Photos: Todd Gill, Flyer staff
Six candidates for City Council spoke briefly to an audience of about 50 people following a mayoral debate inside Fayetteville City Hall Thursday night.
The forum, hosted by the Fayetteville Council of Neighborhoods, provided a two-minute opportunity for each City Council candidate to describe their platform.
Candidates in attendance for Thursday’s event:
Ward 2: Incumbent Alderman Matthew Petty and Ryan Abshire
Ward 4: Terry Coberly, Alan Long, J.P. Peters and Mike Emery
Those absent were:
Ward 1: Sarah Marsh (unopposed)
Ward 2: Adam Fire Cat
Ward 3: Martin Schoppmeyer (unopposed)
Ward 4: William Chesser (Note: Mr. Chesser, who teaches science at Har-Ber High School, wrote in to tell us he was participating in parent/teacher conferences Thursday night which prevented him from attending the candidate forum.)
Included below are videos of each candidate’s presentation. The event was also recorded by the Fayetteville Government Channel and is available – with higher quality video and audio – at accessfayetteville.org.
Early voting for the Nov. 6 general election begins Oct. 22. Residents must register by Oct. 7 to vote in the election.
If anyone is curious, you can read more about participatory budgeting and my entire platform at http://matthewpetty.org/platform. I always strive to accumulate as much advice as possible before recommending any plan. I have listened to citizens, the Jordan camp, the Coody camp, and looked at other communities to develop specific, actionable plans that match Ward 2 priorities.
Here are the bullet points:
-Dedicate a funding source for festivals and arts organizations.
-Build bikeways to connect neighborhoods to one another and to the trail system.
-Design and construct outdoor civic space downtown.
-Re-prioritize our economic development strategy.
-Give Ward 2 citizens direct control over a portion of the budget.
-Enhance Midtown by focusing on Township and Colt Square.
-Decriminalize misdemeanor marijuana offenses.
-Use “citizen focus groups” to inform Council decisions.
Why are you not running for Mayor? While I don’t always agree with you, your forward thinking, progressive mindset, overall vision for Fayetteville and spirit of cooperation make you an ideal candidate. I believe you’d make Fayetteville a better place.
I have thought the same thing. I don’t always agree with Matt Petty, but I always feel like he loves this town and that he is both intelligent and ambitious.
I think that with a bit more experience and seasoning, Mr. Petty will be a viable and appealing candidate for mayor. Among his admirable traits: he likes to know what he is talking about; he considers issues as part of a system; and his ambition is clearly for Fayetteville, not Matthew Petty.
David Franks noted, ” his ambition is clearly for Fayetteville, not Matthew Petty.” That is a good point and an important question to ask yourself about all candidates when making your decision.
I am flattered, but I am not considering it yet.
Thank you for posting these video remarks from the candidates. It helps to see and hear them.
Alan Long also strikes me as a passionate and enthusiastic candidate with good ideas.
I think JP Peters and Alan Long both look like great candidates. Coberly doesn’t have the Fayetteville issues identified yet.
No question that Petty should be re-elected.
I just started watching the videos, and wanted to make sure that it was clarified at some point at the forum that October 9 (not October 7, as Mr. Abshire said) is the deadline to register to vote. October 7 is a Sunday, and the following Monday is a federal holiday, so the Secretary of State is allowing voter registrations in the office by October 9 to be counted.
/endpublicservicetransmission
-Decriminalize misdemeanor marijuana offenses.
Let me ask you Petty do you use marijuana?
Yes. Much like having a glass of wine at the end of a long week, when my responsibilities won’t be affected and when occasion permits, I like to smoke a little.
I knew this question would come up, and I know you probably don’t like my answer. Nevertheless, I think you deserve a straight one, so I’ve given it to you. Moreover, integrity requires me to answer. I think marijuana should be legalized, regulated, and taxed instead of controlled by a black market, and a big component of making that happen is for upstanding citizens who do use marijuana to be open about it. This is how the marijuana stigma gets changed.
