Shooting for three : Coody throws name into Fayetteville mayoral race
Posted on Friday, July 11, 2008
Fayetteville Mayor Dan Coody shook up the race.
Coody, who announced in November that he would not seek re-election, said Thursday he will run for a third term as mayor.
“ I’m not going to go away, ” he declared more than once when he announced he was not going to seek re-election.
And he didn’t.
“ I’m sure there will be considerable blowback from this decision, and this decision was not made lightly at all, ” Coody said.
As recently as May, he said the only way he would seek a third term was if the choices for the public were between one extreme or the other.
“ I don’t think that’s going to be the case, ” Coody said then.
In June, he had a poll conducted that included his name among some of the other candidates “ to see where everybody stood in the horse race, ” he said.
Coody expects a hotly contested race.
“ I’ve been in elections before that were just brutalizing, ” he said. “ I’m not looking forward to that angle of it, but I’m willing to step back into the race if it means that at the end of the day, we can continue the direction and momentum we have in Fayetteville right now. ”
Surprise Coody’s announcement surprised candidate Steve Clark. “ I’m a little surprised since he told me three times that he didn’t want to be mayor, ” Clark said. “ That surprises me because I would have said he’s a man of his word, and that’s what he said. ”
However, Clark expressed some understanding of the situation.
“ I guess I’m a little empathetic. I stayed in a job too long one time. I thought they couldn’t do that job without me, ” he said of his 12 years as Arkansas attorney general. “ As a voter, you don’t want (the mayor’s job ) one week; you don’t want it one month; you don’t want it several months. All of a sudden, you want it; you don’t want it. That’s troubling to me as a voter. ”
Ward 4 Alderman and mayoral candidate Lioneld Jordan said he wasn’t the least surprised by Coody’s change of mind.
The candidate said he has told his campaign committee since February that he expected Coody to run.
“ We have actually geared our campaign with him getting in the race, ” Jordan said. “ We’re going to run the same race we were going to run before. ”
“ All the candidates bring their strengths to the table, and I think everyone knows what my strengths are, ” Coody said. “ I’m willing to add my perspective to the list of candidates. Democracy is better served when there are more choices, not fewer. ”
Issues For the most part, Coody did not talk about specific issues or programs Thursday. “ Everyone brings their own perspective and passion to the table, ” he said. “ My passion is for the improvement of Fayetteville’s quality of life, which is multifaceted, from local economy to infrastructure, to the community aesthetic, to roadwork. We have some things that are coming to fruition that are going to change the face of Fayetteville for the better for a long, long time to come. ” Coody said he will discuss those more at his formal announcement next week.
He did talk about the economy and Fayetteville’s image as being unfriendly to business.
“ I know we have a lot of work to do in Fayetteville to repair an image that we are not business friendly, ” he said. “ I think some of that reputation is undeserved; some of it is deserved. ”
He said that image is one of the top issues that needs to be addressed.
“ All of the good things we enjoy in Fayetteville, if it’s the Walton Arts Center, if it’s our park system, if it’s the sustainability movement, if it’s better traffic flow, none of these things would be possible without a strong business base, ” Coody said.
According to the mayor, Fayetteville’s economy is doing better than most cities.
Fayetteville is in good financial shape because of conservative spending, said Coody, who emphasized the need for a continuing positive outlook.
“ We have to capitalize on the coming economy that will help us get out of this slump, and Fayetteville is perfectly positioned to do that, ” he said. “ That’s very exciting to me. ”
The mayor said the city needs to deal with the shortterm problems of a sluggish economy but also needs to take the time to focus on long-term solutions. “ While we’re doing a lot of things right and we’ve really changed the direction of Fayetteville over the last seven years, there’s still a lot of room for improvement, ” he said. “ I want to focus on strengthening our relationship with the business community and seeing that as we grow, all the plans we have put into place provide a blueprint for future development. ”
Changed mind Coody said his decision to enter the race was a “ very tough, tough decision. ” He said that at the time he announced he wouldn’t run, he thought it would be better to focus on the job of mayor rather than on fundraising and campaigning.
“ What has happened, unexpectedly, is that taking some time to breathe and assess everything, looking back seven years and actually realizing all the accomplishments we all made, and I see things coming out of the ground now that were seeds we planted years ago and we’ve been nurturing, now they’re coming out of the ground even more beautifully than I ever could have imagined, ” he said. “ I am so energized and fired up to continue this trend, I just can’t stand it. ”
He is also proud of the city’s leadership role in the nation.
“ As I’ve said before, the most important thing that I see is that Fayetteville maintain the direction and the movement that we have right now because we have achieved not only a lot of things for the citizens of our town, we’ve achieved a leadership role in the nation, ” he said. “ If Fayetteville cannot only improve itself but we can be an influence to other cities to improve themselves, then we’re making the world a better place one step at a time. ”
Survey Coody would not share the numbers or rankings discovered in the telephone poll he had conducted last month. “ I shared the results of the poll with some of the candidates so everyone could assess their strength in the community, and I told them I would share that with them only, so I’m not comfortable sharing it with anyone else, ” he explained. He paid for the poll out of his own pocket, he said. Coody shared some of the poll results with Clark. Clark said what he heard was that Fayetteville voters have not made up their minds about who they want to have for mayor.
“ There were more undecideds than there were decideds, ” he said.
Jordan was not one of the candidates with whom Coody shared poll results.
Jordan’s campaign committee has been running an issue poll. It expects results to be compiled by early September.
“ We don’t have all the results back from that, but it’s been very, very pleasing for our camp, ” Jordan said. “ It looks real good. ”
He said the issues he hears about are open-door government, economic issues, accountability, decisiveness, being responsible and responsiveness.
Election Coody is the fifth active candidate seeking the mayor’s seat in the Nov. 4 election. The filing period for the race opens Aug. 6 with a deadline of noon Aug. 26. In addition to Clark, Coody and Jordan, Walt Eilers and Adam Fire Cat have announced they will run. Neither candidate could be reached Thursday. Jeff Koenig withdrew his name from consideration in April for health reasons, and Fayetteville Chamber of Commerce President Bill Ramsey considered a mayoral run but decided against it. “ There’s certainly no guarantee I’m going to win re-election, ” Coody said. “ I expect stiff competition. I expect full debate, and the public may be ready for different leadership. If that happens, then that happens. ”
FEEDBACK:
Something to say about this topic? Submit a Letter to the Editor online
