jobs that's going to be coming to this community. The biotech company starting gonna be $65,000 um a year. Those the type of um clean jobs that we need and I want to attract those type of companies to here. And again we want to talk about getting people in housing. We need those highpaying jobs but at the same time we got to get people trained. I rather spend money in training programs to make sure people can have jobs and make sure they can stay on those job with retirement, health care and also one of the things I talk with my about since Tim talked about um child care is would they be interested in putting child care facility on their campus to help with the employees that work there. I think those are some of the things that we need to look at when we attracting businesses. Child care should be actually a number one issue with helping those people that's going to be working for them. So to me, that's the type of thing I like to see coming to our community. >> All right, Mr. D. >> Sure. And and to speak directly to uh some of Richard's question. Uh one of the things that we can do is that we need to keep funding our um our neighborhood leaders program, which uh was discussed about almost didn't make funding this past year. we need that needs to be in there because those individuals are specifically helping folks get on to disability, uh get their SSI, get on retirement, uh helping them with a lot of different services, helping them get on on caps for childcare, helping to get to SNAP, uh because those systems are difficult and right now we have the federal government and the state government has been intentionally making them even more difficult. Another thing though is yeah, we need to be increasing wages and it's difficult for us to do at a mayor's level. One of the things that I will put in place is the mayor's living wage award because we can't force businesses to be uh give paying a living wage, but we can give them incentives and so that we are praising those businesses and entities that do pay every single employee a living wage or higher so that we can be encouraging people to go to those businesses and you know you can see which businesses are on that list and which ones aren't and you make the choice where you want to spend your money. >> All right. Hey everyone, my name is Maliko and I'm a musician here in town. Um, Athens has a really rich music culture that draws visitors, drives economic activity, and shapes our city's identity. Yet, many of the musicians who create that culture struggle to earn living minimum wage. Uh, I know myself and my bandmates, many people, we put so much work into shows and after weeks and weeks of work and practice rehearsals, all taken $10. Uh, what concrete policy tools would you use to ensure that working musicians can afford to live in a city they help to find? >> Take one minute each. So one of the things that when I was in the commission I we explored but then unfortunately the state government said we couldn't do it was to actually be able to give a discounted liquor license rate to uh venues that could prove that they were paying uh again a living wage to the performers who perform at their venues. Uh so I wanted to continue exploring that and find ways that we could possibly do different levels of occupation tax for those businesses because they are supporting and giving back to the artists and musicians who work here in our community. The other big thing that I am proposing as part of my platform is creating an entertainment district here downtown that will allow open containers uh here in downtown Athens like they've done in commerce and wer and and uh and many other smaller rural communities that shown that this can work and then having that in in designated cups that they would buy from the county so that we would actually be making revenue off of it every time somebody has an outside cup and then using that money to pour it back into downtown into our festivals. We have AFEST uh making sure that we have better public safety downtown, better resources, better infrastructure because again we're going to need to find new revenue sources so that we can be supporting those artists and the beautiful downtown that supports them. And that is a toughy, you know, when when we got and I love music and and I appreciate the music that you bring and that's a toughy there. I think for us, those venues that are being um um used for you all to do your music, we need to put some pressure on them. Say, "Hey, if we've got a packed house, you all pay us for what we and how we perform and what we bring to the table." So, I think part of that is is part of the negotiation. Um with you being a um sort of private um contractor, I think you have to put pressure on those businesses. If you want me to perform, you pay me. If we're packing this place out, I need to get paid accordingly. So I think it's important that you use your negotiation and how you do things in order to make sure you get paid by those venues that you're doing your music for. So that would be and I would support you 100%. That's how we start having those conversation and make sure those music venues are paying you the wage that you deserve as a musician. >> All right, we have one last question before we go to final final. >> Hey, thank you very much for taking time on Saturday afternoon. I was a little disappointed in both of your answers to the infrastructure and sewage. My property taxes have doubled in the last 6 years and we have not done anything for sew and it's really a problem from an infrastructure perspective. Both of you have been on the commission and have not executed and I've heard both of you say that you might have a chance to get to it. I didn't hear anything firm or complete, but we were going to get to it. We burned through SWAT. We burned through the dollars. We need some accountability. I need to hear from you. What are you going to do to hold people accountable? Can when you say to hold people accountable at the end there, what what were hold which people? Us. You're saying hold the government accountable. commission mayor people. >> Okay. Um so yeah, I mean one of the things is I mean that infrastructure is uh one of the most expensive things that we have to deal with here. Um and one of the most challenging and I think part of it's going to we're going to have to get creative and work with to find new revenue sources. Um uh Commissioner Fischer spoke about uh the project uh of the student housing over there on the north part of downtown. Part of the what's happening is they're giving was it $9 million? 