Edgar Baker for Mayor

I, Edgar Baker, am excited to announce my candidacy for mayor of Booneville. I am a life-long citizen of Booneville, attending and graduating from Booneville Public Schools. I have been a funeral director at Roberts Funeral Home for the past 21 years. I am married to Erin Travis Baker, also a life-long resident of Booneville, who works as a counselor at Booneville Elementary School. We have one son, Jude, who also attends Booneville Elementary School. As a lifelong city resident, I am aware of the challenges facing the citizens of Booneville. I am running for mayor because I love Booneville and I want to work hard with the citizens of Booneville to ensure our best days are still ahead of us. I want my son and your children and grandchildren to have the same chance to grow up and experience the hometown that I experienced. I grew up knowing that Booneville was an exceptional place, a town with great pride and potential for growth, a town that stood out above others. It is our responsibility as citizens to make sure that Booneville stays that exceptional place to live and grow up - "our good hometown." As a member of the Booneville Downtown Improvement Committee for the past six years, I have been pleased with the improvements we have made downtown. Downtown projects completed include, Savage Theater restoration, Wilson Corner Park, and over twenty buildings being repainted in the downtown area. Together we have delivered major progress and have made downtown something that we can all be proud of. I believe we can continue our progress by bringing improvements to our park system and neighborhoods. Booneville offers an abundance of opportunities. Booneville has many possibilities and great things are happening here! We also have many challenges and areas that need help. We as a community need to take them on with a positive "can do" attitude. We need to be doing more to clean up our neighborhoods and to be holding property owners to a higher standard. We need to be doing a better job maintaining and upgrading our park system. We have beautiful city parks, but they need more landscaping, playground equipment and new restrooms. Business growth and development is also a priority for Booneville. I want to work with the Chamber of Commerce and other civic groups to encourage new businesses to locate or relocate here thus increasing more capital for Booneville. Our town needs more sidewalks. I want to encourage more sidewalks to be built, especially east of town, as far as Walmart SuperCenter. It is very dangerous for the people that walk or bicycle to the businesses east of downtown Booneville. We need to do more to help the large number of walkers and bikers that travel in that area daily. Booneville has a serious illegal drug problem. It is time that we acknowledge the problem and do all that we can to fight it. We will confront this drug problem with education, drug recovery support and a strong active City Police Department. I will support an assertive police department and our goal will be to keep the new county jail in Paris full of criminals. The people of Booneville deserve a city government that is effective, efficient and accountable to the citizens. If I am elected, I promise to be a financially conservative mayor that is a good steward of the taxpayers' dollars. We need to stretch every dollar and get the most out of every man hour. I look forward to visiting with the people of Booneville over the next few months and listening to your viewpoints and concerns. 

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