Parsons City Commission
Editor’s note: To help readers make their voting choices in the Nov. 5 general election for local offices, The Journal, the Kansas Leadership Center’s quarterly magazine, sent out a survey to more than 250 candidates in communities where our magazine’s readership is the largest. What follows is information from your local candidates, in their own words.
Update: Click here for Tuesday’s unofficial election results.
Verlyn W. Bolinger, candidate for Parsons City Commission
Please provide a brief introduction and a description of why you are running for office.
I’m a longtime resident of Parsons. I want to give back to Parsons my leadership and knowledge. I feel we need change in several areas: streets, infrastructure, just general beautification of the town. We need to attract more business to create jobs for our citizens.
Should you be elected, what is the single most important issue that you would like to see improvement on during your term in office? Please write a few sentences explaining your choice.
To be more proactive!
As an office holder, how would you try to mobilize efforts to address the important issue you identified above? If you have a sense of specific steps you might take, please share those.
Listen to the citizens of Parsons. Look into the budget to raise the money needed to plan for the future.
To what extent are you concerned about the future of healthcare in your community?
To a great extent
Do you see health care as being primarily a local issue or a regional one?
Regional issue
What role, if any, does local government have to play in ensuring the availability of health care in your community?
As a Lion we promote eye sit awareness and diabetes awareness .
How would you prioritize healthcare in comparison to other issues that you expect to deal with while serving in office?
Probably minimal
Leland Crooks, candidate for Parsons City Commission
Please provide a brief introduction and a description of why you are running for office.
I am a small business owner, Grand Rental Station, in Parsons. I also own and operate an online business, SpeakerHardware, which ships speaker kits all over the world. A lifelong resident, and 4th generation Labette county, I see a need to arrest the gradual decline occurring. It’s happening is small town America everywhere. Parsons has many unique things going for it that can be leveraged to stop the slide. Fresh ideas and perspectives in city government are needed. I can bring that.
Should you be elected, what is the single most important issue that you would like to see improvement on during your term in office? Please write a few sentences explaining your choice.
Affordable housing and growth. Housing in Parsons is cheap by national standards, yet we see houses sitting vacant, being knocked down, or in disrepair. We have to acknowledge the income levels here even with cheap housing put up obstacles to home ownership, or being able to afford upkeep. This must be addressed. The long standing paradigm to look outward for growth should be examined. Core growth in a city turns far more revenue than any outward expansion.
As an office holder, how would you try to mobilize efforts to address the important issue you identified above? If you have a sense of specific steps you might take, please share those.
For housing, there are many federal programs that are not being utilized. Information is needed to be brought to the attention of homeowners and prospective homeowners of the benefits available because we are a rural area. I would like to see a coalition of local investors to start building affordable multi unit housing in Parsons. A private/public partnership. Which dovetails into the core growth theme, doing this in the core of the city. Where infrastructure is already in place.
To what extent are you concerned about the future of healthcare in your community?
Our hospital is stellar. We have benefitted from excellent fiscal and growth management of Labette Health over it’s lifetime, and continue to do so. Health care has become a regional issue, as our hospital has stepped up to provide care for outlying communities that have lost their hospitals. Our local government should work with our health care providers to make sure the obstacles they face in the city are minimized.
The Journal did not receive responses to its survey from Parsons City Commission candidates Kevin Cruse, Jonna Gabbert, Sontana “Tana” Johnson and Eric Patrick Strait.
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