But those are my personal reasons for answering your question, and frankly, mostly irrelevant. I am making a municipal policy proposal to decriminalize misdemeanor amounts of marijuana because our resources are better utilized preventing and prosecuting violent crimes. Fayetteville has seen an increase in gun violence in the last few years. Would you rather have a patrol officer spend an hour booking a small possession charge for marijuana or out on the streets being responsive to police calls? Would you rather have our prosecutor’s office spending hours on misdemeanor marijuana charges or building the strongest possible cases against violent criminals?
Mr. Petty makes a lot of sense on a policy level, but I wonder about the facts behind the statement. Have bookings for small possession changed since the low priority measure passed and is there a documented increase in gun violence in Fayetteville? This data should be readily available to aldermen and residents and such evidence would be a better place to start the discussion.
I don’t have the data in front of me, but bookings have gone down due to the Low Priority Ordinance. The last time I looked at a comparison was spring 2011. Nevertheless, those that are booked on misdemeanor charges continue to use valuable resources. In my opinion, those resources could be allocated more efficiently. Treating misdemeanor marijuana offenses like traffic violations ensures that our municipal institutions handling those violations use the least resources possible while still complying with state and federal law.
Regarding gun violence, I confess I am drawing conclusions from anecdotal evidence: mostly the frequency of news reports on crimes involving firearms. A closer look at the data would inform us if gun violence per capita is increasing, which is the more important statistic. Nevertheless, Fayetteville isn’t Philadelphia, LA County, or New Orleans. We have a “good” crime rate, and perhaps I’ve raised a weak straw man in my argument by asking a question based on news reports instead of data.
I like facts and figures, but here is the real point. There are only eight (8!) officers out on the streets during a normal shift. Our City Prosecutor’s office has small staff. How we allocate those resources is important, and that’s the issue this proposal addresses.
This makes me like Petty a little bit more. I didn’t think that was possible.
67% of voters in Fayetteville supported making marijuana offenses the lowest law enforcement priority when asked on a ballot a few years ago. I think Petty’s views will offend some, but most likely a majority of Fayetteville voters agree with Petty.
I applaud Abshire’s bold decision to endorse Matthew Petty in this race. I mean, it took real brass for him to stand up there and say he wanted to “try to get people more involved” in governing a mere 90 seconds after Petty spoke about introducing participatory budgeting.
Apparently, Petty’s platform is strong enough to garner support not only from his former opponent, but from his current one, too. Now that is leadership!
If you get caught with pot you should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Most of the shootings In the past year in Fayetteville have been over drugs. I just want you to know that you are contributing to this and you should be ashamed of yourself. You have no place being a leader of this town. I know you won’t like my response.
Weapon related violence has went up drastically since the large volume displacement of poor-er Americans as a result of hurricane Katrina. Currently, methamphetamine, is largest threat to any southern state as far as drug problems go.
That Guy, If your argument that violence spurred from dirty street money is as troublesome as you say it is; may I ask if you are for or against Issue 5, the initiative for medical marijuana? Under this act, doctors could diagnose a need for the substance where that money would then be funneling through the state instead of ‘on the street’
Note that “the full extent of the law” offers several options for enforcement, prosecution and sentencing. De-emphasizing enforcement of laws regarding possession of marijuana for personal use, prosecuting it as a true misdemeanor and adhering to minimum sentences upon conviction fall within “the full extent of the law”.
Are you interested in punishing every non-violent crime to the full extent of the law? If not, why are you so particular about marijuana cases?
Yes I am voting no. It’s not meth in Fayetteville it’s pot. We live in a college town, I get it college kids do pot. It still does not make it right though and a lot of folks out grow it once they get out into the real world.
A lot of– if not most– people who grow large quantities of marijuana for sale never go to college. You are conflating two disparate groups of people.
I have seen drugs mess up some of my friends lives at a very young age. See where I am going here?
Did your friends have doctors’ prescriptions for those drugs?
Great, now I’m confused of what the real world is. Let’s see…the pot is pretty good these days, I like my job, I love my life, I give back to my community on a regular basis. Maybe I get too high at the end of the day to realize that this is just a fantasy. Hope I never end up in “that guy’s” version of the real world.
