Five candidates are vying for three open seats in Jonesville. The three candidates receiving the most votes will be elected.
The Yadkin Valley Chamber of Commerce will host a Meet the Candidates Forum in the town council chambers in Jonesville at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 1, 2011.
The Forum has a three-fold objective: Introduce the public to the candidates, allow questions or concerns of the community to be addressed by the candidates and give the candidates the opportunity to learn the variety of interests of the community.
The Chamber is collecting questions from local citizens between now and the night of the forum. In fairness and respect to all candidates, questions submitted must be directed to all candidates. You can submit your questions for consideration to Laurette Leagon by email at lauretteleagon@yadkinvalley.org or by calling the Chamber office at 336-526-1111.
Leagon, the Chamber’s president/CEO, said, “This forum is not intended to be a debate between candidates or between the audience and candidates. All questions will be asked by a moderator and, in order to maintain decorum, political literature and signage will not be allowed in the town hall.”
Editor’s note: all of the candidates for Jonesville Town Council were offered the same opportunity to answer the questions about why they’re running for Council.
Tommy Casstevens, incumbent
Family: Wife, Sue Casstevens; son, Craig; three granddaughters and three grandsons.
Education: Jonesville High School, classes at Surry Community College.
Work/career history: Self-employed, salesman, retired, and then worked at Wal-Mart for 14 years.
Why are running for this office? Have served on board for 14 years and would like to continue serving the people of Jonesville.
What are the biggest challenges facing the town that you hope to help represent? Water plant, fire department, greenway, help control taxes.
The Town of Jonesville is in need of more volunteer firefighters. What should the town do to ensure it has a fully staffed volunteer fire department that can adequately take care of the community’s needs? Keep advertising for volunteer firemen, and adequately keep fire department supplied.
Do you think the Town of Jonesville should have a paid fire chief? No. Not as long as we can keep the fire department with volunteers. If not, I would consider a paid fire chief. Will work to embetter fire department in anyway.
Wayne Moore, incumbent
Family: Wife, Joyce; two sons, one daughter, one stepdaughter, one brother, one sister, two granddaughters.
Education: West Wilkes High School, UNC Chapel Hill, School of Banking of the South, LSU
Work/career history: Branch Manager, Northwestern Bank, Jonesville; President, Yadkin Valley Bank; North Carolina CEO, First Community Bank; Tasting Room Manager, Grassy Creek Vineyard and Winery.
Why are running for this office? I want to serve the citizens of Jonesville.
What are the biggest challenges facing the town that you hope to help represent? Providing services that Jonesville residents want and need with limited tax revenues, leadership for our fire department, getting our recently approved water plant operational.
The Town of Jonesville is in need of more volunteer firefighters. What should the town do to ensure it has a fully staffed volunteer fire department that can adequately take care of the community’s needs? Jonesville has two options: hire a new fire chief or merge with Arlington Fire Department.
Do you think the Town of Jonesville should have a paid fire chief? No: I believe Jonesville should merge our fire department with Arlington. Fiscally, it doesn’t make sense for a town the size of Jonesville to have two fire departments. A paid chief would add about four cents to our tax rate.
Gene Pardue, incumbent
Family: Gene and Shelby Pardue; two daughters, Amy Cave and Jill Thompson.
Education: Jonesville High School — 6 years — National Guard and Reserve
Work/career history: General contractor
Why are you running for this office? Hold the tax rate down and find new revenues for the town.
What are the biggest challenges facing the town that you hope to help represent? Build the new water plant.
The Town of Jonesville is in need of more volunteer firefighters. What should the town do to ensure it has a fully staffed volunteer fire department that can adequately take care of the community’s needs? Merge the Jonesville and Arlington fire departments.
Do you think the Town of Jonesville should have a paid fire chief? Merge the departments.
Judy Wolfe
Family: My family has lived in the Elkin-Jonesville area for their respective life-times. All are involved in careers in the extended community while MY “new” career (having retired almost 4 years ago) is as a volunteer and grantswriter for the Jonesville Historical Society, the History Center and other history-related projects in Jonesville.
Education: After graduating from Jonesville High School, I received a BA degree in English, followed by a Masters in Guidance and a doctorate in Personnel and Administration.
Work/career history: A 28-year career educator, I left education temporarily in 1968-69 to organize entertainment/recreation programs for troops in Vietnam. In the 1970’s, I served as Town Finance and Recreation Commissioner and wrote the grant to develop Lila Swaim Park. Since then, I’ve written various projects, including recent local history grants. In 2010, I built an award-winning website http://jonesvillenc.org to commemorate Jonesville’s history and Bicentennial. I was recently honored as a nominee as North Carolina’s 2011 Historian of the Year.
