Candidates for Fayetteville mayor meet residents

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. (KNWA/KFTA) — There wasn’t an empty seat in the room as Fayetteville residents gathered in the Fayetteville Public Library’s Community Room to learn more about the four candidates running for the city’s mayor.

One of the candidates is a familiar face, incumbent Mayor Lioneld Jordan, and if he’s re-elected in November, this will be his fifth term.

“There’s things that we are working on right now that I want to finish up and there’s things like that we’re looking at in the future, like an aquatic center,” Jordan said.

He says he’s proud of his work at making Fayetteville more environmentally friendly.

“We planted about 1,300 trees last year and we’ve given away about 1,500. We’ll continue that,” Jordan said. “We’ve got a new economic vitality plan that’s coming out, which will I think is going to be really, really good. We just passed a climate action plan that is probably one of the best ones that I’ve seen in the state.”

Adam Fire Cat is another candidate. He ran in 2008 as well but lost to Jordan.

“Maybe one day I’m within the four years that people believe that maybe I’m the better manager or I’m the one that they would like to see rolling forward,” Fire Cat said.

One of his top priorities is renter’s rights this election.

“I’ll be discussing the responsibilities that renters have to their tenants and maintaining a price. And there’s a reason I believe it’s that they are at fault,” Fire Cat said.

Affordable housing was a major topic for all the candidates.

“It is a nationwide problem, it is a statewide problem,” Molly Rawn, mayoral candidate for Fayetteville, said.

She believes everybody deserves access to safe and affordable housing.

“It is not acceptable to me that we have so many people in the city of Fayetteville without a home and that’s something that I believe we can be doing more towards alleviating,” Rawn said.

The fourth candidate campaigning for this position is Tom Terminella.

“Fayetteville is a great place to live. It can be so much better. And there’s a lot of things that have been neglected in the last couple of administrations that need to be addressed in order for us to grown,” Terminella said.

He also had the chance to address the housing issue and how he will tackle it.

“It starts with our unified development code.  The current administration has done everything in the last 20 years to make it unaffordable for anybody to come build in Fayetteville,” Terminella said. “So, we’re going to have to have a look at our UDC and we’re going to have to adjust that and the impact fees that have been assessed to everybody that comes here, it’s not sustainable. It’s just not working.”

Fayetteville residents will get a chance to vote on issues like alcohol sales, mayoral candidates, taxes

Election Day is Nov. 5. Early voting begins Oct. 21.

Check your voter registration online . People must register by Oct. 7.

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