+1
Not talking about folks who grow it. If you don’t buy it they will not grow it and shoot each other over it. No, my friends did not and I never approved of what they did and some still do. And before you ask none of them have been in trouble with the law.
Ah– I misread your post., “outgrow” is one word.
RE “No, my friends did not”
So you have friends who got messed up on drugs for which they had no prescription or good reason to use, but you object to the entirely different situation of providing regulated prescription relief to people whose lives are messed up by cancer, glaucoma, and other major problems. Interesting. Should everybody vote with their gut?
I feel as if you’ve never smoked marijuana or been around people who were high. People, (and seriously, pay attention here) do not shoot each other over weed. It’s a non addictive natural plant that makes most people relaxed, maybe a little giggly, but most assuredly not violent. People shoot each other over meth. There’s really nothing wrong with pot and I’m confused as to why you think there is.
Additionally, really think about the way you plan to vote for Issue 5. You may not personally smoke or think that it’s okay, but there are people who have serious medical condition that have their lives essentially driven by narcotics (that have way more negative immediate and long term effects than marijuana). Those people are who you should base that decision off of. They would give anything to be able to legally and with little hassle try alternative methods to ease some of their pain.
Lexi. I appreciate your insights and agree (mostly) with the vector of your post. However, this issue is not driven by the efficacy of marijuana, it’s various or particular uses, or it’s comparative harmlessness compared to other legal substances. There is no substantive issue at all. There is no issue to put forth to the public. If you wish to smoke weed, then I suggest that you do so privately and carefully. If you want an actual legal right then the only thing you have to do is to pony-up more money to well-selected lobbiest than are currently employed by the prison-industrial complex (which does include the prison-worker’s union) and the industries that provide food to prisons. Of course, the pharmacological corporate entities might have an opinion, which is worth 100′s of billions of dollars.
So, don’t get your hopes up, kid. I know you want what is right– but you can’t afford it.
John, voters in state after state are turning the tide on this issue. Maybe they are ponying up the cash, maybe not…but what makes us different from them?
Sorry grammar police. People should vote however they want. You and I probably vote differently, but hey I’m just some random guy on the Internet.
Actually I try to avoid being the grammar or spelling police, as it is generally a matter of policing either a typo or lack of an argument. I merely intended to point out that I misread that part of your post as “lot of folks grow it once they get out into the real world.”
Yes, people should vote however they want, but what they want should be based on a complete consideration of the facts at hand. For example, voting on the medical marijuana issue based on the bad experiences of some of your youthful friends is rather like being part of the grammar police– being irrelevant and beside the point– except that it can have real-life negative consequences.
Hey, you’re not a random guy– you’re /that/ guy.
How did this wander sooooo far from the candidate forum?
It’s the flyer it always does
I just realized that if Adela Gray were to win her state representative big this November, Matthew Petty would be the senior most member of the Fayetteville City Council. We need someone with REAL experience working in public affairs and knows city issues. I enjoyed watching all of these candidates for City Council Ward 4 talk about what they will do, but it sounds like J.P. is the best option. She may not be the most articulate candidate, but she definitely knows what she’s talking about and has the experience to back it up.
Alan is a good candidate, but needs more experience. Mike is a good candidate but not compared to J.P. or Alan. Terry Coberly got ran out of Bentonville and now wants to use Fayetteville as her safe-haven. Something doesn’t smell right about her being here.
I live in Ward 4 and believe J.P. is my choice. It may change between now and Election Day, but she and Rhonda will be good together addressing the issues facing the good people of my ward in the western half of the city.
@ J.P. or Bust – I hadn’t heard any details about Coberly getting ran out of Bentonville. What happened there?
I agree though, J.P. has some great experience and is a great candidate. As a matter of fact, Ward 4 has several candidates with great experience. This is an exciting race.
So if I’m reading this right, you just confessed to doing something illegal. Since you’re telling all and integrity is important, did you purchase the weed, grow the weed or were you given the weed? This voting citizen would like to know.
