Owensboro mayoral candidates discuss city advancement at local forum

OWENSBORO, Ky. (WEHT) — Owensboro’s mayoral candidate Pam Smith-Wright and current Mayor Tom Watson carved out time to speak with residents at the Daviess County Public Library. On Monday night, the Boulware Mission moderated the forum discussing topics of homelessness, substance recovery and affordable housing.

There are 35 days until Election Day and the community of Owensboro still has unanswered questions. A mayoral forum allowed residents to speak directly with Smith-Wright and Mayor Watson.

The Boulware Mission spent two months planning the event to give the candidates a chance to speak in depth on sensitive topics affecting the city.

“We are a recovery mission for a group of men, up to 60 people. We feel like we have a pretty strong voice in the community, and we have been able to serve our community for really over 100 years,” says David Ganyon, the organization’s Executive Director.

Each person got three minutes to answer questions. Ganyon asked bout handling diversity, substance recovery and homelessness.

Smith-Wright says homelessness is a huge problem that cant be fixed over night, and Mayor Watson says it’ll require strong ideas.

“There are people who are homeless because of mental illness, There are people who are homeless because of drugs. There are people who are homeless because they just want to be homeless. So, you know, we’ve got to filter through all those people. This is something that may take five years. We don’t know, but I’m willing to work,” says Smith-Wright.

“If I had an answer for that, I could probably copyright it and make a lot of money…I don’t think there is one. We have to take each individual that’s homeless. They themselves have their own story… and try and meld it into an answer that could maybe be impactful in their life. Some people don’t want to be housed, and people are glad to be homeless, ” says Mayor Watson.

Afterwards, the mic was passed to people in the audience to ask their own questions.\

Other concerns included opioid addiction, public transportation and the effects of having a heavy presence of sports gambling in community.

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