"My family has deep roots in Colonial Heights dating back back nearly 60 years. This is my home, where I raised my family, where my children attended school from Kindergarten through graduation. As your representative on City Council I will fight to make Colonial Heights a better place to live, work, and raise a family." - Brad Slaybaugh
BRAD ON THE ISSUES THAT MATTER MOST
EDUCATION
First and foremost - we must ensure PARENTS always have a say and input in their children's education. I trust parents, way more than the government, to make decisions for what is best for their children's education.
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Our schools have some of the best and highly skilled teachers - yet our high school is the oldest of any of our neighboring districts. Our teachers and students deserve better. Anytime proposals come forward to make much needed improvements to our schools, we are always told the only way it's possible is to raise taxes. That's just not true and the easy way to ensure we are stuck in the past with aging and outdated schools. I will work to ensure we can make much needed improvements to our aging school infrastructure - without raising taxes. If we want to train our students for the workforce of the future - we must invest in our schools, our teachers and our students.
PUBLIC SAFETY
Our police and fire personnel are the first to run towards danger when everyone else is running away. We must
ensure they are fully funded to protect our families - as your City Councilman I will always back the blue.
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I recently did a ride along with our Colonial Heights Police Department. I was impressed with the professionalism our officers display on every call they respond to. I was also shocked to learn how often our police officers must not only serve as enforcers of the law but also they have to be prepared to serve as mental health counselors in many situations. We must ensure our department is fully funded to be able to deal with the areas of the city that see more calls for service. If elected, I plan to constantly meet with personnel at our police and fire departments to be responsive to the needs they have.
CITY IMPROVEMENTS
Come off I-95 at the Temple Avenue exit and look at the roundabout that has now been there for nearly 7 years. It is a barren and unwelcoming entrance to our city that thousands pass every day as they enter Colonial Heights. This roundabout may not be the largest of issues facing our city, but I feel its indicative of a larger problem. Too often, leaders drag their feet and make excuses to not just get the job done. How do we expect other companies and corporations to invest in our city if we aren't willing to invest in ourselves first?
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If elected, I will ensure every entrance to our city is as welcoming as our residents and businesses that call Colonial Heights home. But we have to do more than that. Traveling our city, I hear from resident after resident who say they have tried for years to get a pothole repaired or a street light fixed or a city tree taken down. If elected, I will enact strict tracking methods that track a complaint or issue from submission to completion. Our citizens pay taxes - they deserve city services that reflect the taxes they are paying.
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This also applies to other major infrastructure improvements. It's no secret our city has aging infrastructure and we can't fix it all overnight. But, too often I hear the excuse 'we can fix it but we are going to have to raise taxes'. That is just a misguided way of thinking. We need to be creative in finding ways to ensure citizen tax dollars are being collected and spent in the most fiscally responsible way possible. Some roads and water pipes are way past their useable age, yet on average we replace two roads a year. At this rate, by the time we fix all the cities roads and water infrastructure we will have to start over. We must prioritize this to the benefit of all city residents.
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If elected, I can make you this promise. I will not be a councilman of excuses - rather I will be someone who focuses on results and getting things done for my hometown and the citizens who live here.
TAXES
If you haven't already learned - I am a fiscal conservative who believes in lower taxes. As your councilman, I will work everyday to ensure your tax dollars are being spent in a fiscally responsible way and I will work to find areas where we can make taxes for Colonial Heights residents more affordable.
CARING FOR OUR SENIORS
Our senior citizens have given years of service to our city, our commonwealth and to our country. We owe it to them to protect the investments they have made in us and to care for them and support programs that make it easier for them to live our their golden years. We have many great programs and activities that cater to our senior citizens, but we must work to make those programs more accessible and more inviting to our Colonial Heights Seniors. And when it comes to other city services, we must realize that senior citizens aren't as comfortable using digital or other new technology to register issues they are having with city services. Therefore, we must make it easier for them to interact with their city government and we must be willing to meet them where they are to ensure their needs are being met.
BUILDING OUR CITY FOR THE FUTURE
Our schools educate our students and most of them typically move away after graduation to localities that have better paying jobs, and a wider selection of industries to begin a career in. We must actively recruit new businesses and diverse industries to open in Colonial Heights that will create great paying jobs and keep more of our Colonials here at home. We can do all of this while still protecting the small town atmosphere that we have grown to love in Colonial Heights.
If elected, I will form a taskforce of local business leaders, real estate developers and investors to help design an aggressive and creative marketing campaign focused on bringing more industries to Colonial Heights. If we do this, we can recruit businesses that will be welcomed additions to our city to create jobs and that will bring new families to our city and it will hopefully be an encouragement to families who were born and raised in Colonial Heights to move back home.
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And I can't say it enough. We have to look hard at the Southpark Mall property. That is our largest retail space in the City and has been going struggling for years. Many residents no longer patron the establishments there and longtime anchor tannates are closing up and leaving. We must fix this.
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