{"id":8906,"date":"2011-09-22T15:43:47","date_gmt":"2011-09-22T19:43:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.raleighpublicrecord.org\/?p=8906"},"modified":"2011-09-22T15:43:47","modified_gmt":"2011-09-22T19:43:47","slug":"mayoral-issues-the-lightner-center-debate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/news\/2011\/09\/22\/mayoral-issues-the-lightner-center-debate\/","title":{"rendered":"Mayoral Issues: The Lightner Center Debate"},"content":{"rendered":"

As part of profile interviews with the Record, mayoral candidates Nancy McFarlane, Randall Williams and Billie Redmond gave their views on where to house public safety operations in Raleigh.<\/p>\n

They discussed the contested Lightner Center, which stalled in a deadlocked city council last year.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Randall Williams<\/p><\/div>\n

Randall Williams<\/strong><\/p>\n

When asked what Williams thought the best and worst decisions the city council has made, he believed the Lightner Center was the \u201cworst decision they entertained.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI just think that in this economy, to build a $200-million public safety center and raise taxes, that just the economic reality of the times, that wasn\u2019t a good move,\u201d Williams said.<\/p>\n

Williams also said he had \u201cproblems\u201d with the design of the building and its location downtown.<\/p>\n

\u201cI spent a lot of time overseas, and I just think to put your nerve center in a 17-story building a la Oklahoma City bombing, the World Trade Center, I just think there\u2019s probably a better way to approach that,\u201d Williams said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI work with the military a lot and when I\u2019m overseas, and when I\u2019m doing that, they call it a target-rich environment, meaning we\u2019re putting a symbol out there to target,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Although Williams agrees that emergency services need new facilities, he said that if he was on council at the time, he would have voted down the Lightner Center because of the 8-cent property tax increase and the $200 million in debt that would be incurred.<\/p>\n

\u201cI worked on a farm one summer and there\u2019s an old saying that when you find yourself in a hole you can\u2019t get out of, the first thing you do is quit digging, and adding $200 million to your debt, you\u2019re just digging more,\u201d Williams said.<\/p>\n

Williams said he would support putting public safety facilities in separate areas and \u201ctry to keep the costs down.\u201d<\/p>\n

Billie Redmond <\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Billie Redmond<\/p><\/div>\n

Redmond believes \u201cthere is no more essential service that the city of Raleigh provides\u201d than public safety and that it \u201cneeds to be a major focus\u201d for the investments the city makes.<\/p>\n

Redmond supports the Lightner Center\u2019s construction, saying that the city needs \u201ca first-class and appropriate 911 center.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s just too important to be cavalier about that,\u201d Redmond said.<\/p>\n

She believes the center should be scaled \u201cat a way that is appropriate to the time in which we\u2019re living and operating.\u201d<\/p>\n

Redmond said the city needs to \u201clive in today\u2019s reality because the only other option then, in my mind, is then that you wait, and you put it off, and I don\u2019t think we have to that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, how we make those decisions about getting the Lightner Center built, which I believe should be built, I believe we can build it. I think we can build it at a level that is prudent and that we could do it without a tax increase,\u201d Redmond said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s like any other decision, whether you\u2019re buying a house or a car, making an investment in an education or a vacation, whatever it is, it\u2019s really about spending your resources and trying to make the decision about what\u2019s necessary today,\u201d Redmond said.<\/p>\n

Nancy McFarlane<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Nancy McFarlane<\/p><\/div>\n

When asked about what the city should do to house its public safety functions, Nancy McFarlane said the city\u2019s emergency services had a \u201cserious need.\u201d<\/p>\n

McFarlane said the 911 system was \u201covercrowded\u201d and needed to be updated. She said city safety workers need to be given the tools \u201cto do the best job that they can,\u201d and that public safety is the city\u2019s main function.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur police are doing an incredible job, but the world is getting more and more technologically savvy, and the people that we’re asking them to protect us from, they’ve got the latest and greatest technology, and I don’t want us to be asking our police force to fight 21st century crime with 1960s technology,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

When addressing the issue of the Lightner Center, McFarlane said the project started before she was elected, but that if she was involved from the start, she \u201cmight have done it differently.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I think that it’s something we have to address, and we have to move forward, and we need to own up to the responsibility,\u201d McFarlane said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In profile interviews with the Record, the mayoral candidates \u2013 Nancy McFarlane, Randall Williams and Billie Redmond \u2013 discuss their views on impact fees.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24038,"featured_media":8424,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[214,15,23],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8906"}],"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\/24038"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8906"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8906\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}