Petty says future is green in campaign kickoff
Posted on Friday, July 18, 2008
Fayetteville resident Matthew Petty said economy and ecology need to be the city's focus.
Petty formally announced his candidacy for the Fayetteville City Council Ward 2, Position 2, seat before a crowd of about 30 supporters Thursday on the Fayetteville Square. The seat is currently held by Nancy Allen, who said she will not seek re-election.
Community involvement is the key to getting things done in the city, Petty told the crowd.
"The only reason we don't get the results we want is because we don't organize enough," he said. "The only way, and I mean the only way, we are going to make this town sustainable is through your involvement."
Petty, a six-year resident of Fayetteville, said he's passionate about the city's trails and wants to see the network completed.
"We need more of them, and we need them to be built faster," he said.
The trails are important because they help with climate change and sprawl, Petty said, while also providing an alternative form of transportation for citizens.
"We talk all the time about affordable living, and what better investment can we make than alternative transportation," he said. "If we want to support downtown living and cultural diversity and affordability, we need to make it so that people don't need a car to get everywhere they want to be."
Petty also talked about public transit and the need for a "corridor-oriented transit solution."
"I am going to push hard and lobby the new Regional Mobility Authority to make sure equitable and smart, forward-thinking solutions are given their due consideration," he said.
On the topic of development, Petty said the city needs to revisit renters'rights, service rates and impact fees.
"We should create sliding scales to support conservative lifestyles, and they can also be a tool to get the sort of development we want," he said. "Our impact fees should be revenue neutral. The bad developments should pay more and the good developments should pay less, and it should all balance out so that Fayetteville stays business friendly."
He said one of his goals is to create an orientation workshop for developers to encourage them to use lowimpact techniques and sustainable design.
"A workshop like what I propose could go a long way to greasing the wheels for sustainability," he said.
Petty said development is only part of having a sustainable and equitable revenue stream. The city needs to develop partnerships, he said.
"Keeping people away from the table is shortsighted," he said. "We should have been making expansion plans with the Walton Arts Center a decade ago, and since we didn't do it then we are panicking now about losing our performance arts center."
Petty said he is a "full-time community organizer for climate change solutions."
"Climate change may be a national or global issue," he said," but Fayetteville plays a role."
Fayetteville is going to be a part of the transition to a green economy, he said.
"I want to help create a green job training center so we can create a skilled workforce, with local jobs, trained to retrofit our buildings to be more energy efficient," he said. "That is just one way of many to attract green businesses and fight global warming."
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