News, Politics, and Culture from 14895

County Road 4, by Jame VanDewalker

Wellsville resident is officially on the ballot as candidate for village Mayor

Share:

Marshall Green obtained the necessary 75 signatures from village voters

By Andrew Harris

The Allegany County Board of Elections confirmed that both current Mayor Randy Shayler and challenger Marshall Green will appear on the November ballot. Shayler is the Republican Party nominee and Green will run on an independent line called, “Green for Mayor.”

Green released this statement with his campaign platform:

“I am officially announcing my campaign to run for the position of Mayor for the Village of Wellsville. 

My platform would be as follows: 

Work with the board members to reverse the existing board’s decision to limit speech at public meetings. 

Every member of the public should always have an opportunity to address the Village Board at a public meeting regardless of who you are or the content of your message. 

We would encourage (not require) non-urgent complaints to be first presented to a board member to see if the issue can be resolved. If not, then the board would welcome that issue to be brought onto the record at any meeting. 

All public board meetings would be live streamed / posted on the village website so that there is an accessible viewing archive of the meeting for the public. 

I would work with the board to reverse the existing board’s decision to pursue eminent domain of the public parking lot. 

Instead, I would do the following… Invite Mr. Otero to meet with the village board to consider alternative resolutions to remove the existing sheds and resume public parking on the lot (contrary to some opinions, I am not in favor of the sheds, I am just more not in favor of the village taking property just because they want it).  

This could be by means of a settlement agreement for the village to purchase the lot at a fair and reasonable price. This could be by developing a rental agreement so that the village can rent the lot as previously agreed. This could be a combination of the above with the village renting the lot with an option to purchase in the future at a set price. At the end of the day, I would ask the board to support me in ensuring the village will not force any resident who is maintaining their property and paying their taxes to ever sell with the exception for critical situations. 

We will actively pursue infrastructure that will better engage our youth and create a more youth-oriented community to entice and welcome future families and generations. 

We will develop a citizen complaint review board. This will consist of residents who will be tasked with reviewing all unresolved complaints against any village employee. If the review board disagrees with an existing outcome, they will report directly to the village board with alternative recommendations. 

In the case of potential criminal issues, the review board can recommend an investigation from an outside agency if it feels the issue warrants such a need. 

Under my leadership, we will continually work to improve transparency, accountability and communication between the village and its residents. I will issue annual State of the Village statements in which we as a community will celebrate our successes, acknowledge opportunities for improvement, and hold ourselves accountable for mistakes and strive to be better. 

There are obviously many more facets of running a village such as public works, law enforcement, economic growth and development, marketing, etc.. We have an incredible downtown district, library, park, and many other treasures to celebrate. My goal would be to capitalize on the already amazing things we have in place… not to change those systems/assets but rather improve them for our future generations.

Thank you,

Marshall Green”

Previous Article

 In the Outdoors: Late-May, early June to be fawn-drop time this year

Next Article

Buchholz leads Bolivar-Richburg to Section V baseball title

You may also like