LAWTON – Candidates competing for seats on the Lawton City Council fielded questions on topics including homelessness, street repairs and transparency during a recent candidates forum.
The Lawton League of Women Voters hosted the Aug. 31 forum, at VFW Post 5263 in Lawton. The event gave voters a chance to hear from the candidates before the Sept. 9 municipal election.
The candidates are:
• Ward 3: Paul Greene, Charlie Pulliam and Kirby Brown.
• Ward 4: Tiffiney Dimery, Andrew Norris, George Gill (I), David Stebleton and Ronald Ballew.
• Ward 5: Allan Hampton (I) and David Burkett.
If none of the candidates capture more than 50% of the vote in the primary, the top vote-getters will advance to the general election in November.
Addressing homelessness The candidates proposed various approaches to addressing homelessness, which has become a major issue in Lawton.
Kirby Brown said he recently attended a meeting of the mayor’s task force on homelessness, where he learned that several organizations are working to address the problem. He said he took two key lessons from that meeting.
“One: I was encouraged by what I saw that the problem is being taken serious by the city, and they’re looking at all kinds of alternatives,” Brown said. “The other one is, as I put in the paper this morning: I couldn’t help but think, as I watched all of the large number of groups that do that, there has to be a way to stack the effort in a collaborative fashion to be more efficient so that they can use the resources better to continue what they’re doing.”
Paul Greene said local and statewide nonprofit organizations should work together to address homelessness. He said the city does not have all the answers to the problem, but it can provide paths to help people who are experiencing homelessness.
“The solution will always have to be moving because sometimes it’s economic,” Greene said. “Sometimes there’s some other issues – family issues. It’s going to be different for every single situation.”
Charlie Pulliam said Lawton must do more than simply move homeless people who are living in tent cities away from their campsites.
“Find out what the root cause of homelessness is,” he said. “Sometimes it’s economic. Sometimes it’s influenced by substance abuse or so forth. Sometimes it’s a family crisis.” Repairing city streets The candidates also shared their thoughts about the steps the city should take to improve its infrastructure, including street repairs.
George Gill, who chairs the city’s Streets and Bridges Committee, said the city tackled 40 road projects in 2024 and is planning to start another 105 projects this fall.
“This is all taking place, for the most part, in the old part of town, and it’s really making a difference,” he said. “I think people are really, really happy with it.”
Andrew Norris said he would like to see the city pay less interest in the money it borrows for road improvements.
“In all honesty, we need to find ways to refinance that stuff so all that tax money doesn’t go to the interest rates,” he said.
Tiffiney Dimery said she thought the city should focus on fixing the streets that are prone to flooding after heavy rains.
“I would say those particular areas – those flood zone areas – those need to be prioritized,” she said. “Because when it rains like that, those are bad areas.”
Allan Hampton, who serves on the streets committee along with Gill, said there’s a difference between repairing a road and replacing it. He said replacing a road involves taking the old pavement out and installing a new one.
“One of the problems that we find in doing that is if you don’t replace the water and the sewer lines underneath, you end up destroying the new road to get to the repairs,” Hampton said. “So we’ve laid probably 50 miles of water (lines), 50 miles of sewer, trying to prepare ourselves.” Improving transparency The candidates also discussed their ideas for making city government more transparent.
David Burkett said he would like to see council members host regular town hall meetings in their wards, to promote better communication between council members and their constituents.
“That way, the people are more involved in what’s going on,” Burkett said. “I don’t know if it happens a lot, but that’s what I think we need to do.”
David Stebleton also said he liked the idea of having meetings where council members could discuss city issues with constituents.
“I believe in transparency. So, I believe having a town hall meeting, I think, would be a great idea to keep the citizens of our wards informed,” he said.
Ronald Ballew said people who want to keep tabs on City Hall can check out the Lawton- focused groups on Facebook.
“We discuss the agenda on Facebook,” he said. “We say what we like and what we don’t like. And believe it or not, the council members are reading that stuff.”