Ward 2 Candidate Tennessean Responses

The Spring Hill and Thompson's Station Journal
Ward 2 Candidate Responses

Eliot Mitchell
Jim Gabriel

Published: March 7, 2007
By: Sue McClure, Staff Writer

Just two candidates are vying for the Ward 2 seat.

Ward 2 encompasses the greatest portion of the city's population, on the heavily populated Williamson County side of the city.

Issues important to this area include neighborhood development, improving infrastructure and seeing that commercial development doesn't infringe on residential quality of life.

ELIOT MITCHELL

A short bio:
Eliot Mitchell, 46, is a senior consultant with ICS Infrastructure and Support. Mitchell, his wife and their three children have lived in Spring Hill since 1993.

He has served as alderman for the past four years and sits on the city's Economic Development Commission. He was a co-founder of the Heritage Community Recreation Association, which provides recreational activities for children in southern Williamson and northern Maury counties and still serves as its treasurer, in addition to coaching baseball and basketball.

What makes you the best candidate for alderman?
What I bring to the table is independence and a willingness to listen. I have an honest desire to advocate any issue a citizen brings to me. Now understand, advocate doesn't necessary mean I agree with you. But I will make sure that your issue is heard. Also, I have lived a lot of the issues the average Spring Hillian deals with on a daily basis. I've been president of my homeowners association and my three children have attended six schools and we opened three of those schools, so I understand the issue of children having to change schools.

What would you focus on as alderman?
Quality-of-life issues, like new and improved roads and more park space. I would like to facilitate volunteer and community civic groups, such as the arts, theater, youth and senior citizens, to see that they have what they need. I am for family-value issues, because Spring Hill is a community of families. So I want to make sure that what we spend our energies on is improving our quality-of-life issues.

TDOT says it will be at least 10 years before road improvements are made to Main Street. Would you be willing to use city money to try to speed up this project and others?
Absolutely. It is imperative that any new development on these roads needs to pick up the costs for improvements — widening, sidewalks. Worst-case scenario, the city needs to look into floating bonds for road repairs. Congested roads are the biggest threat to our quality of life.

What can Spring Hill do to encourage smart growth? Are you in favor of a moratorium on building?
I am not for a moratorium on building. There are too many people in this city who make their livelihood from that business, and we have to take into account who wouldn't be able to buy groceries based on our decisions. So, no. But smart growth pertains to making sure that our open building permits don't exceed the bandwidth of our city staff to monitor them. We need to make sure that we have the ability to support the units that have already been approved, that we have the sewer, water and roads to support each of these units as they come on line. We don't want to be playing catch-up on infrastructure.

How can Spring Hill recruit businesses that would provide good-paying jobs for Spring Hill residents? And how can the city recruit and keep qualified employees, particularly police and firefighters?
First, on recruiting business, the city has already put in place an advisory committee, the Economic Development Commission. The city needs to work with the chambers of commerce to market the city's strong points. We are an upwardly mobile demographic, and that's a strong selling point. We need to look toward recruiting services and health-care industries. We've already brought one major industry to our city — a hospital — and both counties are fighting us on it. We need the counties to quit being inhibitors to our bringing good-paying, white-collar jobs to our city. As for keeping city employees, it is benefits, salary and work environment.

One of the critical needs of the city is a human resources department to manage our 130-plus employees. My goal is to make sure wages paid city employees affords them the opportunity to live in Spring Hill. And I would like to propose, from an employee standpoint, a three-part awards program. The first would be a "Night on the Town Award"' that would give an employee $100 or $200. An employee would be nominated by either a colleague or a manager and management would approve it. The second would be an "Achievement Award" of between $500-$1,500 for an employee who is either part of a long-term project or someone who goes above and beyond his job duty. This would be a management nomination and have two levels of management approval process. The third would be an "Award of Excellence" of between $1,500-$3,000 for leadership — if an employee has been instrumental or the architect of a long-term process or has come up with an idea that has saved the city a lot of money. This would have two management nominations and would have two management approvals. This sort of program would be an incentive to employees and we could budget money every year for it.

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JIM GABRIEL

A short bio:
Jim Gabriel, 46, is business manager for Electronic Data Systems (EDS) U.S. Region Global Quality Assurance Group. He and his wife have six children and three grandchildren. They have lived in Spring Hill since 1992. Gabriel served as an alderman from 1994 to 2001, a planning commissioner for three months, a member of the city's parks and recreation board and a member of the board of directors for the Maury County Chamber of Commerce. He is a wrestling commissioner with the Heritage Community Recreation Center, head coach of Heritage Middle School's wrestling team and president of the Independence Take-Down Club, which supports high school wrestling.

What makes you the best candidate for alderman?
Being in a leadership position for 15 years in corporate America and for seven years on the Board of Mayor and Aldermen and loving Spring Hill. I think I can make a contribution.

What would you focus on as alderman?
Whatever the issues are. I can't tell you that I'm going to do this or I'm going to do that; I'm only one vote. But I'm going to make decisions based on the facts and the way the people in the city are feeling.

There are two big things I would consider. First, the financial position of Spring Hill, and make sure it stays in good, sound financial shape. And second, to continue growth in a managed way, balancing the growing pains and making sure the domino effects of infrastructure are all in place as growth comes on line.

TDOT says it will be at least 10 years before road improvements are made to Main Street. Would you be willing to use city money to try to speed up this project and others?
I would have to ask two questions: How much is it going to cost and what's the payback period? If it makes sense to do it, yes, I would. If not, no. I would ask what this is going to do to the city coffers and look at it on a cost-benefit basis. That's how I look at this issue and other issues affecting the city.

What can Spring Hill do to encourage smart growth? Are you in favor of a moratorium on building?
We need to look at what's coming in and the impact it is going to have on the things around it. As for a moratorium on building, no. I look at things on a case-by-case basis. Some things fit, some won't. But as long as people are building within the confines of the law, I'm fine. If not, we need to look at them or change the laws.

How can Spring Hill recruit businesses that would provide good-paying jobs for Spring Hill residents? And how can the city recruit and keep qualified employees, particularly police and firefighters?
We need to understand what's out there and available and make some calls to the appropriate people in those businesses. We have the Economic Development Commission set up, which is a proactive move, and we need to work with them. It all begins with defining what we mean by "good-paying jobs." Maybe a business park, maybe a Nissan. Then, cater all our energies to that, asking them if they are serious about locating here and what do they need. We would bring that to the board and discuss it. That would be on the proactive side.

On the reactive side, we would consider each business on a case-by-case basis and assess what we need in the city. As for city employees, I'm not going to sit here and tell you I'll give them all raises. That's not the answer. If voluntary attrition is a problem, we need to find what's making them quit and are there things we can do about it?

We need to create a work environment that gives employees room to grow and have a future and not be stuck in the same jobs all their lives instead of having a career. We need to create an environment where people want to stay and have room to grow.

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