7 million and then 9 million for affordable housing. >> I said that was seven. >> No, they're doing afford they're doing I know they're doing sewer and they're doing affordable housing. I believe it's a total of $16 million. >> So that's one of those creative ways that we're going to have to deal with things. Um you know my opponent here voted against that. I think that that makes we're going to have to find those kind of things so that we can get that money because like yeah we have a hole right now. We need to have more revenue going towards that infrastructure and I think that we should be relying on the developers who are building more uh housing here having them pay a larger portion of it just like they did in that project. Uh that way we can be moving the money that we already have designated towards some of those more challenging areas outside of the downtown area. >> Thank you Mr. >> Yeah. And and thank you for that and you're right but I talked about this earlier in our u in our forum though. One thing we're doing we're playing catchup. You know, this is this this is just not happened four years, eight years or 12 years. This happened started some 30 years ago about our infrastructure and what needs to happen. And you were right, but we have to be and it's going to take time. This is not going to happen overnight. I'm not going to um try to, you know, get any um political points for this, but it is going to take some time. It's going to be is going to be costly. We got to figure out how. But what what I bring to the table though is make sure we get those projects done in a timely manner and we're not waiting 10 15 and 20 years for a project to get completed. So that that's what that's what I'm going to do as your next to make sure those projects get completed on time. And yes, I did vote against that particular um project. And the reason I did, if you put a 450 car garage in front of a community center that's going to impact black kids, you darn right I'll vote against it because why would you put a a a parking deck where children go on a daily basis and now their parents going to have a difficult time trying to drop them off. So yeah, I did vote against that project. It was a bad project and I'm sure the candidates will be hanging around afterwards. You can ask them, but we have a nice lady here who's patiently waiting. Go ahead. >> How you doing? Well, my question is about >> the a lot of um there's been a lot of um false arrest and then when these people are found innocent and spent a lot of money out um paying attorneys to do these cases and then they walk away, the police around here is not being held accountable for the things they're doing. And it has happened several times, which I'm only one and has happened two. And then when everything come to light, I'm left without the bag of having to pay out debt for something that wasn't even nobody's account for. And I need to know what what's all going to do about that. >> So I think I understood your question. So >> it's accountability. >> It is accountability, but is it is a I think to me is is the court's accountability. our officers can arrest them, but when they go to trial, it's the judges who making those decisions. And you're right, some people do the crime, they get a good attorney, they get back on the streets. But if it's a jury trial, the jury is making that decision. But if it's the judge who's making those decision, I think one of the biggest things that I hear from our officers, >> that's not where she at. that they were they're innocent. >> Oh, okay. >> They're innocent. They falsely arresting these people and when they're found innocent, there's nothing done about it. And my question to you is there's a lot of cases that I know, which I am one of the ones that have witnessed it and nothing was done about the police when they did the damage. >> Okay, >> that's what I'm asking. >> Okay. Thank you. I'm I'm sorry I didn't hear that. So, one of the things that we did do and I give credit to u my colleague over here we we um we created a um public service oversight committee which called peace call and one of the things now that people that feel they've been falsely arrested or falsely accused they can go through that process and that committee which is an independent committee and if the police department have found been found to not have done their job or falsely arrest somebody then what we do is deal with that situation. deal with that officer either through reprimand or through um termination. But we do have a committee in place called Peace Cob where as a citizen you can write your complaint, send that information to those to the Peace Cob committee. They'll make a concerted effort to maybe get down to the what's happening and try to get that case resolved or see why the police did what they did and make them be held accountable for their actions. It's situations just like that, which is why I worked with uh some of my colleagues in the Athens anti-discrimination movement in the Georgia ACLU to to create that public safety civilian oversight board. And it's also why I worked to make sure that that board didn't have people sitting on it who wanted to dissolve the board. Um because it's very important because we do have injustices happening constantly in our criminal justice system. And it's also one of the reasons that I do believe we need to become taking a different take at public safety. Um, we can't just be expecting us