2020 Cullman Municipal Election Debates: Andy Page and Brad Smith, Cullman City Council, place 1

0:42 so good morning good morning this is wc man coleman tribune and we are beginning

0:58 our series of 2020 municipal election debates and we have with us now incumbent andy page and challenger brad

1:09 smith for coleman city council place one brad yes please introduce yourself and tell us why you're running for city

1:18 council absolutely my name's brad smith born and raised here in coleman alabama to college moved off to nashville for a

1:28 little bit and my wife and i cheryl moved back started a family we have uh two boys

1:36 sister 12 and lane eight and uh we're glad to have them here in our coleman city school system um

1:44 i would like you know for my kids to come back and they grow up and move back

1:50 to coleman because i believe it's been a great town for us and i can believe it's

1:53 going to be a great town moving into the future i believe what makes coleman special

1:58 is its people churches small businesses first responders leaders industries everyone in coleman helped make it

2:07 special and i believe that it's our job as leaders to listen to them and

2:12 hear what needs to happen with our city what direction they would like for it to

2:16 move i believe i can bring a fresh voice and renewed energy to help lead effectively and decisively

2:24 look outside the box for more ways to help promote coleman as we move into the future and

2:30 it's an uncertain future at the moment as we're coming out of covid but i believe we'll fully come out

2:35 pullman will be super profitable again and be a great place to live as it always has been

2:42 we'd like to help reach our goals for this city work with our community

2:45 partners and see our prospective plans from each one of those partners in our

2:51 prospective boards and work together to help us move into the future okay is this the opening statement yeah

3:03 all right so coach paige you're well known to folks but same question please

3:08 introduce yourself and tell us why you're running again for city council good morning greg good morning

3:19 i want to thank the coleman tribune and noah chandler for the opportunity to appear here today

3:26 these forums are outstanding opportunities for people to hear from their elected officials i

3:32 also want to thank my opponent brad smith for coming today first thing i want to say is that i love

3:40 the city of culture it has been an honor and privilege to serve the people of coleman as their

3:45 city council my family and i moved to coleman 44 years ago this is my home i raised my family here

3:54 i had a great career here been a member of st john's church for the last 44 years

4:00 where i served a church council and have been an usher for 44 years

4:06 i've always been a team player and emphasized teamwork it began in my youngest days being the

4:14 ninth of chin children on a farm in south carolina continued when i talked coached and

4:20 taught to coach some of the finest students at coleman middle school coleman high

4:25 school and now serving on the common city council i'm proud of the relationships that we have built the

4:33 progress that we have made in the city of coleman in so many areas

4:37 and i'm looking forward to the future this council has been able to work

4:41 together disagree with each other listen to each other respect each other's ideas and come to a

4:50 decision no matter which side we were on win or lose we supported the decision

4:59 and move on to the next issue we do not second guess the decision

5:05 we own it and we move forward i'm excited about the future of coleman

5:13 we definitely face challenges like the kirk and then but in coleman we rise to the challenge we rebounded

5:23 and became stronger after the april 2011 tornadoes and we'll rebound again thank you all right now

5:35 we're going to kind of swap back and forth one of you will get the question

5:38 first the other one so so this time around coach page the council place one currently

5:53 heads the public safety committee do you believe the coleman police department is adequately supported by

6:00 city government why or why not definitely yes um my philosophy on leadership is you hire good people

6:15 and i don't believe you can find two better individuals anywhere and the two we have serving as

6:22 chief in chief of police and the fire department we hire knowledgeable people people who know their stuff people who

6:31 are leaders and then my job is to try to help them get what they need

6:39 in order to make their job successful make the fire department successful and we work together as a team they tell

6:47 me what they need and we try to to get what they need can't always get everything you need but

6:55 we do our best and that's that's basically how my philosophy of leadership okay brad same question do you believe

7:08 the coleman police department is adequately supported by the city government and why or why not i do believe they're

7:14 they're supported i've talked to many police including the chief captains lieutenants and have

7:22 the opportunity to meet with a lot of as far as equipment goes i think

7:27 very do very well in equipment things of that nature but i don't think a lot of times there's as

7:33 many voices heard i think there are some police that have issues i was happy to see that the current

7:40 administration was able to provide the tier one retirement that was obviously a huge thing that they were

7:46 able to get for them there are still some concerns that those guys have they have a great chief as

7:51 coach page said with the chief culpepper and i know he does everything he can for those guys

