Laura Johnson and I enjoyed meeting with Dana Outlaw, Alderman of Ward 6. Dana’s running for Mayor of New Bern and he told us how he plans to make a difference in New Bern if he’s elected in this radio interview with Laura Johnson. The interview will air on Radio Free ENC’s WNOS 105.9FM and 1450AM. Listen to the audio here:
Laura asked Dana about the financial state of New Bern. Dana said, “I’ve been on the Board of Aldermen for eight years now and for eight years I’ve talked about the financial condition of the city and more particularly, the electric, water, and sewer funds. The first four years were pretty rough to talk about it. This most recent board has been very receptive to the idea of researching and discussing this issue. The City manager has brought out to the board the financial condition of the city with respect to the transfer of funds from the electric, water, and sewer funds and payment in lieu of taxes”.
Dana said, “My main goal of Mayor would be to try to get the City of New Bern financially more on its own and not having to depend on the water, sewer and electric funds to run the city”.
When asked what his vision is, Dana said, “My most important vision for the city is that we are in a pretty healthy condition right now as far as our fund balances. It doesn’t matter if you’re a resident of the city or a subscriber to the water, sewer, and electric departments; everyone is concerned with the rate structure. My vision is to be able to correct these problems we have with the dependency on electric, water, and sewer funds basically from about December 1st each year until the end of the year for a 30 day period you can basically say that we’re running the city off of enterprise funds”.
Laura asked Dana about how the city handles doing municipal business. He believes the city does a great job. “We have a tremendous staff and our city manager is a very educated individual who has brought in a lot of great ideas that have helped. Along with our board of aldermen is very progressive in the way we’ve set policy for the past four years, so I feel really good about where we are as a board of aldermen and the city staff”.
Dana’s idea of bringing the new board together “is that the present board took a couple of years until we all were on the same page. We had some very important challenges as far as our financial condition to continue to get the city to fund the balances we need. Part of bringing our team together, I see the new Board being very receptive to the idea of correcting the accounting practices of the past. That will be my major focus to bring all the aldermen together and be able to present to them the financial state of the city with respect to dependency on these enterprise funds and effectively try to find ways to cost save within our city and at the same time reduce some of these rates”.
Learn more about how Dana Outlaw plans to make a difference as the Mayor of New Bern by visiting his website: www.DanaOutlaw.com, send him an email or call 252-514-7401.
Mark your calendars to vote on October 8, 2013.
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Wendy Card