Northwest Missouri Republican Club hosts St. Joseph Mayoral Candidate forum
TaMya Bracy
ST. JOSEPH, Mo. (KQTV) — The Northwest Missouri Republican Club hosted a Mayoral candidate forum at Bandanas Bar-B-Q Thursday evening.
Current St. Joseph Mayor, John Josendale, is running for reelection. He was joined by candidates Ken Reeder, Jonathan McClain and Larry Miller.
During the forum, each candidate was asked questions regarding the city’s vision, crime, homelessness and important issues.
Each candidate spoke about how they will tackle crime in the city. Josendale said the city already has a number of projects in the works to tackle crime in the city.
“The card hanging where police go and check out your business, and let you know that they’ve been there,” he said. “Starting early in this calendar year, we will have new drones that will operate for the streets department, the fire department and the police department.”
Reeder said we must get common sense back.
“Put common sense back into the equation,” he said. “We gotta do things that make sense to other people who wanna come here.”
McClain said he would work with the city’s public safety department.
“To work with the police department and with the fire chief,” McClain said. “It is to facilitate those conversations with the experts in the area. I believe safety is the number one priority of government and is the purpose of government. That will be a priority conversation to be had with all the council members.”
Miller’s idea was to put more law enforcement out on the streets.
“I think were going to do real good,” he said. “You know, we need neighborhood watch again, like we used to have. Everything is going to be good.”
Each candidate spoke about how they will tackle homelessness in the city. Josendale said, unfortunately, St. Joseph is destionation for the homeless because of the services that are offered.
“If we tighten up some of those services which we intended to do,” Josendale said. “The police department has a policy in place now. We’ve got social workers working with the police department to go out and make contact. I am a true believer of a hand up. I will not hand out.”
McClain said the homeless need to be retrained and reintroduced into society.
“I would privatize certain sidewalks and certain areas. Starting with the Downtown area, that way you would have a reason to have them escorted to the resources,” McClain said. “The compound with the tiny homes is a great rehabilitation program that people could use to be reintroduced back into the world. The homeless society is very difficult.”
Reeder said homelessness can be fixed locally because St. Joseph is small enough to do it.
“We have to make those people work for a living, somewhat. I don’t care if it’s cleaning on a stretch of street. They’re here, homeless, eating our food,” Reeder said. “They need to walk the street and pick up trash. They need to do something. We need to put somebody in charge of that to do out and monitor these folks.”
Miller said the community and the city are doing the best they can for the homeless population.
“We are trying to feed them, and it’s hard,” Miller said. “We only have so much to do to feed them and a place for them to live. But if we get a committee together, maybe we can figure it out, you know.”
The primary election will take place on Tuesday, Feb. 3.