7:56 but there are some things that they have concerns about uh i think there's a lack of communication

8:02 on their pay scale and exactly how that works and and how it works for them

8:07 uh so i think there could be some more transparency on that and what that looks like for them just

8:14 so they can better understand them and we're here to fully support them and we

8:17 appreciate everything they do and they should have as much transparency as possible okay and brad back to you and you had

8:25 mentioned pay and the next question is do you believe that the base pay for a new coleman police officer

8:33 is fair well i haven't looked into that as much as as much as i should i know obviously

8:40 when you talk to i talk to different officers they've done the comparisons and i would

8:46 like to look at similar communities around us that we should look at because we want

8:52 to be able to retain our officers especially if we're going to train them if we're trying them

8:58 putting the money into that to bring them into our system we obviously want to be able to

9:02 pay them adequately to retain them here and calling it i think they all love

9:07 coleman they want to stay here hay is possibly better in some other places and it's something we can

9:12 certainly look at to help retain those guys because as we train them we want to keep them we want

9:17 them and their families here so i think it's something we certainly shouldn't take a look at

9:22 coach page same question do you believe the question do you believe that the

9:26 base pay for a new coleman police officer is fair it's fair well we all

9:37 well wanted to be more yeah uh i think it's fair you have to

9:42 consider everything our benefits are huge important to our people we have a standard

9:52 uh upscale every year for our policemen and they can do a step raise by going to school

10:02 getting extra you i think it's fair compared to comparable cities of course we like it to be more

10:16 but uh we have a budget we have to go to and uh but i'd say

10:23 yes to the question okay and now over to uh our fire department do you believe

10:35 uh this will be back to coach page do you believe coleman fire rescue

10:39 is adequately supported by the city government and why or whatever the fire isn't

10:43 right basically the same answer you know that they have a different work schedule you

10:49 know they're on for 24 hours so it's a it's a different way we have to calculate their hours and

10:57 so forth but i'd say they answered the same way they they're well equipped

11:03 well equipped and uh the base base pay is fair uh and uh the other

11:10 community is similar to us and again i gotta go back to the benefits

11:14 we have really really good benefits in the city of oklahoma we've had people in the lead for maybe a

11:22 little more pay and then come back you know we'll come back a couple years later

11:28 when they got that to the news and it wasn't all in just the best pay

11:34 so the question was do i think it's fair i do okay brad do you believe coleman fire rescue

11:45 is adequately supported by the city government and why not as far as equipment goes and

11:51 facilities obviously uh there's been two new fire stations built and i believe our officer

11:56 our riders believe that they have proper equipment and what i would say with that just

12:01 talking to them is sometimes we get some new equipment and we don't have the proper training on

12:06 it so we have something that we paid a lot of money for we want to make sure that these guys

12:09 have the training uh to make sure that that equipment is used effectively same thing with um with the excuse me

12:19 the firefighters that are with the police the pay scale is something of a question a lot of

12:24 don't understand it and i think it's something just as a matter of transparency that

12:28 could be communicated better and i do think we have great benefits but there's been a lot of turnover

12:35 in our fire department and i think it's imperative that we work more on retaining these guys

12:42 okay all right and then this will be for you brad the city of coleman along

12:50 with coleman regional u.s representative robert robert aderholt coleman county commission chairman kenneth walker senator garland gudger

12:59 representative randall shedd representative scott stotthagen and representative corey harveston launched the it's not about you

13:09 covet 19 campaign last month to combat the spread of covet 19 in our community

13:15 do you think that campaign has been a sufficient enough response to the pandemic as it pertains to the

13:23 citizens of coleman i do believe it has coleman is a tight-knit community and i know sometimes it's hard for us to

13:33 grasp on maybe some things that are going on and then we don't want to fully embrace

13:36 it we want to make sure it's the right thing for us but uh

13:39 i do think the the citizens of coleman have have embraced it and we're trying

13:44 to do the best we can you know we have things like kids going

13:47 back to school they all want those people to be safe and they're administrators we have things that come

13:52 with what's cool is football and if people in coleman love football whether it be high school college level

13:57 we all want to be able to take care of and go participate in those things so i

14:01 do think everybody's trying to come together and make this work whether it's wearing

14:06 masks six feet apart social distancing but at the same time we've been able to

14:11 have some events and gatherings at a safe distance that that have helped people be able to get

14:18 out more but safely okay coach paige we won't run through the list of names

14:25 here again but do you think that the um the it's not about you campaign has