Concerned Voter – Smoking marijuana is not illegal. Having marijuana in your possession is illegal, which doesn’t make all too much sense because you can’t smoke any if you don’t have any. But that is beside the point. Matthew Petty isn’t breaking the law by smoking pot. And our Fifth Amendment rights protect us from self-incrimination. He legally doesn’t have to provide any more information at this point. Does it matter where he gets the little that he smokes from time to time..? It’s all currently illegal, but views are changing. Marijuana has been present since the start of recorded human history and it’s just now being medically examined for it’s healing potential. I have seen a family friend with MS quality of life and movement improve because of medical marijuana, and I’ve read studies about cannabinoids blocking the nerve receptors that MS wrecks havoc on.
Mr. Petty took a risk when he answered a direct question honestly about smoking marijuana, especially in this online forum where people can hide behind screen names and say things that they ordinarily wouldn’t want people to know they think or feel. Please respect that he does not have to answer this question and incriminate himself in the legal realm. I think he is a man of integrity because he truthfully answered a question about his personal life and I applaud him for encouraging others to be honest about their views on marijuana.
The Fifth amendment protects us from testifying against ourselves in a legal proceeding. It doesn’t protect us from confessions in the Fayetteville Flyer.
Kevin, I doubt many of the comments on the Flyer qualify as sworn statements or that there would be many posted if that was a requirement.
I agree, the views are changing but the law has not. It’s still illegal. I bet Mr Petty can speak for himself.
I already did. I’m not going to answer your follow up question because it’s irrelevant to the policy discussion and it’s a transparent attempt to bait me.
I answered the original question because I appreciate that some voters care greatly about this issue. I believe they deserve a straight answer because I am deeply committed to the democratic process of selecting representatives. However, most voters don’t care at all and would prefer our police and prosecutors focus their efforts on violent crimes. I am proposing this policy change on the majority’s behalf.
@That guy First, as an aside, you know there’s a phrase that is often used: “Don’t be that guy.” Just sayin’.
Second, Matt Petty has worked hard to improve the lives of Fayetteville citizens and represent the constituency that elected him.
What have YOU done?
I think it was brave and honest of him to respond, and to participate in the many forums the people of Fayetteville use to learn more about what goes on in their community. He should be applauded.
Have you ever driven over the speed limit? Littered, thrown out a candy wrapper, cigarette butt, paper bag? Did you feel up your girlfriend when you were a teenager? Have you ever in any way broken the law? I bet you have. Confess.
The hypocrisy in this world is vulgar. People preach about the wrongs of others, but that’s the extent of their commitment. It’s shallow and weak. If you’re offended by your city officials’ behaviors, do more than beeyotch about it on a Web site. Get off your ample backside and do something.
Ha, I love the Flyer for this very reason. I could be a doctor who gives out free medical services to low income folks or some dude that is using the Internet at the library. But I love how you make assumptions that I do nothing for society. Heck I could be a cop trying to find Petty’s dealer. Gary Johnson 2012!!!
You could be. But you’re not. You’re just another schmo with time on your hands. Hello, brother.
We all have to much time. Well off to save the world, have a great day!!
And silence from Matt Petty. Whats your opinion on the weed Mr. Coody? You must be on here somewhere.
He already answered the question above. Pay attention.
http://www.fayettevilleflyer.com/2012/09/28/video-several-city-council-candidates-describe-their-platforms/#comment-71746
I believe the question was asked of Coody rather than Petty. Although, even when we pay attention we can be wrong….no?
Such a bright future Petty. Don’t “blow” it. Just say no to Mary Jane and Coody.
Thanks for the education Lexi. I think pot is harmless as well. No i do not smoke. But I think youre missing the point. You have a city council member confessing that he is knowingly doing something illegal. Legalize it first, then smoke all you want. I like him but I don’t think I can vote for him.
If I’m not mistaken both Clinton and George W. admitted to smoking pot. I’m sure you voted for at least one of them. And I bet I can guess which one. Wake up people there are way more important things to focus on.
All, if you’ve ever driven over the speed limit, ran a red light, not fully stopped at a stop sign, smoked a cigarette, drank a few beers, or have taken any prescription drug…you’ve done something more dangerous to yourself and society than using marijuana. Get the facts…and then vote on the policy issues at hand.