City Council Ward 5 candidates say they want to focus on the people.
Steven Dixon, 33, wants to establish better communication with citizens such as by creating a more interactive and informational city website.
“My main goal is better communication between the residents and the city,” Dixon, who owns a video and photography company, said. “The only way to know what’s happening is to attend the City Council meetings and not everybody can make the City Council meeting. So, I would like to livestream those and make them more accessible.”
Walter Northcutt, 60, wants to invest in the people of Auburn and the infrastructure they use each day.
“No. 1: Make sure people feel invested in a city government,” Northcutt, an attorney, said. “They’re a part of the decision-making process. No. 2 would be to make sure our infrastructure, sidewalks and streets meet the needs of Ward 5. And, of course, everybody wants to talk about downtown. So, we would have to get together and make a suitable plan for our downtown area.”
The city is growing with many new developments already underway. Dixon is concerned with the infrastructure, especially parking in areas such as downtown.
“I’ve seen Auburn grow, and I think it’s a great thing to see a small-town community like ours really grow,” Dixon said. “I think we just need to be careful about specifically the downtown area. I think we need to just be careful about what we’re doing there because the more spaces that go there that’s going to cause more traffic.”
Northcutt said growth is inevitable. Auburn has some of the best schools and other city programs, such as fire, in the state so people will move to Auburn for those things.
“Let me sum it up like this: Growth should depend on if we have the infrastructure in place to support it,” Northcutt said. “In other words, if we’ve got a bunch of growth and it outruns our infrastructure, then we’ve got a horrible problem on our hands.”
Short-term rental companies such as Airbnb and VRBO have become popular ways for homeowners to rent out anything from extra rooms to their entire home.
This is one of the main concerns for the people of Ward 5, Northcutt said.
“I think we go to sit down and first see if there is a mutual way to govern it, and if it can be effectively governed, then I’m OK with it,” Northcutt said. “But if we see that it can’t be effectively governed and controlled, then we will have to come up with something different.”
Dixon said if the city allows short-term rentals, they need to be heavily and strongly regulated.
“I’d like to look at a plan where they could continue to rent the property out on short-term rentals, but if there’s an issue that comes up from it, you give them (the owner) two or three times, and then the third time, they can’t rent their property for a whole year,” Dixon said. “Something along those lines will be one way to use it. Another way would be to make it owner-occupied, so the owner actually has to make that their homestead.”
Auburn students make up a significant portion of the Auburn community.
Getting Auburn students involved in the city has been a problem since Northcutt’s father was on the Council in the 1970s, he said.
“That’s because, of course, they’re transient,” Northcutt said. “They’re going to be moving in and out, and they don’t have a vested, long-term interest that they know of until they realize they might live here one day. Keeping the students involved, we just have to work with the SGA. Keep them involved and hopefully, from their side, they would bring it to the students.”
Dixon said he would encourage students to attend city meetings, such as City Council and Planning Commission meetings.
“See if they can volunteer their time with some of the parks and rec events that are going on,” Dixon said. “There’s always events going on with our community.”
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Elizabeth, senior in journalism and political science, is the community editor for The Plainsman
