Ryan G. Dayvault: Issues and Platform
The retainment of those who grow up here should be priority number one. We must end the "brain drain" or "youth drain" that this community is experiencing due to the lack of employment or lack of "things to do". The Greatest Generation and the Baby Boomers had Downtown Kannapolis to go eat, go shopping and go to the movies. The later generations do not and have not had this. Thankfully the Gem Theatre has survived all of these years and for that I am thankful. Without the Gem, downtown Kannapolis would be vacant most nights of the week, minus the Car Cruise-In.
I believe that all of Kannapolis should have a part in the "new Kannapolis" without Cannon Mills as the main employer. I believe that all citizens should have a downtown that they can be proud of once again and one that all walks of life can enjoy as it once was. The vision of J.W. Cannon was to create a sustainable community that would function as a place for families to live, work, and play. Mr. Cannon was a true visionary that knew of this concept before the naming of this concept. He put this into full effect immediately as he built the mills and provided recreational and retail opportunities to all of those in the town. Cannon embraced a sense of small business ownership that flourished alongside the big name stores of the era, such as Goodnight's Clothing Store, Query Brothers, Virginia's, Hoffman's Confectionary, and Ketner's Grocery Stores. They faced competition with J.C. Penney, Belks, Montgomery Wards, Woolworth's, A&P, Winn-Dixie, just to name a few. All of these stores were very successful. I am of the opinion we can restore this entrepreneurial spirit right in downtown Kannapolis, where it all started in 1906. I have heard many folks inside and outside the community, who call themselves experts, say that Kannapolis cannot support such businesses, as people are much more mobile these days and can easily travel to Concord, Salisbury, China Grove, Mooresville, Huntersville, etc to get this atmosphere and strong business environment. I do not believe these "experts" on this issue, as I believe that the people of Kannapolis crave the atmosphere that it used to have and that these other communities still have. In other words, the people of Kannapolis crave a functional downtown and will support it if it were there.
The City of Kannapolis must push the rebirth of the downtown, as well as all of the other "original smaller neighborhood" business districts, such as North Kannapolis, Carver, Centerview, Midway, etc. so that these communities can become stronger and therefore create a "greener" city by reducing the travels needed outside of Kannapolis. This must be accomplished with public-private partnerships for each of these or a combination of these neighborhoods. Since the purchase of downtown Kannapolis is nearing completion, our ability to revitalize downtown is significantly increased. With our partnership with UNC Chapel Hill's School of Government, we will seek out private developers to re-invest in and revitalize and restore downtown to the place that our community deserves.
I also believe that city council must push forward with a strong economic development agenda in general, to diversify the city's economy. We can no longer depend on one source or one developer to save the city and continue to fund all large economic activity in the city, whether it is Mr. Cannon or Mr. Murdock. This is simply bad policy regardless of individuals involved. Mr. Murdock undertook a huge project in the NC Research Campus and we need to be thankful for the jobs it has created, but unless some efforts are exerted by our city council to expand upon this and create a business friendly environment to all, the thousands of jobs initially promised by the campus will not happen.
We need to examine the pros and cons to getting the downtown recognized as a historic district, in order to protect the historic the buildings from demolition. These buildings have character and remain one of the symbols of Kannapolis.
I understand the issues that the campus faces as well as the issues the citizens face throughout this community. I was directly impacted by the closure of the mill and know many people who are still without work or underemployed due to the lack of jobs in this community. We must actively recruit distribution centers, manufacturing, and service industry jobs to Kannapolis so that everyone has an opportunity once again to make a decent living in Kannapolis. Industrial jobs should not be looked down upon as "lower standard" jobs; industry is what built the middle class in America that represents what being an American truly is all about. The continued recruitment of high-tech and university jobs must continue as well, and should be just a high priority by the city.
While creating jobs is very important, balancing our city budget off the backs of citizens must end. We must pursue industrial and commercial developments that will redistribute the tax load from the citizen to the business sector, without driving business away. This is a balancing act that will take years to implement, but it must be a high priority. In all of this, keeping a competitive and low tax rate is very important.
We must as city council help market the new commercial recycling program in order to increase levels of recycling in our community and thus help lower our impact on the environment and potentially lower our recycling costs to citizens. We must support Public Works efforts to reduce the amount of trash produced by our citizens and implement a bi-weekly trash collection schedule and weekly recycling pickup.
Public safety is very important for the city's economic development. We must continue to build our public safety departments into high level services. The City has finally built a new city hall and police department, thus ending years of rental payments on substandard facilities.
Now that the City of Kannapolis has assumed ownership of Fieldcrest Cannon Stadium, we must push for public-private partnerships to strengthen the exit 63 area to build off of the baseball team's being here in Kannapolis. The stadium and team are unique to this community and we must make this work. The old stadium must be re-purposed into a multi-sport complex as it was originally envisioned with the private sector or redeveloped into a job creation opportunity for our residents, along with the Brantley Estates Property on the opposite side of I-85.
The new Exit 65 on I-85 will be within the City of Kannapolis and will provide the area new opportunities for living, working, and playing in Southern Rowan County. I have pushed for years for the Rowan side of Kannapolis to get a fair opportunity and this will spur much growth. An estimated $500 million in investment will occur there, with new housing, parks, mountain bike paths, and retail/restaurants.This is going to be an exciting, new exit and part of our city limits.
We must market our older communities as well as our newer communities, such as the westside annexations of the past decade. The newer areas are prime areas for industrial development that could provide thousands of jobs to our good citizens. Our landing of Gordon Food Service with a very creative and historic incentive package and partnering with Childress Klein to build a 325,000 sf spec building is evidence of our commitment to bringing jobs to our community.