to arrest all of our problems away. Uh, putting more and more people in jail, expanding the jail. Um, it's it's it's inhumane. It's ineffective. Um, and I believe that Athens Clark County does not believe in doing things that way. And right now we do have a a criminal justice system that uh puts far more uh arrests far more black and brown people in this community and puts far more black and brown people in that jail and keeps black and brown people a lot more longer in that jail than they do the Caucasian counterparts. And uh that's why we need to be doing some we need we have to do something different. It's not working. And so yes, did I did I propose something that was very controversial with the 5010 plan? I did. But it's because I'm trying to explore to find solutions to these problems instead relying on what's work, what's not working right now, especially from minorities here in this community. Participating in small D democracy. We will now move to the final portion of the event with the closing statements and then we will close her down. Mr. Nson, you'll go first. You have two minutes for your coating. >> All right. Oo, we're bringing bring the lights down a little bit. You know, get some mood lighting here. Um, y'all, thank you all for being here tonight and thank you for honestly your patience of going through another election. Uh, and uh, and you know, for this runoff, it's going to be on June 16th. Uh, again, like I said, I'm running because I love this community. I'm not perfect. I'm not going to pretend that I am, but I do believe that working with this community, we can make a more perfect Athens, Clark County that does work for everyone and it's more affordable for everyone. Um, I've dedicated my life honestly to serving this community because it ser it served me so well and that's why I've been working as a community organizer most of that time completely unpaid for the last 15 years. uh working as a school as a school board member that I'm currently on, working as a county commissioner, serving on numerous uh boards and committees trying to make this community work better. Um and I want to do that with y'all. It's going to be hard, but I'll tell you this that again, we have all these problems that we're talking about. We have to do something about it. We've had we've had local governments in the past who accepted the fact that we have a criminal justice system that doesn't work, especially for black and brown people. We've had community local governments that accept that this community is getting more and more unaffordable and haven't done much about it, that there's not enough housing for folks, that people can't afford child care, that people can't get around this community safely. We can do a lot about this. And I can tell you one thing I can guarantee you is that I will work like hell to to solve these problems and I will work with you. I want to be innovative. I want to have that bias towards actions. We're getting things done and so that people look at Athens, Georgia and they're like, "Hell yeah, why can't my community be more like that?" >> And I believe that we can get there. Um, and I can also tell you this, if you vote for me on June 16th and elect me, I'll be in city hall doing all that work. If you don't vote me for me on June 60 and I'm not elected, I'll be doing that work in the streets with you. Either way, I love y'all. I love this community. Thanks for being here. I can't wait to go see the mountain goats right after this at the 40 watt. Thanks y'all. >> Again, we want to thank you all for coming out tonight and this is what democracy looks like and that what needs to happen where we see two candidates that are vying to be your next mayor. I've been here 40 years in this community. I've started my, you know, I didn't just move here for a cause. First of all, I moved here for school, but at the same time, I got involved immediately when it came to our unification, what this community is going to look like over the next 10, 15, 20 years. I've seen the growth. I've seen some of the things um that we need to do here. My candidacy as mayor, what I bring to the table, I bring leadership skills. I bring skills that can bring people together. I'm not divisive. I've always been one who can bring folks together and get people to sit down and have meaningful conversation. You know, he talks about um is interesting white guy talking about black and brown getting um get arrested. You know, I understand that. Been there, done that. I understand what it's like driving in my car and get stopped because, you know, because the officer thought, you know, I was somebody else. I understand that. And yeah, our criminal justice system is um is bad and we need to correct it. But I've lived that life. I grew up in the 60s and I understand what it was like. Somebody call me the N word. So I understand that. So I know what it's like. I have those life experiences and I understand that this community is going to bring all of us together. I know I can bring all of us together. I can have those meaningful conversation with anybody. Always have. We always continue to do. If I'm elect your mayor, and I talked about this, my first 100 days, we're going to be out in these communities talking to you. You're going to help us decide how you want to see us over the next four years. That's critical. I'm not going to sit up in city hall. I'm going to be out in the streets talking to you. You're talking to me and I'll return your phone calls. One of the things I pride myself on when I got elected as commissioner district 5, I will call you back within 48 hours. So, Texas fish is the man for the job. I know I can do this job. I've been preparing for this job for the last 40 years. If you elect me as your mayor, I will not embarrass you. I will make sure that I do right by you and I'll be glad to serve as your next mayor starting in 2027. Thank you and may God bless you. on Snapchat. My co-host Snapchat will have podcast episodes coming out. Thank you for joining us.