Moody municipal candidates discuss growth and key issues at forum

Published 10:30 am Friday, August 19, 2016

As voters ready themselves for the upcoming Election Day, August 23, 2016, candidates running to contend for seats on the Moody City Council participated in a Political Forum last Thursday at Moody City Hall hosted by the Moody Area Chamber of Commerce.

The line-up for this forum included Linda Crowe and Clyde Jones running for Place 1, Matt Morris running for Place 3, Jeff Green and Nick Rutledge running for Place 4. Brent Earnest with Chick-fil-A and Executive Board Member acted as the moderator.

Questions for the candidates were submitted by local residents and remained confidential until presented at the forum. Each contender had the opportunity to answer all questions presented.

To give a brief history about each candidate, Linda Crowe was elected in 1996 to the Moody City Council and has served as Mayor Pro Tem since 2003. In the twenty years of service, she has served on the Finance Committee, liaison to the Public Works Department, Library and Civic Center. She is married with two children and three grandchildren.

Clyde Jones has lived in Moody for the past 12 years. He is a retired Methodist pastor. Jones earned a master’s degree in theology from Emory University. He was a chaplin for the police department in Bessemer. Jones has one son, three grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

Matt Morris is a life-long resident of Moody. He worked for the Moody Police Department for ten years, where he held the rank of Sgt./DARE Officer. Morris currently works for the St. Clair County Sheriff’s Office as a School Resource Office. He is married to Leslie Morris and has two children, Madison and Judson. They are members of The Gathering Place Church.

Jeff Green is a life-long resident of Moody. Jeff works at Pell City School System as the network administrator. He earned his certificate in computer science at UAB. Jeff has been on the Moody City Council for the past four years. He has two children.

Nick Rutledge is a graduate of Clay-Chalkville High School and holds a certificate of Building Science from Bessemer Technical College. Nick as been married to Leah Crowe Rutledge, a life-long Moody resident, for 13 years. Together, they have three children, Hannah, Reagan and Miles. Nick has spent countless hours volunteering at the Moody Sports Complex and has been the President of the Moody Youth Association for the past two years.

The debate began with a general question of experience. The next question asked about past track records with how many council meetings missed for current council members and how many council meetings had been attended for prospective council members. Crow missed 3, Morris attended 0, Jones attended 0, Rutledge attended 4-5.

Candidates were asked about their goals for the next four years. Morris would love to see police department expanded, with that dear to his heart as a police officer. Jones would like to see more emphasis on homeland security, cleanup in various neighborhoods, especially with snakes, and bus travel to mall for those without transportation.

Rutledge would like to see police and fire departments grow. The city is growing so fast that we need to keep up. Ball park is showing its age and we need to invest there. Green would like to lay groundwork for a city school system. Crow indicated that we must concentrate on retail growth, traffic control and work with the state to solve highway 411 issues.

Discussion moved onto what the council could do about cleaning up the city, deal with abandoned houses, etc. Green referenced the protocol and laws currently on the books to deal with city clean up. He also mentioned that some of these problems could be taken care of through homeowners associations. Comments that Moody still had property not dealt with for over five years. Green said that he had not had one phone call in reference to this problem and without a complaint, no action was taken. He also mentioned that the city inspector would probably have a good idea of problem areas where they could take action.

Crowe mentioned that we needed to get a message out to citizens to take pride in what they have. We can encourage, but we can’t go onto private property. We have to go through the process and she wished people would take better care of their property and take more pride. The process has begun on some properties and sometimes the legal system just takes too long. Morris indicated the the city had ordinances and that we should work with the city attorney and get his best advice. Jones said we need to notify homeowners. Rutledge reinforced the conversations of others and said we have to do what we can and keep pushing.

To have a better place to live, work and play, Crowe’s response was that we need better work, more jobs, have retail to purchase clothing, better parks and civic center to play and good houses built to live here. Morris indicated we could recruit new business and adopt a city school system while Jones mentioned again to advertise growth of Moody as a good place to live in newspapers and TV. Rutledge said it starts with business, need new revenue and the heart of our city is Moody City Park – it brings people together.

Green said we are laying a good ground work with the new splash pad, civic center, new library, expanding senior center, bring in new business coupled with new school system.

Attendees at the forum got to know each of the potential council members and their ideas within the hour allotted for the Q&A. Although, some of the answers to the questions were similar, the forum gave candidates visibility and attendees information that can be evaluated and used as they go to the polls on August 23rd.