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Gregg Steven Kunz<\/p>\nGregg Steven Kunz<\/p>\n
Mayoral challenger<\/p>\n
Age: 48<\/p>\n
Address: 800 Glenwood Avenue<\/p>\n
Hometown: I was a corporate brat and I\u2019ve lived in 14 different places. I was born in Burbank, California. I call London home. I moved to England when I was 12 and moved back to the states when I was 17.<\/p>\n
How long Have you lived in Raleigh?<\/em><\/p>\n Ten years<\/p>\n What brought you to Raleigh?<\/em><\/p>\n A job opportunity with a company called Dialog. It was part of the Thompson Company, which is now part of Thompson Reuters.<\/p>\n In two to three sentences, please share something that you believe the City of Raleigh does well.<\/em><\/p>\n I think the first thing it does well is provide a safe environment for its citizens. An easy to get around in environment and a really pleasant place to live.<\/p>\n In two to three sentences, please share one thing that you believe the City of Raleigh could improve upon or change.<\/em><\/p>\n Right now, I think providing some hope for people. I think that we\u2019re burying ourselves with thinking about long-term projects that are kind of topical and not particularly well thought out. I think there\u2019s pressing issues today and I think there are long-term issues. I think a cohesive, strategic, long-term plan that is shared with the citizens and not just a knee jerk response, we need to build a ball park or we need a light rail system. And strategy isn\u2019t developed over a period of days; strategy takes months to do correctly.<\/p>\n In two to three sentences, please share your position regarding public transit in the City of Raleigh.<\/em><\/p>\n I think for the size of our city, our public transport is almost sufficient. It could be improved upon probably. But, I think a great deal of thought needs to go into what areas we need to serve and how we\u2019re going to serve them and who\u2019s going to take advantage of them. As a kid growing up in England, I only took public transport. Here, people don\u2019t do it. My kids don\u2019t do it. I drive them and they could be next to the bus stop, but that\u2019s my fault.<\/p>\n In two to three sentences, please share your position regarding growth management in the City of Raleigh.<\/em><\/p>\n I think that we need to have a vision for what we want this metropolis to look like, because it\u2019s becoming a metropolis, Wake Forest is no longer a town you drive to, Wake Forest is just a little further up Capital Boulevard, north of North Raleigh. When I moved here going to Wake Forest was like going out of town. I think that a vision needs to be painted of what we want to become. And certainly we don\u2019t want to become an Atlanta or just a whole city of clover leafs. I think there more to it than that. That requires some vision. That requires a lot of research to decide what it is we want to grow up to be. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s out of control right now, I think things actually are moving pretty well. The growth I\u2019ve seen here over the years has been above average in the way it\u2019s been developed. I think it\u2019s great! That\u2019s why I\u2019m still here. I\u2019ve moved 14 to 15 times, but I made Raleigh my home because I like it so much. I continue to like it. That\u2019s why I continue to stay, but I think we need a plan that says, “Where are we going?”<\/p>\n In two to three sentences, please share your position regarding crime control in the City of Raleigh.<\/em><\/p>\n I think our police department does a tremendous job, for starters. I see them, they\u2019re very visible. I think that in some areas having more foot patrols would probably help. I think police should be visible in every neighborhood, not select neighborhoods. Because if you make every neighborhood safe, then people are going to take some pride in where they live and they\u2019re going to improve that neighborhood. And we\u2019re not going to have the blight that we have in some areas. We\u2019re taking back parts of the city, but taking back \u2013 I\u2019m not sure I really like the sound of that word, \u201ctaking back,\u201d we\u2019re improving areas of the city, but I\u2019m not sure what we\u2019re doing with the people who live in those areas right now. Where are they going? Are they being pushed out? Displaced? I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n Now, we would like to hear your position on two issues that were not previously mentioned, but that you think are important to the voters in the City of Raleigh. You tell us the issue and then give us two to three sentences about your position on the issue.<\/em><\/p>\n I think the most pressing issue is the economic state that we\u2019re in. People are afraid. People are paralyzed. They don\u2019t know what to do. If they are employed, they\u2019re paralyzed. If they are un- or underemployed, they are waiting for help and they need to stop waiting and be empowered to do something. And I think that the leadership in this town could set an example and provide that leadership. I think that people need to know that only ourselves are going to pull ourselves out of the current situation. The government is not going to pull us up and out. There are no checks coming in the mail. And we\u2019re going to continue on this downward spiral unless we start to do thing to help people start new businesses. Because if people have work, as soon as they have work, they have hope. As soon as they have hope, they work harder. When they work harder, they feel better and when they feel better everything seems to improve. It really seems to be to be a simple answer. I think we need to focus on the here and now. Right now.