Juanita
Gonzalez
Occupation: Owner of "Errands for You"
District you
are running in 8
Campaign
Manager: Self
Daytime Phone
Number: 910-868-6466
Address: 222 Wickford Ct. Fayetteville, NC 28314
Campaign
Email:
Campaign
Website:
List most recent
political/community experience (provide dates):
Fayetteville City
council, Cumberland County Board of Commissioners, Cumberland County Board of
Education, Ft. Bragg/Pope Air Force Base Regional Land Use Advisory Commission,
Mid-Carolina Council of Government Board, Mid-Carolina Regional Human Resources
Board, Cape Fear Valley Board of Trustees, Cumberland County Mental Health
Board, Cumberland County Youth Services Advisory Board, Cumberland County
Juvenile Task Force, Dispute Resolution Board
What
business/civic organizations are you associated with (list leadership roles):
Cumberland
Community Action Program, Board Member
Republican
Women's Club, Member
As a
candidate, what are your top three policy issues?
City Wide Sewer
Extension
Initiatives
towards a Cleaner City
Initiatives
towards a Safer City
What specific
NEW initiative would you suggest for economic growth in Fayetteville? How would
it be implemented? I am
working on two new initiatives right now that will hopefully be implemented quite
soon. One is an inspection certification program that will require landlords of
rental properties to be inspected and required to meet the minimum housing
codes before such a property can be rented. This will protect the owner, the
renter, and even better; will encourage well-maintained properties in our
neighborhoods. The other initiative is working with the county on our municipal
influence areas (MIA) that will help guide growth in our city and county.
Can
Fayetteville and Cumberland County successfully consolidate/merge their
governments? What would be the benefits/problems of consolidating the two into
one? That is the
million-dollar question! I will pledge that I will continue to study and work
towards city and county department consolidation in order to stop duplicating
services and to streamline paperwork and questions from our business people and
our citizens.
What do you
believe to be the city council’s greatest accomplishments and disappointments
in the last two years? Greatest
accomplishments have been the hiring of a new city manager and a new police
chief which have provided us with better ideas and initiatives to run city
government and provide services to our citizens and working more cooperatively
with other entities. Better buffers between residential and commercial
properties, providing more green space, maintaining high standards in new
developments, and working towards a recycling program have all been positive
strides toward a better city and a better quality of life for a our citizens.
Disappointments include the loss of the Hope VI project downtown and not
solving our transit system problem quick enough.
How should the
city best leverage the impact of the BRAC process? We must be positive about ourselves! We must
attract people and businesses to Fayetteville by having a clean city with safe
streets and neighborhoods, an impressive school system providing quality
education to our children, good paying jobs for spouses, and fabulous cultural
and entertainment venues. We must be ready with our great southern hospitality
and maintain partnerships with our military community and Ft. Bragg. Hopefully,
this will attract people connected with BRAC to want to live, worship, and play
in our city therefore helping support our growing economic and social
environments.
How the city
council and the business community can work more effectively to build a better
workforce? We all need to
continue to work together and encourage partnerships with FTCC, FSU, Methodist,
and our school system to motivate more training and educational programs for
jobs of great need, i.e. police officers, fire personnel, nursing. Business
community can continue to help put together these partnerships by knowing the
needs of the businesses. We need to have a better-educated and better-trained
workforce which will and can "step it up a notch" to provide our
current businesses a better employee pool to choose from and also attract new
businesses to locate in Fayetteville.
What would you
do to work cooperatively with the other members of the city council? I already work very cooperatively with other
members of city council. I see no district lines, therefore I can be seen all
over this city listening and helping people. I constantly work with other
council members with assistance to problems in their districts. I respect a
council members opinion about what is happening in their district because if
anyone should know, it should be them. We all need to prioritize these problems
and work towards a solution. Everyone needs to understand "teamwork"
and keep the lines of communication open.
