Side by Side: Buchanan Town Council Candidate Interviews

The Botetourt Bee recently interviewed the two candidates running for Buchanan Town Council.  This special election will be held on November 4th. We interviewed each candidate with the same structure of questions; their replies are given side by side.

Spring Witt is an entrepreneur and was appointed to the Buchanan Town Council to fill a vacant seat in August.

Shean Bowers is a welding instructor at Botetourt Technical Education Center. 

Tell us who you are and why you are running for a seat on The Buchanan Town Council.

Witt: My name is Spring Witt. I have been in Buchanan for about 10 years, 5 of those years, my husband served on the council, so he did his part. When Rose Jeter resigned from her seat, I had a lot of citizens that asked me if I would step up, if Chris wasn’t willing to. So that’s how I ended up here.

Bowers: I’m Shean Bowers, and I’m mainly running for the town council because I just want to try something different. I think the town could use something a little different. So I’m willing, or hopefully willing to offer that for them, for us.

What would you say is the biggest issue that the town of Buchanan faces that needs to be addressed immediately?

Witt: I think the biggest issue, well, it’s twofold. The biggest issue is their financials. They do not have their books straight. I think part of that is because we have had a revolving door of town managers, interims helping, all those kind of things. The numbers are skewed in that respect. The other part of it is that a year ago, they switched over from QuickBooks to Southern software, and apparently, that has not gone smoothly. So it was cumbersome to get everything transferred over, and to my latest knowledge, that is still not 100% rectified.

And then I would say the biggest immediate thing that needs to be addressed, in my opinion, based on the work site session that I attended last week, is water and sewer. There is so many problems out there, and they are so expensive. And our numbers aren’t reflecting correctly financially. I think we’re probably more in the red with water and sewer than we’re aware of. Nobody likes talking about that; it’s problematic. It’s there. You’ve got to address it. It’s going to keep breaking. It’s a very old system. […] You either have to raise the price of water and sewer to cover the costs, which, traditionally, I think a lot of municipalities do that annually, for whatever reason, Buchanan does not.

Bowers: I think that sewer and water is probably what the town will talk about more than anything. But, I think if we could save money in other areas, we could apply that money towards those sewer and water issues. I think we have a lot of opportunities to save money personally, in maybe maintenance and things like that, and possibly save money that way. That way, we could apply it to the town, people really wanting to upgrade their sewer and water. I feel like that’s the thing I hear more than more than anything else.

Now, this is from the outside looking in. I’ve been at a handful of meetings, not a lot. But I’m the outside looking in, I feel like we do a lot of third-party maintenance things. And I don’t know if that’s a personnel thing or a legal thing or what, but I feel like we have a lot of room for cost savings with maybe cutting out that third party or maybe taking advantage of a quoting system, and instead of taking the first bid we get, maybe we shop around a little. I do see a lot of costs that seem to go out using third-party maintenance and third-party contractors. Where the town is kind of using that third party rather than the maintenance people all the time, or maybe not utilizing them as much as they could.

What would you say is the town of Buchanan’s greatest asset?

Witt: I think they sit on a gold mine of just natural, natural amenities. You’ve got the river with the river traffic. We’re close to the trail with the hikers and the cyclists, and we are historic. It blows my mind how many people a year come to see the Swinging Bridge; it really does. […] We’ve got the new brewery in town. I think we have the right natural resources, it just needs to be supported a little bit better with political businesses. If you bring the people and give them a place to go, generally, they will go and support it.

Bowers: The greatest asset, I think other than our wonderful people, we have the James River. That’s a good asset to have, and we have a good view. If we’re talking about in town limits, I think our amenities and what they are right now is a good asset we have. So the view of the mountain, the James River, how quiet it is out here. I think those are good, our biggest assets right now. That country small town life.

Are there any barriers that exist between the town of Buchanan (its government, council’s decisions and actions) and the citizens of Buchanan?

Witt: I am an outsider, so I view things a little bit differently than maybe somebody like my husband. To me, Buchanan is very cliquey. You have your church group cliques, you have your working people cliques, you have your retired cliques. And then somewhere in the middle, you have your business owners. I think there’s a huge disconnect with council because some of us are young and techy, and other people don’t do email.

I think for town citizens, you have a very small group of people that consistently show up, voice their opinions, voice their wants. But the larger majority of town citizens have no idea what’s going on because the town is just simply behind in keeping up their website. […]

But also, if you want to pull in the new voters, the younger voters, the busy families that don’t have time, you do need to give them an idea of what’s going on, and you need to make that accessible for what works for their family. So when we have an influx of visitors, especially in our summer months, and they’re kind of trying to find that information [on the town’s website], we look very dated to the outside world, and we are. We’re behind.

Bowers: I think council does certain things with the town’s interest in mind, but the town people, something I’ve seen recently, don’t always know the full story, or know exactly the rules, or exactly the codes, or exactly the laws. So I’ve seen a couple of different instances lately where some of the citizens get worked up over whatever decision the council has made, or hasn’t made, but don’t understand that maybe that actually isn’t in the town’s control at all. Or maybe that’s not in the council’s control at all. And it’s been misconstrued as a council’s problem when it’s actually more just not the law. […] I think some of these problems that the citizens are kind of like upset about aren’t necessarily problems that the town has any control over whatsoever, anyway, in that respect.

I think in another respect, we do have a handful of people in the council that’s kind of […] you know, their own way that they’ve set in these seats for a number of years and maybe it worked for them at the beginning and maybe that’s just not the direction the town’s heading anymore, but they’re still working in the way it was in the beginning when they first got in. […] You have some people that are new to it, and you have some people that are not new to it, and neither one seems to want to budge, we’re kind of in that standstill. I think that’s another barrier.

What book are you currently reading?

Witt: This will get everybody’s goat. It is Candice Owens. Make Him A Sandwich is the name of the book. She happens to be a dear friend of mine, but her books are hilarious.

Bowers: I’m working on Blueprint Reading right now. I’ve read it, every chapter. That’s what I’m teaching for the school, you know. Teaching kids how to read, to do blueprints. That’s the one we’re working on daily. […] What was the last book I read all the way through? It was a Colleen Hoover book. It Ends With Us.

Would you like to share any closing thoughts?

Witt: I think as both a sitting council person and as a resident and as somebody who has owned multiple businesses in Buchanan for the last decade, I encourage people, like, please know what’s going on. Please ask the questions. Pick a council person that you’re comfortable with and ask the questions to get the answers you want. Not the gossip, not the opinions. […] I would really encourage every town citizen, operate on the facts and then make your decision based on those.

Bowers: I did grow up in Buchanan, and I lived in Buchanan the whole time. I’d like to give a crack at it. You know, I do think I can make a difference. We’ll see.