Why are you running for this office? I have the experience in problem-solving, communications and organizational skills to help bring new funds and ideas to promote jobs, economic growth, recreation, tourism and the concept of “community” in Jonesville. I am committed to promoting the safety, well-being and quality of life for Jonesville’s residents and visitors, to soliciting citizens’ ideas in decision-making, and to encouraging the Town to email/mail regular newsletters to citizens, businesses and visitors about services, programs, activities, etc.
What are the biggest challenges facing the town that you hope to help represent? I will promote fiscal accountability for Town funds, suggesting that our Tourism Board be increased from 8 to 12 members, that salaries for Tourism staff be restructured to hire a Tourism Director-GrantsWriter who will manage our Visitors’ Center, seek funds/grants for clean-up projects, bike-wheelchair lanes, a local chamber of commerce, a Business/Jobs Center AND to use tourism funds to promote JONESVILLE FIRST! I suggest we also hire a part-time Recreation-Trails Director. More info at http://jonesvillefirst.blogspot.com
The Town of Jonesville is in need of more volunteer firefighters. What should the town do to ensure it has a fully staffed volunteer fire department that can adequately take care of the community’s needs? I will suggest 1) that physically-able town employees be provided a time-line to train in firefighting (for which they will receive fireman’s benefits). This will provide the Town with “first responders” during regular work-hours. If three employees are working on a street project – one to two should be designated to respond to the emergency while the other(s) stay(s) with the project. 2) that the Town actively pursue consolidating services with the county-funded Arlington department.
Do you think the Town of Jonesville should have a paid fire chief? Jonesville should [initially] hire a part-time Fire Chief to lead the Department, recruit members by promoting retirement and community service benefits, conduct “PR” programs in local schools, maintain equipment and work with area departments to formalize reciprocal service agreements. Pursuant to consolidating services with the Arlington Department, the Town should consider funding a full-time position to accommodate duties in an extended service district.
Tracy Wall
Family: Wife, Heather Wall; and daughter, Mallory Wall, age 6.
Education: Starmount High School and Appalachian State University.
Work/career history: Supervisor at Lowe’s Customer Support Center.
Why are you running for this office? I have lived in Jonesville for most of life and I enjoy residing in Jonesville. I want to make sure that we have leadership in this town that focuses on promoting Jonesville as the Heart of the Yadkin Valley, and that our citizens, as well as visitors to this area, feel safe and receive the best services that this town has to offer.
What are the biggest challenges facing the town that you hope to help represent? Balancing out our wants and needs while trying to stay within our budget, and ensuring that we are not only planning for 2 to 4 years into the future, but 40 plus years into the future.
The Town of Jonesville is in need of more volunteer firefighters. What should the town do to ensure it has a fully staffed volunteer fire department that can adequately take care of the community’s needs? Being a volunteer firefighter/EMT in Jonesville, I know the demands and struggles for our department. The town needs to fully explore these options: 1. Offering incentives for volunteers 2. Combining services with neighboring departments 3. Having full time personnel to respond to calls and take care of the day to day responsibilities of the department 4. Having part time personnel to respond to calls during peak times and take care of the day to day responsibilities of the department.
Do you think the Town of Jonesville should have a paid fire chief? First of all, many fire departments in Yadkin and surrounding counties already have paid personnel in their departments. With all of the responsibilities that our fire chief has to juggle (training, maintenance to vehicles and equipment, house keeping for the building, documentation, etc), and since the chief reports directly to the town manager as do other department heads of the town, I feel that it is necessary to compensate the position of fire chief.
First I want to say Thank you for putting these biographies of each candidate on this site, so that we can see what each person has to offer our little community. Second, I think that I should mention that I have only been in NC for 3 years. Third, I want to say how much I love my town of Jonesville and what it has to offer my family. I love Jonesville.
With all of that out of the way, I love the way Ms Wolfe has laid out a plan that encorporates using what we have on hand to fill the needs of our town. re: utilize the city workers already in play to be a part of the volunteer f.d. That is absolutely the smartest resolution to the f.d. need for volunteers that I have ever heard. It is creative thinkng that will make this town succeed. I believe that Ms. Wolfe is a creative thinker and has put several sleepless nights in trying to come up with some unique ways to solve problems. From her biography, it seems that she has great ideas for getting grants. Again, thinking forward. She by far has my vote. Thank you.