14:32 been a sufficient enough response to the pandemic as it pertains to the citizens

14:36 of coleman i agree with it it's not about you when you wear a mask it's about the

14:45 other person you're protecting them i always in coaching and everything i've ever done

14:54 greg i want to air error on the side of caution i can defend over cautious

15:04 i i don't i have trouble defending not being cautious enough maybe i look back and if we've done so and so

15:13 but if i over prepare just a football game we over prepare and we beat the team 40 points and we're

15:21 supposed to be a close game uh i can defend that that's easy on the other hand if you

15:28 don't prepare adequately in any situation if you don't prepare and then you come

15:36 up short i have i have difficulty defending that so my philosophy in any pretty much anything that was that

15:46 way coaching i had a guy kind of got a concussion i didn't go on the doctor's

15:52 recommendation i went on what i saw what i experienced i was there i saw

15:59 i saw the injury and it's got to be right with me and i've on several occasions

16:08 i've gone extra days instead of putting that kid back out there with a

16:11 concussion instead of what the doctor said so that's just me okay okay and coach page also on the topic of

16:24 coveted 19 how do you or support police officers and firefighters as they deal with the general public and

16:35 some might say have a higher chance of coming into contact with someone who is

16:39 covet positive i'm not sure exactly what the question is okay um how how do you from uh from your

16:50 position on the city council and the public safety committee support police and firefighters as they have to

16:59 answer calls and respond to the public during this during the pandemic that's a

17:05 difficult situation and uh asked for what chief culpepper and g bradbury doing these guys are real professionals

17:19 they're real conscientious good christian man and their personal concern for individuals is strong

17:31 and so i they use that in their decisions and uh i'd say they'd be similar to the

17:36 way i am they'd rather bear on the side of caution and uh be real careful when they do their

17:46 job on this but that's that's a difficult uh situation to have to keep order and still

17:54 be concerned about social distance and that i mean that kind of thing so i i'm

18:02 i'm confident that they'll do the right things to handle the situation okay and brett

18:11 same question how how would you support police officers and firefighters as they deal

18:18 with the general public and respond to calls and such things during this pandemic

18:26 i agree with coach on on the front part of that that i believe

18:30 we need to stick close to uh our chiefs and our leaders at the

18:34 the police department and the um in the fire department if there is something out there

18:42 that we haven't seen yet as far as in our immediate area but it's available in

18:45 other areas and it's been successful to help protect those people at all costs

18:49 then i think that's something that we should obviously look at i'm not saying

18:53 that they're not by any case i just want to make sure that we're

18:56 looking outside the box to other communities maybe where they deal with it on a much larger

19:02 basis and that we can put those things in place to protect our fire and police if it's

19:10 out there i just want our guys to be guys and girls to be available for them

19:15 okay and then back to you sure education has been a a question that has

19:26 come up during the the campaign here it's not specific to public safety but

19:30 in general council business do you think that the city does enough to

19:40 fund coleman city schools in a word uh i would say well i know

19:49 i say maybe they try i don't think it's been as effective i think the biggest part of

19:54 that just comes from communication i think the the council needs to work better

20:00 with our school board to understand our school's needs it's just a matter of looking

20:08 at our current infrastructure with the schools and they're busting at the seams and i know that they've looked at it and

20:15 tried to make this better but at this point it's uh it's imperative that we address it

20:19 immediately and that's just going to take communication within our school board to make sure that we are listening to

20:26 them and they're doing their due diligence to get plans in place that we can look at and help them with

20:32 and help get this thing funded okay coach page same question do you think the city does enough to fund

20:41 coleman city schools yes um you you're in my category now teaching and coaching um it's pretty

20:52 obvious with our athletic facilities that we've been pretty good shape around other communities

21:03 most of our buildings are in pretty good shape could we do more of course

21:12 anytime that the school board wants to share something with us or some plans we're open

21:20 we're open any time superintendent come see that later discuss it we don't necessarily have to all get together in

21:27 the beginning to me that's how the process should start superintendent comes to the mayor

21:35 says we need help in this area the mayor comes to the council we have a

21:42 meeting and we discuss it that's how you how you get it started so i don't know of anybody on the city

21:51 council or the mayor that's not totally open to that process two of us are

21:59 educators of course everybody went to school but i would like to also see

22:07 us concentrate a little more on teachers you could talk to anybody anywhere and they'll mention their

22:18 teachers the kind of impact that those teachers had on their lives particularly coaches

