By Patricia Finstrom
I take this opportunity to announce my candidacy for Mayor of Jefferson. My family moved to Jefferson in 1967. I am a 1971 graduate of Jefferson High School. I look forward to working with all the citizens of Jefferson to make our home better.
Infrastructure should be our number 1 concern. I feel we need a city administrator to help find and supervise solutions to problems with infrastructure. The streets need paving and water lines, and sewer lines need attention. We have had city administrators in the past. We have the transportation center and public restrooms; both were installed while the city employed city administrators.
I believe we need to have ordinances that are enforced. This becomes even more important with the proposal of the historic zone. Building permits are required but not followed since there are no consequences. We need to hire a building inspector to ensure the ordinances are followed.
The third thing that truly needs to be done is restrooms at Lion’s Club Park. Many parades start at the park, Candlelight is kicked off at the park with the lighting of the Christmas trees, numerous birthday parties, exercisers walking, lots of busloads of children from other school districts, baseball practice and many, many of our children playing at this park. Lion’s Club Park is probably the most used place in the city.
There is also a need for a new city hall. We keep putting off committing to an answer to this problem. The city owns property city hall could be built on. The price of building material keeps going up while we procrastinate.
I realize all takes money, but we cannot continue to do nothing. We need to take a close look at the budget and find ways to accomplish this.
I am asking for your vote.
Patricia Finstrom