Moses Todd Q&A

Web posted October 11, 1998

From Staff Reports

The Augusta Chronicle will ask each of the six mayoral candidates specific questions. Here are the questions and candidate Moses Todd's responses:

Q: It is four years from now, 2002. You've finished a four-year term as mayor. What's different as a result of your administration?

MAYORS RACE  THE MAYOR'S RACE Each week until the Nov. 4 election, The Augusta Chronicle will feature a candidate running for Augusta-Richmond County mayor. Check back each Sunday for a new profile. •Ed McIntyre •Larry Sconyers •Elmer Singley •Moses Todd •Kenneth Winters •Bob Young  Q&A The Chronicle asks each candidate specific questions about their abilities and goals. Here are their answers. •Ed McIntyre •Larry Sconyers •Elmer Singley •Moses Todd •Kenneth Winters •Bob Young  ASK THE CANDIDATES Do you have a question you'd like to ask the mayoral candidates? •Click here

A: Augusta is running more efficient. Augusta is leaner. We've reduced the size of the government by 10 percent, so we have approximately 22,060 employees. Augusta is a more business-friendly, community-friendly government. Augusta is enjoying prosperity with more industrial, high-tech and high-paying jobs.

Actually, the priority has been changed from the tourism and visitors' low-paying low and medium paying service jobs. When I took office, we were 70 percent service jobs, and 30 percent industrial jobs, and that's been changed. We accomplished those goals by having economical and industrial summits with all the players, the Industrial Development Authority, Chamber of Commerce, the businesses, plants and industrial community.

Q: What can you contribute to Augusta and its citizens as mayor that the other candidates can't?

A: Honest, aggressive leadership in doing the things I say I would accomplish by the year 2003.

Q: What is the worst mistake you ever made outside of politics?

A: My divorce. Debra is my best friend. We have joint custody of our 13-year-old son.

Q: What decision in your life had consequences you never would have expected?

A: The Barton Village initiative. We went into that initiative thinking we would finish up in 90 days. It took approximately four years, cost me my life savings and we had to hire armed security guards for my family and at times put them in hiding.

Q: What is the best book you ever read?

A: In His Steps by Charles Sheldon.

Q: What do you count as your greatest accomplishment in life, outside of your family?

A: The initiative to purge drugs out of Barton Village and bringing the Guardian Angels to town to help do that and to make the women and children and senior citizens in Barton Village feel safe and secure.

Q: Explain what actions you would take in these areas of concern:

Recycling:

A: I serve on a state environmental steering committee and a national (environmental) committee. Certainly, I have an interest in recycling. That's probably issue number one. Recycling saves us money at the landfill. It costs approximately $500,000 per acre to develop a Sub-title D landfill, and recycling saves space.

We should have a first-class recycling operation in Augusta-Richmond County. We have a third-class one now. And I would establish a first-class recycling by doing curbside recycling where we can, and where we can't we would make available a nice recycling dropoff, even if we had to put them on trucks and move them around to schools, shopping centers and fire stations.

Libraries:

A: Our libraries are a city disgrace. Our libraries shouldn't be homes for the homeless. It should be a place where the youth can go and study to improve their education and to prepare themselves for the future. Right now, in our libraries, we are a shelter for the homeless, especially downtown. We have inadequate books, and I would improve that by going for state grants and additional state help, but I would also put the libraries in the 1-penny sales tax to do the capital outlay and use the funds that we normally fund them to do the books and computers.

Streets and Roads:

A: We're doing a decent job there now. We're finally getting Barton Chapel Road widened and paved. That's one area that we should be proud of. Commissioner of Transportation (Wayne) Shackleford has helped us a great deal, and we've spent probably in the last eight to 10 years somewhere in the neighborhood of $100 million to $150 million on streets and roads and storm drains.

Water:

A: Never again a water shortage in Augusta, Georgia because of neglect or using the cash from water to run the general government. I'm sure in the next year or or several months that the water situation as far as ordering the hardware and spare parts will be corrected. The 60-inch water line will take approximately 18 months, depending on how many contractors we put on it, and I would put at least three to a half-dozen contractors on it.

I would do the well fields in south Richmond County that we have applied for permits for, and I would let EPD Atlanta know that we're not going to let them regulate our growth down here by restricting us from the aquifer water which is plentiful and the best water in the world. And if it wasn't, that company over there in Columbia County wouldn't bottle it and sell it. We have a gold mine in water. We have the richest water resources in the world in the aquifer and the river. And I think we need to develop that resource. It's plentiful, and it's going to help us bring industry to this community.

Animal Control:

A: I'm against the gas chamber and for the other method. I think it's more humane. Also, Bob Barker has preached spay and neuter for years. And I think anyone owning an animal that's not in the business of breeding and reproduction should have to have it spayed or neutered, period. And all pet shops should be required to do it. And those folks that's breeding animals should have an ordinance that governs their actions, and they shouldn't be able to take a litter of puppies because they don't turn out right and drop them off in the streets.