Denton City Council candidates gear up as election day nears

by Chris Speight of North Texas Daily

With the 2009 Denton City Council election looming, 13 different candidates are throwing their hats into the ring to vie against each other for one of the four available city council seats.

All the candidates agree that voter participation is essential in the May 9 election.

The main issues touched on by nearly every candidate this year were economic policies, environmental awareness and transportation.

Sam Casey is a sophomore at UNT, majoring in sports management, and one of two student candidates in the election. Andrew Teeter, a general studies senior, is the other. Both Teeter and Casey are candidates for the District 3 council seat.

Casey recited some concrete points regarding an economic stimulus plan for the city of Denton that he said he saw implemented in Ithaca, New York and Toronto, Canada.

"Basically it would be Denton printing its own money," Casey said. "Really it's a value-based coupon in money form. Local businesses who sign up for the program offer a 10 percent discount to their consumers for shopping in Denton."

Casey pointed to the scenario of taking $100 to a bank, asking for Denton Dollars in return, and receiving $110 dollars back, Casey said. He said this would work at any business that chose to sign up for the program.

"The immediate benefits are that consumerism in Denton will spike, and those consumers are saving 10 percent," he said. "I think it's something we need to really consider doing."

Another candidate that outlined a specific avenue for economic reform is IBM manager Michael Roby.

Roby is running against incumbent candidate Dalton Gregory the District 2 council seat.

"I think the council should be more fiscally conservative than it currently is," Roby said. "They spend money with no regard to what is going on in the country or in Denton specifically."

Roby said that if elected, he would move to freeze any new spending by the City Council until the various projects and departments can be evaluated and come up with an efficiency plan within 30 to 60 days to better spend tax dollars.

The second side to Roby's economic plan is to begin posting the city's checkbook register online, which means citizens would have easy access to council records and actually see where their tax dollars are going.

"When you start putting that checkbook online, the city staff will know, 'Damn, I'd better be careful before I buy up all these Sharpies, because people are going to see it,'" he said. "I think you'd end up creating a committee of citizens."

Roby said that the line item for office supplies on the city budget this year is $100,000.

Gregory, meanwhile, focused on getting out the vote.

"I think one of the things that really saddens me, we have a population of 100,000 and we have less than 5,000 voters," he said. "On the one hand is that you could say that people are satisfied with the way things are going, on the other you could say it's just apathy."