Candidates for Nashville Town Council greeted and spoke to voters Oct. 4 during the League of Women Voters of Brown County’s candidate forum.
Due to League policy, District 1 candidate Nancy Crocker was only able to give a statement and could not answer questions from the audience because her opponent, “Buzz” King, was not present.
Two of the four at-large council candidates — Anna Hofstetter and Arthur Omberg — were present and able to answer questions; the two other at-large candidates, Mike “Possum” Roberts and David Rudd, did not attend.
In-town Nashville residents will elect two at-large candidates and one District 1 candidate on Nov. 6.
[sc:text-divider text-divider-title=”Story continues below gallery” ]These are the messages Crocker, Hofstetter and Omberg shared with the audience, edited for space.
DISTRICT 1
Nancy Crocker: I have lived in Nashville-Brown County for over five years. … I’m a born-and-raised Hoosier. This is the first time I have ventured into the political arena. When I moved here, I only thought of myself as a business owner. … I began getting involved, and most important, I began listening. … I am a chamber member, a previous chamber board member. I have completed the LEAP leadership program. … I am a member of the art alliance, on the Hometown Collaboration Initiative team and the president of the Nashville Arts and Entertainment Commission. … I volunteer for the Brown County Playhouse, the middle school Reality Store, and Psi Iota Xis when I can, and I recently joined (the League of Women Voters of Brown County). I also substitute teach for Brown County Schools in my off-season. … If I am going to be making decisions that affect the community, I need to be in touch with them. I have been asked questions like, “What do you think of the skate park idea?” or “Should we get rid of the police department?” My answer to you is that it doesn’t matter what I think. It matters what you think; it matters what we think together. I would like to form committees to discuss plans and ideas. … I will listen to your needs and concerns and make my decisions based on the input I receive. I do, however, have passions of my own that will affect my decision-making. … I would like to encourage businesses to use fewer disposable items and provide more recycling units for them. By making our town greener, we honor this amazing land we that we live on. I would like to see better communication and a welcoming atmosphere at town hall meetings. I believe in being proactive, not reactive. Planning, vision and goals are essential to success. Lastly, my favorite word lately is “collaborate.” We can do so much more if we work together on common goals. I will work to inform and connect different entities with the same goals. When I tell people where I live, I say “Nashville-Brown County, Indiana” because we’re all in this together. … It has become really clear to me when people believe in the place where they live, when they invest in places they live … beautiful and amazing things can happen, and those things can happen right here in Nashville-Brown County.
AT LARGE
What past accomplishments are you most proud of and why?
Anna Hofstetter: … I’m proud that I was able to build my credit … to qualify for a montage on my own, and I purchased a home at age 24 here in Nashville, just about six years ago. … In everyday life I find accomplishments at my job where I bar-tend. When I can help contribute to a positive experience with a person, when they leave with a smile on their face, that’s an accomplishment. And when I’m volunteering as a soccer coach …. to be able to see that “aha” moment where they learn and they progress and they achieve something, that’s an accomplishment as well.
Arthur Omberg: The past accomplishment I’m most proud of is when I do get a call or a message from former students who I battled with, fought with, and then they call me up or find me on Facebook and tell me how much of a difference I made in their life. … Politically, the accomplishment I’m most proud of is that in the years I’ve been on town council, we have been fiscally conservative, we’ve been fiscally responsible, and we’ve kept our books above board, and that’s a … team effort.
Describe your goals for the town council and your vision for the town’s future.
Omberg: My goals for the town council is to remain transparent or to become even more transparent; to have more people active and asking questions. My goal personally and politically is to continue to ask questions during meetings about items that come up. And my vision for the community is … to even keep it as a wonderful place, to keep it moving forward, to keep people coming back, to have people stay.
