Logansport mayor candidates talk long-term goals
Apr. 27—The candidates for Logansport mayor have discussed why they are running and what they will do in their first 100 days in office if elected, but what do their long-term priorities look like?
Ahead of the May 2 primary, the Pharos-Tribune sent the same questionnaires to all seven candidates participating in the primary elections for Logansport mayor. Six of the seven responded and their answers will be published each day leading up to the primary.
Four Democrats and three Republicans are vying for the top seat in Logansport, including incumbent Mayor Chris Martin. Joining Martin on the Republican ballot are former Logansport code enforcement officer Johnny Quinones and James McKeever, who worked in planning and engineering at Logansport Utilities for four decades.
Democrat candidates include former mayor and educator Dave Kitchell, Logansport city council president Jacob LeDonne, retired Indiana State Police and current city council member Larry Hood, and former city council member Terry Doran.
Early voting for the 2023 Municipal Primary Election is already underway. Voters in Indiana are permitted to vote in the partisan primary of the individual's choosing. A voter does not need to be registered with one party to vote for that that party in the primary. However, voters cannot vote for both parties in the primary.
Candidates were limited to a word count for responses, and responses are in their own words. Responses may have been edited for length and punctuation.
Mayor Chris Martin
Outdated infrastructure has been an issue for Logansport preceding my election four years ago and we're addressing that now. As mayor, I worked to secure federal grants that will fund (more than) 7 miles of new sidewalks. Investments in quality of place and quality of life projects like this will continue to make Logansport an attractive place to live, work and play.
Public safety is always our top priority. The residents of Logansport should feel safe at all times knowing our police, fire and EMS are well equipped to take on anything that comes their way.
Additionally, we want to see a long-term relationship with Logansport Community School Corporation and the SRO program.
James McKeever
My top priorities will be to reel in the out of control debt that Logansport residents are currently expected to pay through taxation. Far too many irresponsible decisions have been made to place unfair debt burdens on our residents.
My goals would include working hard to decrease these huge debts by rethinking priorities that our people actually want and need. This will take a well-experienced person to work toward smart decisions relating to our city budgets. A person that cares deeply about Logansport and what can be done to provide the things that people want without breaking the bank in the process. With our residents behind me, we can accomplish much together and do so in a manner we can all afford.
I plan to work towards a complete redesign of the proposed Erie Avenue project by providing improvements that our people want, not an out of control, debt ridden project that currently has many people very upset for obvious reasons.
I plan to eliminate the current $15 monthly trash tax attached to LMU bills. This must and can be eliminated before careless decisions increase this bill in the future.
Dave Kitchell
To further Logansport in ways that permanently better it and move it beyond stable to thriving. We need to do all we can to make it a magnet for people to live here and not a sieve for people to pass through on the way to larger cities.
Some relationships need mending, but we can get there by playing to our strengths of a diverse local economy with more advanced manufacturing and healthcare jobs that raise our income levels.
We need to pay our future forward by investing in our parks, public safety, housing and even our own City Building. When you see crumbling sidewalks in front of it on Sixth Street, paint peeling on the stairwell and plaster falling in the council chambers, it says that the people in charge aren't taking care of what is about to be a century-old property.
Logansport's legacy should continue to be strong, locally-run utilities, a pro-growth economic sector, a burgeoning downtown and a community environment that is grounded in its tradition but an awareness of what it needs to accomplish to be better tomorrow than what we are today. Ultimately, we want our young people to keep us in the back of their mind as a place to live and not in their rearview mirrors.
Jacob LeDonne
We need to work on updating our housing infrastructure. I would make it a priority to create a program where the city would work with interested people/parties to renovate dilapidated buildings across Logansport.
Terry Doran
As I've often said, we compete with communities all around us who vie for many of the same things. We need to promote ourselves every place that we can and in the best light to attract both people and business to our community. To do that we need to build upon our successes and learn from past mistakes.
It must be our goal as city leaders every day to make Logansport an attractive destination. If we don't distinguish ourselves, we don't move forward. I would hope that we could reach a point that our kids and grandkids who go off to college would consider come back as I did to work and raise their families here.
Larry Hood
Going out and finding new industries and retailers that would be interested in coming to our community as well as working closely with the industries and businesses that we currently have.
Second would be to work closely with the City Council to continue to maintain our infrastructure and continue to improve our parks system without adding new parks to a system that is already over stressed.
Third would be to maintain our public safety departments and keep them as up to date as possible.