<\/p>\n The mayor\u2019s term is two years. Entitlement program are going to impact for 10 years, infrastructure things, that\u2019s fine. But what the people of Raleigh really need right is they need a hand to pull them up and a little bit of shove from behind to help them up, so that we can pull ourselves out of this crisis that we\u2019re at. It\u2019s depressing to say the least. You drive by a job fair; we have 3,000 people, resumes in hand with hope and with no real prospects of anything helping or anything happening. The banks that we have here do actually nothing. We have banks headquartered in this state that don\u2019t do anything to help a small business start. If you give somebody $10,000 to start a business and you give them the tool and the help to start a business, they\u2019ll create jobs. Not every idea is a great idea, but if you help someone and you share this knowledge base that we have, more than just S.C.O.R.E. which is a fine organization, but let people with ideas sit down with someone who knows what they\u2019re doing and is there to really help, and to help them with that process and to mentor them. Or get other businesses to mentor other business people. To me, it\u2019s very simple. People are just a little too self-centered or we don\u2019t demand that the people who do business in our state, the banks, for the most part, the large banks \u2013 that we\u2019ve bailed out \u2013 they don\u2019t want to talk to a small business person, they don\u2019t want to talk to a depositor who wants to borrow money to help themselves. It\u2019s a shamble. It\u2019s not that I don\u2019t like bankers \u2013 I mean, I love my bankers, they\u2019re all nice people but they work for some jerky organizations.<\/p>\n I think some straight answers on what are the priorities. Define what the true public priorities are. Present a definition of what those are to people and let them say \u201cyes,\u201d those are the priorities. I think that this process of this mayoral campaign will allow the candidates to come out and start to talk about those issues. And by getting to better understand what people are really thinking, then they\u2019ll be able to surface what the priorities really are. Because when you read the newspapers, you read the Internet and you listen to the radio, there are a lot of things that a really very self serving, there are what I would call misguided projects, there are huge concerns about items or issues that I think have fairly simple solutions, for example. You know we talk about the water issue, the water restrictions. If the lake or the proposed reservoir was filled, then we\u2019re probably not going to have a quantity problem for the foreseeable future, because we\u2019ve still got rain. Everything works in cycles it appears to me. You know, everyone was up in arms about this big drought. Well, it seems to me the drought is over, or at least it was a couple weeks ago. But preparing for the future. I mean, if you want to build a reservoir, you want to contain water, then, build a reservoir. It\u2019s not real tough! I mean, what are we going to think about doing otherwise? Are we going to borrow water from Virginia or from another state? It\u2019s common sense, simple. It\u2019s not always terribly easy, but sometimes the answers are pretty easy.<\/p>\n Another one is where is this stimulus money being spent? Why, for instance, why are we repaving roads that don\u2019t have potholes? How stupid is that. We\u2019re repaving virtually every road in Raleigh right now because the fed government, I believe, I may be wrong, is giving us this money. Someone needs to stand up and say, \u201cWait a minute, that\u2019s not the best use for this money.\u201d Job creation and growing employment is, to me, a much bigger priority right now than repaving the roads. I think that the people accept that money. I know it\u2019s not the city council that does that , it\u2019s our state leadership, they don\u2019t fight back, they don\u2019t say, \u201cThis is ridiculous, why are spending on something that is working right now, at the expense of things that need help.\u201d There\u2019s a ton of money being spent really wastefully at this point in time. For fixing bridges, fine, fix a bridge, but don\u2019t repave a road for the sake of repaving a road.<\/p>\n What would you say is your guilty pleasure?<\/em><\/p>\n I think spending time with my kids at the beach. I think it\u2019s a question of guilt, because the way things have been in the recent past, I have not made the time to take them to the beach and sit there and do nothing You know, throw out the computers, turnoff the radio, throw out the cell phones and you know, just kick back and laugh and be goofy.<\/p>\n [ad#page-banner]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Gregg Steven Kunz Mayoral challenger Age: 48 Address: 800 Glenwood Avenue Hometown: I was a corporate brat and I\u2019ve lived in 14 different places. I was born in Burbank, California. I call London home. I moved to England when I was 12 and moved back to the states when I was 17. How long Have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[50],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2631"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24019"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2631"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2631\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}