Hofstetter: … I have three things I’m super-passionate about: pedestrian and cyclist infrastructure: I think it will help promote a healthier lifestyle for people that live here, it will help encourage tourism, and it’s … a public safety concern. I’m also very passionate about environmentalism, and I would like to work with local businesses to establish ordinances and policies that reduce our eco footprint while still encouraging business. … I think that there’s a lot to be learned from ecotourism and I think we can do a lot. … Third of all, I’m very passionate about youth programming. I have been a huge advocate for the skate park, and I think that when you invest in the youth of the community, you’re investing in our future. There’s a reduction in drug use, crime rate; it’s an investment, not an expense.
How would you improve town and county working together?
Hofstetter: I like to think I work well with other people and I intend to continue with that reputation that I’ve gotten through my professional life. … I think we can achieve so much more when we focus on our similarities than when we focus on our differences. …
Omberg: … We used to have quarterly meetings with the school board and the county commissioners, and we had found some cost reductions. It would be nice to go back to that. I think (it helps) having the right people in place in our day-to-day operations of the town of Nashville. … Our public works department works with county public works, on paving initiatives and finding ways to save money. So, I think it always can be tweaked, but I think it’s not heated now.
How do you feel about the town ordinance pertaining to lighted signs?
Omberg: It has been illegal to have internally lit signs ever since I’ve been in Nashville. I still believe that that should remain the same. I know that there has been discussion recently with Maple Leaf — which is a county project, not a town project. I am opposed to opening that can of worms because I think people come here to kind of take a step back and breathe a little bit and enjoy themselves and not having that constant flash at them. So, no, I don’t believe in having internally lit signs, especially since I don’t believe it should favor one business over another. … The playing field has to be level as well.
Hofstetter: I couldn’t agree more with the last statement. If we’re gonna allow it for one business we have to allow it for all businesses. … One thing that attracts me to this county is that certain “je ne sais quoi,” that essence of what is Brown County. … I don’t agree with lit signs either. I think it would get rid of that “je ne sais quoi” of Brown County. … And then what’s next; are we going to have a Walmart? … To each their own, and if that’s what the people want, maybe we should have an open forum, but I don’t think that’s what the people want.
Do you believe we need a town manager or economic development director (to replace Scott Rudd, who left for another job)?
Hofstetter: I think that there are some wonderful people on town council right now, very capable people, and I think that the salary that we allocated for the town manager was quite high. … I think we can use that money elsewhere to archive bigger and better things. I think the responsibilities of the town manager could be allocated to the town council, and if that means maybe raising the stipend for them, maybe we can discuss that; but, no, I think that those responsibilities for the size of our town could be allocated to town council. …
Omberg: I’m not sure if we need a full-time town manager. We are in a community where we have lots of things going on, lots of new infrastructure coming in, things economically that we have to try to bring more business to increase wages so people can actually live and work here. I think possibly (we should have) an economic part-time employee that would be a coordinator, someone who could keep an eye on it. … If the community feels that there should be (a full-time person), we should respect their wishes as well, but personally I think somebody part-time could do it, if we could find somebody.
What is the biggest challenge facing the town of Nashville?
Omberg: The balancing between the residents and the tourists and the businesses. … I think that is a very delicate tightrope that we have to walk and make sure that even though a resident is the only one who can vote, property owners do contribute a lot to our services that we’re able to provide, and if we don’t have tourism, then we don’t have money coming into the community. …
Hofstetter: … The brain drain. I think the smart, young, ambitious people are leaving our community and going elsewhere, and I think that we can do things … to keep (them) here, but also attract other people that are driven, ambitious and hardworking. I think that starts with some basic infrastructure for youth needs. I think that when we, as the leaders of this community … when we show our young people that we value them, then they will begin to value themselves, and people that value themselves are far less likely to partake in self-destructive behaviors. …
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In-town voters can vote for candidates who do not live in their own districts for Nashville Town Council.
This is the opposite of the Brown County Council, in which you can only vote for a candidate who lives in your district or an at-large candidate.
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