Dunkirk mayor facing challenge

DUNKIRK — Political charges and counter-charges continue to fly as the May 3 Democratic mayoral primary election draws closer.
Incumbent Mayor Ron Hunt is facing a stiff challenge from former Dunkirk city councilman Dan Watson, who has been critical of several of Hunt’s recent moves.
Hunt, 56, was born in Ohio but moved to Dunkirk and graduated from Dunkirk High School.
Hunt and wife Penny have two grown daughters and several grandchildren.
A resident of Dunkirk for more than 30 years, Hunt has been employed at Meshberger Brothers Stone Corporation, Portland, for 23 years.
Watson, 49, and his wife, Kelly, have three children.
Watson previously served nine years on the council, including a stint as council president. Watson is a graduate of Delta High School, with an engineering degree from Tri-State University, Angola (now Trine University).
He has served on the Dunkirk Planning Commission as well as the Dunkirk Industrial Development Corporation and the Jay County Development Corporation.
He has been employed as Jay County engineer for more than 20 years.
Hunt said he is running on his record and feels that he deserves to be re-elected to a second term in office.
Watson disagrees, saying he wants to put Dunkirk back on the right track to move forward into the future.
Watson said he was especially upset by the mayor’s decision to try to have what Watson calls an alley next to Hunt’s house renamed as a street and included with a list of areas to be resurfaced following water main repairs.
“No way” that alley should be called a street and then paved at a cost of $4,500, Watson said, “Not with the way funding is right now. … It’d be different if all the streets were in good shape.” Given the city’s current economic condition, the idea of paving that alley is “ridiculous.”
However, in an interview last week Hunt said that the alley issue had “just gotten blown out of proportion.”
Hunt said that he still believes the West High Street-alley should be resurfaced at city expense, as it was damaged by city workers who made water main repairs in that area last year.
However, he said that having the street department put up a Meridian and West High Street sign in that area was a “problem of miscommunication” between himself and street department workers.
The mayor said the original intention was to have the city workers put up the Meridian and West High Street sign at Hunt’s personal expense in a section of his own lawn — not as a regular city street sign.
The sign has since been taken down altogether.
Hunt pointed out that in 2008, the city council approved a set of regulations concerning the repair of street cuts made by city workers.
“Repairs on water or sewer cuts in streets, alleys or yards is the responsibility of the department, utility or contractor that makes these cuts,” the regulations state.
In this case the responsible party is the water department, Hunt said.
These regulations also state: “Cuts in streets or digging in alleys will be put back if it is blacktop or gravel, blacktop or gravel will be put back like they found it.”
Hunt continued, “It’s an election year — everybody’s got to make a big deal out of stuff.”
Hunt added, “On (the question of) the alley being paved — no ifs, ands or buts — that’s what the council all agreed upon (in its 2008 list of regulations),” saying the alley will continue to remain on the list scheduled for repair work.     
The mayor’s position in Dunkirk is part-time, but Watson said that he plans to be more accessible than Hunt, setting up a schedule of office hours.
Watson criticized the incumbent for not being active enough with regional planning groups such as the Jay County Development Corporation.
“We’ve got an opportunity for participation, but he (Hunt) doesn’t participate,” Watson said.
Hunt said that setting up regular office hours is difficult when holding a full-time job that includes overtime.
“I can’t leave my job to go to meetings or whatever unless I get permission,” he said.
Hunt said he has responded to the needs of citizens late at night or on weekends.
During a period of heavy rainfall this spring, Hunt said that he was called at 1:30 a.m. and then worked right along side city employees to help residents.
“I was right out in the rain,” Hunt said.Watson also emphasized the need to enforce ordinances already on the books, especially in connection with cleaning up dilapidated properties and controlling weeds and litter.
Watson said he believes city officials should enforce existing ordinances rather than create new ones.
The mayor countered, “Ordinances on the books — we try to enforce all of them but some have to be amended … to keep them current.” About the property cleanup situation, Hunt said that Dunkirk is like other communities in that it costs a lot to tear down structures and clean things up, and city officials don’t have enough money.
“We only had $1,600 in our funds for stuff like that. That doesn’t go very far,” Hunt said.
Watson said the city needs to get a handle on its finances, and that there should be better communication between the clerk-treasurer’s office and the mayor.
 “The clerk is an elected official. We can’t tell her how to run her office. We tried,” Hunt responded, adding that during one council session when he wasn’t present, the current clerk-treasurer, Jane Kesler, made a point of saying: “He (Hunt) is not my boss.”
The mayor continued, “But other than that, we communicate pretty good. She helps me with what I need … It’s just that none of us can tell her how to run her office. She was elected.”
Watson also criticized what he described as the circus atmosphere of the council meetings. “I guarantee you my meetings will run smoother. It won’t be a circus over here.”
The candidate added, “I don’t have a problem with people speaking at the council meetings, but not all at once.”
Hunt said he agreed that not everyone should be talking at the council meetings at once. “That’s why I bought the gavel,” Hunt added, noting that he felt recent city council meetings had “gone pretty smooth.”
Employee morale was another issue that Watson said he wanted to address. “We’ve lost a lot of good people,” Watson said, noting, “with a town this small, it’s unusual that we’ve had this many problems with employees.”
“This is the first I’ve heard (of morale problems),” Hunt said, adding, “We’ve lost people … but they quit. They weren’t fired,” Hunt said.
Hunt has stressed the benefits of several new programs he had helped launch. Those included the Dunkirk Police Department’s first K-9 patrol unit as well as an upgraded radio communications system for the police department and putting the police department’s new 4-wheel drive SUV into service.
Also the mayor pointed out that the city has been busy making infrastructure improvements, primarily for the water and wastewater treatment departments. Construction is currently under way on a new water treatment plant, and sections of old water mains are being replaced.
Hunt added, “I think we’ve done quite a bit since I came into office. I think we’ve accomplished a lot in the last three and a half years.”
The incumbent mayor added, “I just hope I did a good enough job to keep doing it for the next four years and beyond.”
Meanwhile Watson is trying his best to prevent that from happening.
When asked why he decided to run for mayor, Watson said that he was more or less drafted. “A lot of people asked me to run. I hope I can do a good job. I think I can.”[[In-content Ad]]