Fairfield City Council candidate Brian Horsfield answers The Union’s questions

Voters in Fairfield’s Ward 3 will go to the polls on Tuesday, Sept. 30 to elect a new city council member.

The Ward 3 seat has been vacant since the passing of council member Judy Ham in June. A special election was called to fill the seat on Sept. 2, but no candidate received 50 percent of the vote. This necessitated a runoff election between the top two vote-getters, Brian Horsfield and Victoria Thompson.

The special election will only be open to residents in Ward 3, the western and northwest part of town, and poll hours that day will be from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. at the Nazarene Family Center, 507 W. Briggs Ave. Absentee voting can be done in the Jefferson County Courthouse.

The Union sent a candidate questionnaire to Horsfield and Thompson. Here are The Union’s questions and Horsfield’s answers:

Why are you running for city council?

To provide a voice for the concerns of the people in Ward 3, as not a single person I have met there is in favor of the City’s plans to spend over $200,000 to replace the Walton Club’s golf cart bridge.

What makes you qualified to be a city council member?

I have the courage to speak up for my constituents when the City is ignoring their voices.

Have you been following the activities of the city council, and if so, can you explain how?

I first became involved in 2010 when the City Council had been blocking the implementation of a privately funded initiative to silence the train horns in Fairfield. I organized a public meeting at the library, which restarted the stalled project, which was completed in two years without any public funds expended. However, like most City residents, I don’t pay much attention to the City Council until there is a controversial issue.

In a recent vote of the council, its six members were evenly split between pausing vs. continuing the Walton Lake golf cart bridge project. Which of those two options do you support and why?

I’d vote to pause, absolutely. I would go further: I would vote for a motion to stop the project and return it to the Walton Club, because in my canvassing, I have not found a single resident of Ward 3 in favor of this project. Furthermore, I helped collect signatures for a petition to stop the project, which gathered over 300 signatures in under six hours at a recent Art Walk and Farmers Market.

My posts on Facebook on the subject draw almost universal condemnation of the City’s intention to spend over $200,000 when the primary beneficiaries are about 120 members of a private club. The bridge was built and paid for by the Walton Club twice before. The voice of every Ward 3 constituent that I spoke with that I hope to represent, is loud and clear: The Walton Club should be paying for the bridge replacement again, not the City.

What issues should the council focus on in the next few years?

The Walton Lake issue has demonstrated that the City's actions are not always in line with the majority of city residents. We need better ways for citizens to be heard by the City officials. Council members Doug Flournoy and Matthew Rowe have created an Ad Hoc Committee on Community Engagement that meets twice a month. It is open to anyone. Under the leadership of Anne Walton, the committee is developing Environmental, Social, Economic, and Sustainability (ESES) principles to guarantee citizen input at the start of major projects. This type of forum offers a model for more effective and inclusive citizen participation in the City's affairs.

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