Gun Barrel City Candidates Speak at Forum

By Michael V. Hannigan

There was a city council candidate forum in Gun Barrel City Tuesday night and I was lucky enough to be on a panel of reporters who contributed, along with Kathi Nailling of the Athens Daily Review and David Webb of The Monitor and Cedarcreeklake.com.

Over the years, I have attended countless events like this and I never looked forward to trying to write a story afterward. It is so hard to condense one to two hours of politically-charged commentary into a few hundred words and be fair to everyone. On the other hand it is very easy to draw criticism from candidates and voters alike based on which handful of quotes are chosen to report, so I hope you don’t mind if I don’t do that this time.

Besides, the entire forum was recorded and the video uploaded to the GBC website, so you can watch for yourself. 

There are some things I can report, however, for a little background. For instance:

– There were five candidates at the forum, but two of them have no worries in the upcoming election. Place 1 Rob Rea and Place 3 Carol Calkins are both running unopposed and will be a part of the council moving forward.

– The final three candidates are all running for Place 5: Linda Rankin, Marty Goss, and Steven Schiff.

– Marty Goss is the incumbent and supports the current City Hall administration.

– Linda Rankin and Steve Schiff are challengers who both advocate for change. Rankin is a former Gun Barrel City EDC president who said she was asked to leave the position, while Schiff is a newcomer who says he wants to listen to the voice of the people.

I can also break down the three major issues discussed at the forum: The EDC is at odds with the City Council, infrastructure is suffering because of a lack of funding, and the leadership in City Hall is being questioned by some people.

I was struck by the fact that, even though the people are different, the issues discussed were the exact same ones that were on the table 12-to-15 years ago when I used to cover GBC on a daily basis and I was writing about the EDC suing the City Council.

I encourage GBC voters to watch the video and go to the polls on May 9 and make your choice wisely. You don’t want to be talking about the same problems in another decade.

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The forum was billed as being hosted by the various media outlets, but I have to tell the truth — Kathi Nailling from the Review did all the work and organized the entire event and she did a wonderful job. So thank you to her and the Review for including Henderson County Now.

I also want to applaud Pct. 2 Justice of the Peace Kevin Pollock for his work as the moderator. Well done, judge.