Danville Mayor Candidate Rickey Williams Answers Community Questionnaire

Title: Danville Mayor Candidate Rickey Williams Answers Community Questionnaire

These questions were created by Danville community members during the Democracy in Danville event on March 4^th at the Danville Public Library.

1. What are your short term and long term strategic plans for Danville?

As Mayor, I pledge to carefully and responsibly manage the two most important parts of our community: our people and our resources. This starts by cultivating a culture of respect within our City team and for the people we serve. Government cannot do anything without first taking from citizens and businesses; therefore, we owe it to you to do the absolute best with what you provide. I want to bring strong stewardship to our City so that we can thrive and help Danville continue to be a place where people want to live, work, play, and visit!

Stewardship is the first step in enacting both short and long-term plans. It will provide us with the resources we need to meet goals and objectives. In the near term, we have and will continue to eliminate any unnecessary positions and reduce outrageous salaries. This will provide us with money to meet emergent needs such as hiring Police and Fire Chiefs, hiring 3 additional officers to restore our POP (Problem Oriented Policing) Unit. Second, we will complete asset mapping for the entire city to have an accurate portrait of the condition of everything we own and maintain such as buildings, streets, sewers (sanitary and storm), parks, equipment, etc. We need to start being proactive instead of reactive and doing so will save us millions of dollars. Third, we will invest in our neighborhoods by providing increased support for existing Neighborhood Associations and Watches and helping establish new ones; reconnecting neighbors will help citizens do their part while we do ours. We will also use strategic removal of blight and grant funds to redevelop one neighborhood at a time versus the piecemeal approach of the past. Finally, we must take business-friendly steps such as ensuring a clear process for development/redevelopment, providing incentives for use of local labor/materials, and work to bolster, not hinder, ingenuity.

All of this will allow us to meet immediate needs while providing the information we need to develop a comprehensive long-term plan and make us a community of choice.

2. Sell someone in 3 minutes why they should live in (or come back to) Danville.

Danville has one of the best costs of living in the entire country! You can buy a stately Victorian home or build your own modern masterpiece for a fraction of what it would cost you to anywhere else. Right here in Danville, we make the machines that power the world and have excellent employment opportunities ranging from the medical and educational fields to engineering and manufacturing. We have really strong community college, DACC, engaged in not only typical post-secondary education, but preparing people to work in the trades. Our citizens’ sincerity, tenacity, friendliness, and willingness to serve are incomparable! We have brilliant people who work hard to make a good life for themselves and to improve the lives of others. They are creative, artistic, and ingenious. We have a vibrant local theater and art scene, including museums and a newly remodeled grand opera house, the Fischer. Finally, if you’re more of an outdoorsman, our city has a lot of natural beauty, including a River Front, county, and state parks with hiking, fishing, and boating opportunities. If you need a great place for your kids to play, Danville has a host of awesome parks as well as a variety of public and private places to golf or play tennis. No matter what you’re looking for or what you want to do in life, we have a little bit of everything to satisfy your needs!

3. How will you regularly engage your community? How will you keep lines of communication open?

First, I will maintain an open-door policy, meeting with citizens whenever I am needed and returning phone calls and emails within 48 business hours. Second, I intend to keep answering audience comments immediately when possible and through follow-up when necessary. It is important that our citizens not only have a chance to speak their minds, but to have their questions answered and receive feedback. Third, I will have Monthly coffee/cocktails with the Mayor where we will discuss things that will be voted on at Council meetings and hear about things that our important to our people. Finally, I will regularly attend Neighborhood Association meetings and also have annual meetings in each Ward; it is important that we not only expect our citizens to come to us, but to meet with them.

4.What personal experiences have prepared you for office?