22:28 i mean i you i get responses back all the time about how much

22:34 how much you meant to me during my eighth grade years playing football uh

22:41 teachers are the key and we need to concentrate and i i'm sure we do on quality teachers

22:49 paying them well maintaining them and to me that's uh the highest priority you could take a

22:59 good teacher put them in a log cabin and they'll do wonders they'll do wonders you could take a not

23:06 so good teacher my time's up sorry if you don't mind go ahead as far as i

23:15 completely agree with coach when i was at coleman i played football baseball and uh baseball especially along with

23:23 football it built some great facilities and and we should be very proud of them

23:27 i suddenly don't think that's an issue at all as far as infrastructure i think

23:31 looking at the middle school in our elementary schools i just wanted to be specific on that that that's really

23:37 where we're having our time we did an addition to the high school looks great

23:42 but our elementary schools and our middle schools are really where things need to be addressed and i'm as

23:49 he said proud of everything that they've done for the high school baseball field but at this point we're

23:54 going to have kids in modular buildings if it's not addressed so just believe it's something we need to

23:58 get with our school board and they they need to have their eyes dotted t's crossed and then we

24:03 support them going forward okay all right and to finish up take up to three minutes here and this

24:15 will come back to coach page to tell the citizens of coleman anything else you'd like to share

24:24 a question craig is this the closing second yes i thought i had the last

24:33 the last clues i wasn't sure about that okay okay sorry about that oh

24:54 thank you guys for doing this it's been great a great day for it and appreciate coach

25:01 sitting in here and doing this with me i think it's great i think it's great for the for

25:05 the people who call them to hopefully get to listen to us and i hopefully

25:09 they've heard some views from both of us that helped them make an informed

25:13 decision i would obviously encourage anybody that had any questions for me relating to anything that said that they

25:21 please reach out i'll be happy to answer and link anything that they have um i look forward to uh continuing

25:30 this campaign and we're going to keep trudging through and it's been great meeting the people of coleman we've been

25:36 out door-to-door and meeting with you know first responders and leaders and things like that and it's really

25:42 been great just get out there and meet people and they've been very encouraging

25:48 people have been very nice even the door to door i know it's a little awkward

25:52 but they've been very nice offering waters and things of that but i really feel like i can bring a lot to

25:59 this to the city of coleman a lot of vision a lot outside the box

26:03 thinking and i believe it's going to take a tremendous amount of that to move us

26:06 into the future and i would appreciate your vote on august 25th and thank you again for

26:11 having us if folks want to get in touch with you what's the easiest way easiest way uh

26:16 i'll obviously have a social media sites on instagram and facebook my email is jb underscore smith

26:24 yahoo.com and my cell number is 256-476-8618 okay coach page craig nolan thank you thank you again for the

26:39 opportunity to be a part of this forum today thank you brad enjoyed doing this with you in my first election

26:49 i ran on the motto for the future of coal this is still my focus today

26:58 the decisions that we make on the city council have an impact far into the future we impact the future

27:06 the duck river reservoir has been planned for over 40 years we brought that to completion and i have

27:12 two water sources for the city of coleman for many decades to come city government is also about small

27:20 things and services that we provide people small problems can become big problems uh streets need to be paid garbage

27:32 picked up and the expectation of fire and police protection i have enjoyed working with our city employees

27:41 on these areas as well this council and i have been a part of an outstanding

27:46 record of progress i am proud of the record in attracting new jobs expanding industries improving the

27:54 quality of life and numerous recognitions for being the number one community to raise children to an award-winning

28:02 park and recreation department i'm also proud of the budgets that we have passed that have been prudent while

28:08 providing cost of living increases to our city employees ultimately i won't come to be a place where our

28:16 citizens citizens can have a great quality of life a good job vital vital community great schools and great

28:25 and great parks i can't get this sheet to open up here greg sticking together sorry about that

28:36 i would be honored and honored if the people of the city of coleman

28:41 provide me with opportunity to serve on the city council and i believe that our best days are

28:49 ahead of us and i want to finish as i started craig i love coal

29:00 thank you okay if people want to contact you how do they well how's the best way

29:05 for them to reach you or your your campaign team 256 708 uh i have a facebook page

29:18 just just now learning you know how to operate a little bit on facebook

29:23 um email need an email if you want to ajpage page at bellsouth.net pretty much do it okay all right

29:42 that is it thank you very much for joining us thank you craig thank you yes sir

29:49 thank you thank you coach