LAWTON – As Lawton City Council candidate George Gill sees it, Lawton should move road repairs and infrastructure upgrades to the top of the city’s to-do list.
Gill is one of three candidates for the Ward 4 seat on the council, which is currently occupied by Councilman Jay Burk. Burk’s term ends in 2023, and he is not seeking re-election.
Gill will face Barbara Curry and Eric Sharum in the Aug. 23 primary election. The candidate who wins a simple majority of the vote – 50% plus one vote – will claim the seat.
If none of the candidates reach that threshold, a runoff election for the top two vote-getters will be Nov. 8.
Southwest Ledger recently interviewed Gill about his decision to run and other topics. Here are questions and answers from the interview, edited for clarity and length.
Q: What is your occupation?
A: I am a real estate developer and construction management.
Q: Have you run for or held public office before?
A: No.
Q: What made you decide to run this year?
A: My primary concerns, of course, are the way that the priorities are being made in the city. And when I say “priorities,” I’m talking about what money is spent for – priorities for our expenditures.
Q: Could you elaborate on that, please?
A: We’re spending a lot of money for different projects that are being worked on across the city, and also we’re spending money for real estate and property.
The priority to me is our infrastructure and our roads. We don’t seem to be looking seriously at this area – infrastructure and roads, roads mainly.
Q: Are you saying that the city should make roads and infrastructure a higher priority?
A: Yes. I’m saying the city should make its number-one priority our roads and infrastructure. Number one.
My concern on this is, you can’t grow Lawton and have a city that will attract new industry and new businesses if we can’t support those new businesses and industries with the proper infrastructure. The things that we’re spending money for, while some are good, we still need to do this. And I think it’s our top priority.
Q: What skills do you have that would make you an effective council member?
A: I’ve got quite a bit of experience in business, quite a bit of experience with on-hand development – like 50-plus years of doing both. I have several businesses, and they’ve all been very successful.
Q: Are you satisfied with the city’s current direction? Why or why not?
A: As I’ve already stated, no, I’m not satisfied. That’s why I’m running.
I’m not satisfied that the priorities that the city’s doing are in the order that they should be. I think we’re spending money on various projects that don’t have as high a priority as our roads.
Q: Some of the other candidates I’ve talked to have voiced concerns that the city’s not transparent enough, especially when it comes to spending taxpayer dollars.
A: Where’s that little paper I gave you (referring to his campaign flyer, which says, “We need accountability, transparency, open meetings for large expenditure.”) Do you have it? Look at it.
Do you see transparency on there? Those are the things, right there, that I think the city is not doing.
So, if you want to say, “Well, what do you think the city isn’t doing?” Just go right down that list I gave you.
Especially large expenditures without any public knowledge or meetings at all.
They’re looking at other large real estate projects to purchase also. I won’t get into detail by naming those because that’s all just discussion right now. But there are other projects that they’re willing to spend large amount of money on – acquisitions, maybe you should say.
Q: If elected, what steps would you support to promote greater transparency?
A: I’m going to be one councilman out of a group of several down there trying to promote transparency. So I’ll be very involved in the course of City Hall meetings, expressing my view. And I will also go one step further, and that’s to make sure my constituents are aware of any such large expenditures that have been planned in the future.
I believe that some of these, I would even go so far as to say we need to have a citywide vote on. Not just the council making those kinds of decisions. That’s a lot of money for a council to encumber citizens of this town. I’m not sure all the citizens of this town realize that every time the council spends money, they’re going to be responsible for it also. It looks like it’s always somebody else’s money, but really, it’s our money. And we’ve got to make that money good.
Q: Can you think of any recent large expenditures that the council approved without (public knowledge) …?
A: Yes, but I don’t want to get into it. I’m just leaving that vague because I’ll be discussing that if and when I get elected. And so, I don’t want to go there right now.
Q: A council member’s term is three years. If you are elected, what would you like to see the council accomplish over the next three years?
A: Number one, of course, that we would have a program in effect addressing and fixing our roads. That’s one thing I’d like to see get done.
I’d also like to see a budget where if we spend money, we have that money.
We just recently had this vote to increase the 15% (on utility rates), and that’s something I’m against. They just raised all of that, and that’s something the council did. We should have had a (citywide) vote on that. That affects a lot of people.
So basically, I would like to see a new road program with new roads being accomplished, as I stated. And also, the expenditures that the city’s doing need to be a little bit more accountable.
And no more raising of taxes. We need to work within the money we have.
Nobody wants their taxes raised, especially at a time of inflation of 10%.