My educational training and practical management experience has given me a proven record of taking entities on the verge of collapse and turning them into prosperous pillars of the community. I am an excellent communicator who is honest, hard-working, respectful, and a good steward. In 13 years, organizations under my leadership operated in the black all but one year. At the Boys & Girls Club, we nearly doubled our revenue while serving 3 times as many children and paying off our $300,000+ mortgage (during the Great Recession). At Project Success, we’ve grown from a budget of only about $700,000 with 4 sites and less than 30 employees to a nearly $2 million budget with 15 sites and more than 120 employees by securing more than $11 million in new grants. I have shown that I manage money well and am a strong team leader; that is what we need to secure our future!

5. How would you help improve the relationship between the police and the community (particularly minority groups in the community)?

First, we will move towards more community-based policing, doing public outreach so that officers and the public have a chance to build relationships with one another in a non-law enforcement setting. This is crucial to reestablishing trust and will improve public safety and sentiment immensely. Second, we will have a summit with small roundtable-discussions between citizens and police, allowing everyone to share concerns and establish common expectations for moving foroward. This will happen at least once/year, but likely more often. Finally, we will research diversity training curriculum and secure the best one, using it to provide our officers with tools to better serve and interact with our people.

6. How will you create community partnerships to engage the youth?

This is my specialty. First, I will restore Mayor’s youth council, which I was once a part of as a student. We will meet quarterly so that I can hear about what is important to them and help empower/equip them with the tools and resources needed to effect change. Second, I intend to visit each school at least once/year and give students a chance to meet me and ask questions. I will also regularly visit out-of -school programs to interact with them in informal settings. Finally, I will meet with all youth-serving agencies in our community to strategically plan how we can all work together to better mobilize our young people to serve their peers and the larger community.

7. What new ways can city resources be allocated to serve youth?

First, we will work with Vermilion Advantage, non-profits, and/or religious organizations to create job training and employment opportunities for both youth and adults. I am an excellent grant writer and believe we can help secure outside funding to make this happen. Second, we can create youth internship opportunities within the City. This would allow students to shadow City employees who serve in the field the students hope to someday while providing them with practical experience.

8. What ideas/plans do you have to address the violence in the community?

We will take three steps. First, we will change the way we patrol the city from a rotational basis to assigning officers a specific area. This will allow the residents to get to know and trust them (which will help build rapport), and allow the officers to get a better handle on the neighborhood (allowing more crimes to be solved). Second, we need to reinstitute our POP (Problem Oriented Policing) Unit to focus on particular crimes (violence, drug, and gang activity) in particular areas. We had 3 times fewer murders and a drastic increase in drug busts when this unit was in place, and we need to restore it. Third, we need to work to establish programs like the Violence Interrupters used in places around the country. They use individuals who have left a life a crime to work with those who are currently involved and help them transition out of a violent lifestyle. When shootings, etc., happen, they meet with the families on both sides to provide supports and interventions to keep the situation from escalating. They also do preventative programming to preclude such instances from occurring in the first place.

9. How will you use code enforcement to improve the condition and affordability of property in the community?

First, we will work with homeowners and landlords to improve their properties with a goal of remediation versus collecting fines. We would only use the latter to hold those who fail to do so accountable. We will ensure that our code enforcement officers make those who have limited means aware of the grant programs the City has available to help them remediate issues. Second, we could make them ambassadors of community pride by implementing monthly awards to those who either maintain their homes well or who have made drastic home improvements. The inspectors would choose the winners in each of their respective areas and display a sign in the winners’ yards for a month. This is not directly related to inspectors, but I would support temporary tax freezes (City only) for individuals who substantially improve their property.

10. How will you attract good jobs to the community?

The best way we can attract more good jobs to the community is to ensure we meet the needs of existing employers. Local businesses are clamoring for good workers and often struggle to hire them. Therefore, as mentioned above, I would work with DACC, local non-profits, and/or religious entities to write grants which bring job training and life skills courses for potential employees. We must help our citizens be job-ready. Second, we will take business-friendly steps such as ensuring a clear process for development/redevelopment, providing incentives for use of local labor/materials, and work to bolster, not hinder, ingenuity. Finally, instead of simply responding to business RFP’s, we will actively pursue industry partnerships to bring jobs to the area.