ODESSA, Texas — Odessa voters had an opportunity Tuesday night to get to know the candidates running for the Odessa city council at-large seat.
Vying for your vote are David Turner, Jo-Ann Davenport Littleton, Denise Swanner, and La-Tasha Gentry.
Missing from the forum? Current Odessa Mayor David Turner. Turner had a conflict in his schedule and was unable to make the forum.
The forum started off strong. One of the first questions involved how the city should prioritize the city budget. La-Tasha Gentry said Odessa needs to be transparent with city funds.
"Well, I think when dealing with the budget, there are many categories on the budget for a city. I think transparency is the most important thing. I think whenever we’re dealing with the budget, we want to let the citizens of Odessa know what’s going on, know the different categories so they know where their money is going," Gentry said.
A topic brought up that Odessa deals with quite a bit involved illegal dumping. Littleton said that we need to lower fees on landfills to help prevent illegal dumping.
"More education, educating on what you can and cannot dump, and then the fees, those are extremely too high. A lot of our major contractors that are building homes and businesses, and small business builders that are building homes and things, they can’t go and dump at the landfill because they can’t afford it," Littleton said.
When asked whether or not law enforcement had sufficient resources to do their jobs, Swanner said she wants to allocate more funds and training for local officers.
"There should always be more resources, more education. You should find ways to help them to move forward in their profession and so we need to look at the budget and see if there are more ways of adequate training, more ways for them to feel comfortable. And I agree on body cams for their protection, for our protection to see what’s going on," Swanner said.