2020 Cullman Municipal Election Debates: Johnny Cook, Cullman City Council, place 3

0:07 this is wc man with the coleman tribune with the next in our series of municipal election

0:14 debates this is coleman city council place three public works committee johnny cook is the incumbent

0:23 gwen parker is the challenger she could not join us today she will be here on the 15th and we are

0:31 presenting these two we are recording mr cook and we will present the two

0:36 together johnny yes sir mr man tell us a little bit about yourself and

0:45 why you are running again while you're coming back to city council well miss mann i'm i'm uh

0:55 i'm i've been on city council for a while we have made great strides and

1:03 i have a passion and a heart for serving the people of coleman as well as other people we have

1:11 fine-tuned things over the last four years with getting a lot of progress and i

1:18 just want to continue to serve and uh be part of the administration to carry the city to the

1:26 next step okay thank you now we'll get into these uh questions public works spend a lot of time

1:37 concerning yourself with things like roads and streets and roads are a huge concern

1:43 and it's come up in the campaign do you think the city does a good job

1:49 maintaining its roadways and how do you think things could be improved well i will tell you that the

1:58 city council mayor have in the past done the best they could but i think in the past four years we've

2:09 made leaps and bounds over maintaining our roads especially in the past two years

2:16 one of the ways we've done that is not being held captive by outside paving contractors we've

2:25 bought our own paving equipment milling machine we've had guys trained to use that equipment and yes we still

2:33 use paving contractors also but we uh we can sort of what for better like terms double dip we

2:42 can do some they can do some and so therefore our paving schedule has

2:46 tremendously picked up over the past 18 months to two years okay and on this issue of paving the the

2:55 next question here uh paving has ramped up around coleman this summer we've seen quite a bit of it happening

3:04 a lot of folks have claimed that it's because this is an election year

3:09 that this is a you know an election a campaign activity here but the city

3:15 has said it's because paving equipment the the city's purchased paving equipment has made it

3:21 easier and more affordable for the city to pave roads do you think that equipment was

3:28 a good investment and why or why not i think it was an excellent investment

3:32 we've already paid for it by uh the streets that we've paid and that

3:38 allows us and it's cheaper of course for us to do it which allows us to have excess money

3:44 that we've put in the budget for paving to use outside paving contractors also it gives us time because we're not

3:52 just paving these roads one of the things that we do to ensure the uh longevity of the road

4:01 is we're going in in any infrastructure that we know is aging and even some it's not aging

4:08 that's sewer lines water lines storm drains we're videoing those and looking for imperfections

4:15 that we can correct so we don't have to come back and dig up a road

4:19 does it work 100 of the time no sir uh we've had a couple of

4:27 issues after we videoed with a water line breaking but that's because these milling machines and this heavy

4:36 equipment i mean it's heavy these pave machines and all these dump trucks and it'll flex through um

4:44 the base and it it might not break till there's a little bit of surge or something and we

4:51 have to come back and fix it but we've got a better process for

4:54 fixing a patch instead of just a pothole okay the next one and this has been a popular topic of

5:06 online conversation for actually quite a while now a major complaint from many local motorists

5:14 concrete dividers along u.s highway 278 in through downtown coleman while we know that this is a roadway maintained by the

5:23 alabama department of transportation aldot and that al dot itself installed the dividers do you think the city could have done

5:33 anything about it or if not then is there something that could be done

5:39 now to address the dividers well mr man when when they did those that money came from a federal grant and

5:48 that grant money was specific for safety issues on state highways the state highway department that is part of their

6:01 engineering do we like it no was there something we could do about it

6:07 we tried everything we could but it was it was already in the works and

6:14 and uh they were not going to change their mind now in the future we might be able to do

6:22 something about it we're keeping a log and record of of any incidents any accidents or incidences that are

6:29 caused by these and so you know at the later date we may present those to them

6:35 to see if we can get those corrected okay another project that often comes up in discussions is

