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Contestants Speak Out in High Pointe

April 26, 2007

By LOYD BRUMFIELD / Today Newspapers

Kingswood has been hosting candidate forums for nine years, but this year the High Pointe Public Improvement District got into the act with a well-attended event held April 23 at High Pointe Baptist Church.

Every candidate on the ballot for the May 12 city and school board elections and one write-in candidate for mayor lined up to talk a little bit about themselves and answer moderated questions as well as a few from the audience.

After candidates introduced themselves and spoke for a few minutes, moderator Michael Quildon asked each one a couple of different questions each and invited the audience to ask their own.

Amy Allen, running unopposed for the Place 2 seat on the Cedar Hill School District board of trustees, said the biggest challenge facing new Superintendent Harold Williams is the drive to transform the district into a world-class body.

“We are expecting to be world-class by 2012. We want to be a recognized district by 2007-08, but that’s not all we want to achieve,” she said. “I know 2012 seems like it’s a world away, but when you stop and think about it, it’s only five years.”

Asked by the audience what “world-class” means, Allen said, “We want to be compared positively not just with schools from around the state and nation, but from all over the world. We want to be the model district … where people who live in Brazil and Spain say, ‘We want to be like Cedar Hill, Texas.’”

Place 1 incumbent Terrel Nemons, who faces a challenge from former board member James Charles, was asked about his thoughts on federal No Child Left Behind guidelines.

“Any kind of initiative designed to improve student achievement is positive, but the problem comes from unfunded mandates,” Nemons said. “What are unfunded mandates? It’s when the government says we want you to do certain things, we need you to do certain things, but then doesn’t provide the funding to do those things.”

An audience member asked Charles about a Gifted and Talented program.

“What we need in Cedar Hill is to have a Gifted and Talented program, not one where gifted and talented students are put in with other students and are slowed down because of them,” he said. “We need a Gifted and Talented campus … What we’re doing here is not working. We don’t need teachers deciding who gets to be gifted and talented, because if they don’t like my kid, then there’s no way he’ll ever get in. Students can be gifted and talented on their own.”

When attention turned to the city council candidates, Mayor Rob Franke, along with a couple of other candidates, was asked about public safety.

“Public safety is our highest priority,” said the five-term incumbent. “We spend more than two-thirds of our budget on public safety. You can’t have (second-rate) officers patrolling the streets, because they might miss something. You’ve got to have people who are truly driven and truly care about what they see on the streets.

“You do that by providing a good salary and benefits for their families, a good work environment and a good support system.”

Quildon asked write-in mayoral candidate Phillip Bielamowicz if he favored surveillance cameras in the effort to curtail crime.

“No, I wouldn’t,” he said. “The city put up red-light cameras at Belt Line and Clark Road, but that doesn’t stop people from running the red light at Highway 67 and Belt Line Road or at FM 1382 and Highway 67.”

Bielamowicz said it seems to him that sometimes the police department’s priorities are misplaced on crime, citing people getting pulled over for loud music, for example.

Place 3 incumbent Wade Emmert, running unopposed, drew boisterous applause when Quildon asked him if he favored packaged alcohol sales in Cedar Hill.

“Wholeheartedly, I am against it,” he said. “We have a certain character here, and I don’t think packaged sales are consistent with that character.”

Quildon also asked Emmert about the city’s water rates.

“They are high in Cedar Hill for a couple of reasons. No. 1 is the soil in Cedar Hill. It shifts quite often, and that wreaks havoc on our water lines. The terrain here also has a big impact, but the biggest reason why our water rates are high is Lake Joe Pool.”

Cedar Hill doesn’t use water from the man-made lake but still pays interest on its construction costs and has to put funds in escrow in case it ever does need water from that source, Emmert said.

Cities are lobbying Congress to have those interest rates waived, and if that happens, that savings will come off users’ water bills, he said.

Makia Epie, the incumbent in the Place 5 race, said the High Pointe PID is one of the best examples of a city working together with its neighborhoods.

“When neighborhoods take responsibility for their own environments, it becomes easier for the city to communicate its needs to the residents,” he said.

Epie also said the city’s rapid growth is a good thing, but it must be done responsibly.

“Our responsibility is to make sure we manage that growth in such a way that our infrastructure isn’t (affected negatively),” he said. “We are not going to just open up the gates and say, ‘OK, everyone, come on in.’”

Valerie Banks, one of three challengers to Epie, said she staunchly supported the use of security cameras to deter crime in places such as the forthcoming Uptown Village shopping venue.

“First we have to work with the police department to ensure we have enough police officers in order to keep our public safe,” she said. “But I’m also an advocate for security cameras. Our police cannot be everywhere, but you also have to educate your citizens.

“Cameras are the No. 1 security measure in America today. They’ve worked in other places, and they can work in Cedar Hill.”

Place 5 challenger Wirt Stoney Jackson said maintaining well-trained public safety personnel means “making sure we have a dedicated police chief and fire chief and make sure they have top-of-the-line training.”

Money raised from red-light fines should be put back into the police and fire departments to help pay for that training, he said.

He also said visits with people who live in Place 5 taught him that the city and its residents don’t talk enough.

“I will breach that disconnect,” he said.

Another challenger, Jason Russell, was asked about his thoughts on the number of home foreclosures in Cedar Hill.

“We have the second-highest rates of foreclosures since 1989 - about 1,700 homes a month,” he said. “That’s a lot. People get adjustable mortgage rates, and the interest rate goes up and their mortgage goes up. At the same time, their electricity bill goes up, the cost of oil goes up, and they hit a peak and can’t pay their mortgages.”

This is not just a problem for Cedar Hill, but one for the entire Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, he said, but it’s a problem that will turn itself around in time.

When asked by an audience member about more “family-friendly” places in Cedar Hill for parents with young children, Russell said he would like to see a Christian bookstore come to Uptown Village and he would like to hear ideas from citizens.

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