NeSmith focused on transparency, downtown development

City Commissioner Sharon NeSmith, who is completing her first 12 months on the commission, said she approaches issues and requests by first seeing if it fits with the city’s mission statement.

“One of the things I’ve always done in any of my careers is, when there are things that are questionable and you’re not sure what your decision should be, you go back to basics,” NeSmith said.

“The city of Owensboro’s mission statement is public safety, efficiency and effectiveness (government) ... economic development, neighborhood qualitative value and community facilities,” NeSmith said. “If someone comes to me with an issue, I look to that to see ‘where does it fall in that line?’ ”

NeSmith, who is general manager of the Hampton Inn and Suites Owensboro Waterfront, is seeking to retain the seat she was first appointed to and then elected to last year.

The city needs a “balance” on economic development, NeSmith said.

On sports tourism, that will continue to grow with the construction of the indoor sports complex downtown, NeSmith said.

“Owensboro is in a circle of a four-five hour geographic area” from which to attract sports teams, NeSmith said. Other cities that have grown sports tourism “provided a large enough environment and facility where they could handle large crowds,” she said.

The indoor Sportsplex will draw teams to the city in traditionally slow months in the winter, NeSmith said.

Sports tourism creates repeat visitors, NeSmith said. “(People say) they’ll be back, that they didn’t know we had (Smothers) Park and the RiverPark Center.”

Tourism is important to community small businesses, she said.

NeSmith said she would work to help create an artist colony downtown focused on bluegrass music.

“That would complete what the whole downtown vision was,” NeSmith said.

NeSmith also said she would support the creation of a new position, of downtown coordinator, through the EDC or Chamber of Commerce. The city could help subsidize the coordinator position, NeSmith said.

NeSmith said a goal is to be as transparent as possible with residents about issues.

“The best thing that I do when I deal with individual concerns or questions is I make sure I’ve researched, so I can tell them what happened in the past, or hadn’t happened, and why we did it,” NeSmith said.

NeSmith said she would like city commissioners to discuss citizen requests and concerns during the “public comments” portion of commission meetings “where we could at least give them some basic information of facts about it,” she said.

NeSmith said she would also support having public meetings were city staff and commissioners talk about issues. Currently, when commissioners meet with city staff, they can only meet in groups of one or two to avoid violating the open meetings law.

“I think the Churchill (Downs) thing could have been much better handled, if we are all around the table” and discussed the topic before it was brought up during a meeting for a vote, NeSmith said.

NeSmith said she wants to continue looking into transportation options for people traveling to and from work outside of normal bus service hours.

NeSmith said she keeps an open mind about issues, and does research.

“You do what the facts tell you, and want benefits the most people,” she said.

James Mayse, 270-691-7303, jmayse@messenger-inquirer.com, Twitter: @JamesMayse