The candidates

Four Democratic candidates are running for three at-large Athens City Council seats. They are Ohio University doctoral student Elahu Gosney, 25, and three incumbents: graduate student Amy Flowers, 21; retired teacher Carol Patterson, 65; and business owner Jim Sands, 60.

The Post’s Rebecca Black talked with the four candidates about their priorities, Halloween and parking.

The Post: What are your top three priorities for the city of Athens?

Amy Flowers: Bicycle safety, pedestrian safety and constituent communication… (which is) being readily available to be the voice of the constituents.

Elahu Gosney: One is to have a City Council that is more responsible and productive. Number two would be for the city of Athens to begin taking environmental responsibility as a community. … A lot of (rental houses) are really in disrepair and neglected due to lack of code enforcement by the city, so I would push for greater code enforcement.

Carol Patterson: I feel that there are some things that I’ve been working on that I would like to contribute on, and that is parking and transportation, wellhead protection … and arts and recreation.

Jim Sands: Number one I think is probably based upon what we as council members hear from citizens most often, is more regular enforcement of the codes that we already have in place. … I would like to foster the development of (the street director’s transportation plan) so that council and the administration can work towards a goal … (And) to dispel the myth that City Council is not open to scrutiny by its citizens and by the students.

Post: What would you do to increase safety and revenue from Halloween?

Flowers: I think … if we bring everyone’s ideas together … and promote things like festivals, costume contests and other competitions as part of the Halloween festivities, I think maybe we’ll see revenue come from that. As far as the safety goes, I think that encouraging people to get involved with and volunteer with the safety team … can make it a lot more safe.

Gosney: I think it’s been relatively safe the past couple years, to be honest, and I think the law enforcement presence is strong enough in terms of that part of public safety. … I have not seen an analysis that shows the revenue and the benefit to local businesses versus the cost for increased police. It would really be helpful to know the details, and that hasn’t been done yet.

Patterson: One of the suggestions has been to promote Greek units, student units and service groups in town to promote the idea that they have activities, and pay … maybe a vendor fee and a percentage, with the idea that if things work successfully, there would be some source of revenue.

Sands: Some of the ideas (presented by students to council) seemed very doable, and in particular finding someone to take charge of Halloween … I don’t have myself any particular ideas I’m wed to, but I’m very interested in the next week or couple of months to see what happens. It may not happen Halloween 2007; sometimes these things take longer than you think to implement.

Post: What are your plans for parking in terms of the 24-hour parking limits and the general lack of available parking?

Flowers: I think the one thing to note, and I’ll say this until I’m blue in the face, is that transportation is a comprehensive issue. While we can try and fix parking, we still have to work on pedestrian safety, bicycle safety, and … vehicular traffic in the city. As far as solving the 24-hour parking or sort of accommodating those who don’t have off street parking, I’m interested to explore the hangtag solution…

Gosney: The 24-hour limit had its use, but there are much better solutions. It’s a waste of time and energy for people to have to move their car every day. Personally I favor some variation of hangtag or resident sticker for vehicles so that they don’t have to move their vehicle that often.

Patterson: I plan on introducing next week a bill to lower the costs in the parking garage to make it the same amount as on the streets. I also hope to introduce a garage hangtag system on a limited basis for business owners Uptown … I also am in favor in just looking more at the 24-hour law, and see if we can’t find some at least experimental ways to … change that a little bit so people aren’t out moving their cars every day.

Sands: I’m not convinced that we need to do away with the 24-hour parking. … I’m not ready to throw the whole thing out and switch over without more discussion. It seems to me that some council members are really rushing to make a total change, and if anything, I would try to slow that down so that we have a lot of discussion and listen to more people.