We also must and need to build upon the Parks and Recreation efforts that have been implemented over the past 10 years. Village Park is one of the shining examples of how people will make Kannapolis a destination if we have something to offer, such as our parks.
I believe that all of Kannapolis should have a part in the "new Kannapolis" without Cannon Mills as the main employer. I believe that all citizens should have a downtown that they can be proud of once again and one that all walks of life can enjoy as it once was. The vision of J.W. Cannon was to create a sustainable community that would function as a place for families to live, work, and play. Mr. Cannon was a true visionary that knew of this concept before the naming of this concept. He put this into full effect immediately as he built the mills and provided recreational and retail opportunities to all of those in the town. Cannon embraced a sense of small business ownership that flourished alongside the big name stores of the era, such as Goodnight's Clothing Store, Query Brothers, Virginia's, Hoffman's Confectionary, and Ketner's Grocery Stores. They faced competition with J.C. Penney, Belks, Montgomery Wards, Woolworth's, A&P, Winn-Dixie, just to name a few. All of these stores were very successful. I am of the opinion we can restore this entrepreneurial spirit right in downtown Kannapolis, where it all started in 1906. I have heard many folks inside and outside the community, who call themselves experts, say that Kannapolis cannot support such businesses, as people are much more mobile these days and can easily travel to Concord, Salisbury, China Grove, Mooresville, Huntersville, etc to get this atmosphere and strong business environment. I do not believe these "experts" on this issue, as I believe that the people of Kannapolis crave the atmosphere that it used to have and that these other communities still have. In other words, the people of Kannapolis crave a functional downtown and will support it if it were there.
The City of Kannapolis must push the rebirth of the downtown, as well as all of the other "original smaller neighborhood" business districts, such as North Kannapolis, Carver, Centerview, Midway, etc. so that these communities can become stronger and therefore create a "greener" city by reducing the travels needed outside of Kannapolis. This must be accomplished with public-private partnerships for each of these or a combination of these neighborhoods. Since the purchase of downtown Kannapolis is nearing completion, our ability to revitalize downtown is significantly increased. With our partnership with UNC Chapel Hill's School of Government, we will seek out private developers to re-invest in and revitalize and restore downtown to the place that our community deserves.
I also believe that city council must push forward with a strong economic development agenda in general, to diversify the city's economy. We can no longer depend on one source or one developer to save the city and continue to fund all large economic activity in the city, whether it is Mr. Cannon or Mr. Murdock. This is simply bad policy regardless of individuals involved. Mr. Murdock undertook a huge project in the NC Research Campus and we need to be thankful for the jobs it has created, but unless some efforts are exerted by our city council to expand upon this and create a business friendly environment to all, the thousands of jobs initially promised by the campus will not happen.
We need to examine the pros and cons to getting the downtown recognized as a historic district, in order to protect the historic the buildings from demolition. These buildings have character and remain one of the symbols of Kannapolis.
I understand the issues that the campus faces as well as the issues the citizens face throughout this community. I was directly impacted by the closure of the mill and know many people who are still without work or underemployed due to the lack of jobs in this community. We must actively recruit distribution centers, manufacturing, and service industry jobs to Kannapolis so that everyone has an opportunity once again to make a decent living in Kannapolis. Industrial jobs should not be looked down upon as "lower standard" jobs; industry is what built the middle class in America that represents what being an American truly is all about. The continued recruitment of high-tech and university jobs must continue as well, and should be just a high priority by the city.
While creating jobs is very important, balancing our city budget off the backs of citizens must end. We must pursue industrial and commercial developments that will redistribute the tax load from the citizen to the business sector, without driving business away. This is a balancing act that will take years to implement, but it must be a high priority. In all of this, keeping a competitive and low tax rate is very important.
We must as city council help market the new commercial recycling program in order to increase levels of recycling in our community and thus help lower our impact on the environment and potentially lower our recycling costs to citizens. We must support Public Works efforts to reduce the amount of trash produced by our citizens and implement a bi-weekly trash collection schedule and weekly recycling pickup.
Public safety is very important for the city's economic development. We must continue to build our public safety departments into high level services. The City has finally built a new city hall and police department, thus ending years of rental payments on substandard facilities.
Now that the City of Kannapolis has assumed ownership of Fieldcrest Cannon Stadium, we must push for public-private partnerships to strengthen the exit 63 area to build off of the baseball team's being here in Kannapolis. The stadium and team are unique to this community and we must make this work. The old stadium must be re-purposed into a multi-sport complex as it was originally envisioned with the private sector or redeveloped into a job creation opportunity for our residents, along with the Brantley Estates Property on the opposite side of I-85.
The new Exit 65 on I-85 will be within the City of Kannapolis and will provide the area new opportunities for living, working, and playing in Southern Rowan County. I have pushed for years for the Rowan side of Kannapolis to get a fair opportunity and this will spur much growth. An estimated $500 million in investment will occur there, with new housing, parks, mountain bike paths, and retail/restaurants.This is going to be an exciting, new exit and part of our city limits.
We must market our older communities as well as our newer communities, such as the westside annexations of the past decade. The newer areas are prime areas for industrial development that could provide thousands of jobs to our good citizens. Our landing of Gordon Food Service with a very creative and historic incentive package and partnering with Childress Klein to build a 325,000 sf spec building is evidence of our commitment to bringing jobs to our community.
We also must and need to build upon the Parks and Recreation efforts that have been implemented over the past 10 years. Village Park is one of the shining examples of how people will make Kannapolis a destination if we have something to offer, such as our parks.