“Believe in better” is Hillsdale mayoral candidate Brian Watkins’ slogan going into this November’s election.
“I believe, and I think a lot of people believe, that Hillsdale is better than people think it is. But at the same time, there are lots of things that we can do to make it better,” Watkins said.
Watkins is in his second year as a City Council Ward I representative and works as an external affairs specialist with Toyota doing video and photography. He is a Hillsdale native and grew up on a farm just outside of town while attending the local schools. He studied film at Northern Michigan University and joined the 82nd airborne of the U.S. army upon graduation.
While he enjoyed the military atmosphere, Watkins longed to return to Hillsdale and raise his kids on a farm the way he had grown up.
Toyota eventually moved him back to Michigan, and Watkins returned to his beloved hometown. Wanting to get involved in the community, he ran for city council and now feels he is up for the challenge of mayor. Watkins believes his communications experience will be a major asset if elected.
“One of the things I ran on while running for council was communications,” he said. “I still feel that there is not enough communication from the city to the people. There use to be a dedicated position to communication.”
He approached council with the idea to develop a short-term communication committee and council approved it.
The other major issue for Watkins, and for other candidates as well, is repairing the city roads. He said approximately 35 miles of road need to be fixed right now.
“The biggest thing for me is probably streets,” he said. “It’s a big thing for a lot of people, it been the big thing since I moved back. And I’m trying to find a way to fund the streets. That’s the challenge. It’s been neglected for years and now we’re trying to play catch up, but there’s no money there to do that.”
Watkins supported the income tax initiative to fund the large project that failed in last year’s election.
“The council decide after studying the issue, that the income tax was the best overall option,” he said. “It made the most sense. It was the least burden on city taxpayers. It also brought in revenue from people that use the streets but don’t live in town. We didn’t do the best marketing job with that and a lot of people were not in favor of it.”
The income tax failed by a large margin, and Watkins said it is probably not something that he is unsure of whether or not council can bring that option forward again.
“We can’t do it without the people. Anything we do that’s going to be a substantial enough amount to fund the streets is going to have to be on the ballot, and the people are going to have to approve it,” he said. “The hard part will be selling that idea to the people. But also, if we can’t sell it to the people and it fails, we need to decide how do we move forward from there. Because it’s still something that needs to be addressed.”
If Watkins isn’t elected mayor, he will still be on council for two years. He said his main goal will be to find a sustainable way to repair the streets.
“We have all the numbers we need. We have all the options available to us. We have every tool that we need to make a decision,” he said. “There is really no reason once new council starts in November, that we can’t start working on that.”