6:46 the widening of alabama highway 157 from highway 31 east past coleman regional while we know that's also an aldot

6:59 roadway and subject to funding availability from the state do you think that the city has handled

7:06 its end of that project well working with a local legislative delegation to move things along is there

7:14 is there anything you think could have been done or should be done differently

7:20 well mr mann i will tell you this we were in a meeting with the state

7:26 highway director we asked him where that project was at he said it is way down like 150

7:34 on the list we asked what could be done to move it up and he said

7:42 pay for half of it so we put our heads together we found out

7:49 about a grant out of washington d.c and we went to work on that grant

7:56 and we not only included the city government we included the hospital we included adjoining counties that were

8:06 wanting it widened because it's access for them to get to i-65 and we worked hard through washington dc

8:14 and we were able to obtain a grant for half the cost on that highway and that project would

8:22 not be done if we didn't obtain that grant now we the timing of it

8:31 it's been a long time coming but you'll see dirt being moved probably in october yes i

8:38 think we have done the right thing and as quickly as we could possibly do

8:42 it we've also seen and folks have come to the city council and have spoken at city council about

8:54 drainage problems in some of the subdivisions and neighborhoods around here how how do you feel about the way the city

9:08 has responded and how would you suggest that the city deal with these issues well

9:18 you know some of the drainage issues are because of growth and stuff in the

9:22 ditches and we're addressing those but one of the things that we've done because since you know the 2015

9:31 christmas flood and then we had the big easter flood it just seems like we're

9:36 getting a lot more rain of course with more uh housing and industry the more concrete paving and

9:44 asphalt you get the less absorptions you get into the ground so what we have done to try and

9:52 speed up the process to get these drainage problems fixed is we've got it we've formed a drainage

9:59 and storm water crew to work on these drainage ditches and and runoff areas

10:10 all right now this is not specifically a public works question but it comes up in

10:20 discussions about and through the city council and city government in general and this is education has

10:27 become a popular topic of discussion during the the campaign season public works funds a lot of construction

10:38 city schools the city school system their current five-year plan includes a major construction project in the next

10:48 few years dealing with education infrastructure what should the city's role be in this

11:01 city school board project how can the city best participate in this the city has always been a partner with

11:13 the school we communicate and i think that's what we need to continue to do is be a partner with them

11:24 get their get their definite plan and us assist them in making it come to

11:30 fruition is it going to happen overnight is it going to happen uh the whole project in one fell swoop

11:39 i don't think so i think we need to prioritize it and move forward

11:43 with it now we whether that be figuring out funding sources or us doing in-kind services you know

11:54 ever since i've been around the city has done all kinds of in-kind services

12:02 for the school system uh you know we've built sidewalks around the schools so the students have safe place to walk

12:10 when they redid the football stadium we hauled a tremendous amount of dirt away for them and just different

12:20 things like that just like we just paid their parking lot that's a lot of money that they can keep

12:25 in their budget and we do things like that year round for them and i think we need to continue to be a

12:34 partner with them all right brings us to our final question and for this

12:44 take up to three minutes to share with the citizens of coleman anything else you would like the floor

12:51 is open thank you mr man and i just want to thank the coleman tribune for

12:56 allowing me to have this time today uh i'm passionate about serving coleman and

13:03 serving the people of coleman uh i'm gonna touch back on roads just a

13:09 minute and people like you said had mentioned that they think this was uh

13:15 election year push but since uh since 2016 we've paid 97 roads 97 roads

13:30 yes some people's roads might not be paid but we're having those prioritized and we're going to get to them

13:36 since we purchased the paving equipment in 2019 of those 97 roads we've paved

13:47 77 of them since 2020 paving season started we've paved 56 of those 97 roads

14:00 there's a trend here we're going to continue to pave these roads not just during the election year it's

14:08 going to take a little bit longer yes because we are going to investigate

14:12 and take care of the infrastructure also i humbly asked for your vote and your support on august the 25th

14:24 for coleman city council place three thank you thank you sir you