Spring Break
Running For Mayor
A sit down with Sheila Simon
By John Baird
Issue date: 5/10/07 Section: Features
Sheila Simon.
Faculty and students had coffee with Sheila Simon at Jeff Petres house located at 915 W. Linden St. Tuesday April 10th for an informal round table discussion about Carbondale improvements.
Sheila Simon is running for mayor of Carbondale in the up coming election Tuesday April 17th. Currently Simon is a council member on the Carbondale city Government.
Simon was listening and taking notes as students and Faculty asked various questions ranging from improved streetlights to balancing the City's budget.
SIU student Ken Newcomer asked Simon what impact would she have on student renters? Simon responded with her "Safe Neighborhood" plan.
Simon said the information that I would like to implement came from a neighborhood study circle group. The neighborhood study group devotes time to look for improvements for the Carbondale residential community. Because of their efforts we have added a one page addition to specify their (landlords) late fees and zoning to all renter applications. Landlords are very resistant about giving out information.
"They are making out like bandits. I have a list of bad landlords and Home Rentals is always at the top." Simon said.
Simon encourages everyone to fully read all material before singing any contract to avoid any problem and or know what renters are getting into.
High on Simon's agenda is to make Carbondale a self-governing town.
"We have all the resources we need to do pretty much everything already in Carbondale. I was just dealing with noise violations for some of the bars. We have a professor on campus that just deals with noise so why not use his expertise to self-govern this problem internally? We don't use many of our available resources. And I would like to change that," Simon said.
Ryan Sweeney agreed and asked if anything was being done with recycling in Carbondale or on campus.
"I live in Lewis Park and so many students just throw away so much recyclable material," Sweeney said.
Simon said if more students would recycle that would be great. SIU just finished a nation wide campus recycling competition in which we placed in the middle of the pack. That may not sound great but this was the Universities first time in the competition.
"We have good curb side recycling right now. We are working on grant that would fund recycling bins for apartment complexes and businesses. We have real possibility to make this a lot better," Simon said.
Jeff Petres who is doing ethnography on Sheila Simon said he was happy to host an informal environment for students and faculty to ask questions.
"This is a great opportunity for students to get involved in the mayoral election. I feel that for the most part, students don't feel connected to Carbondale. Simon is really connecting with this group. I'm vary pleased that with one week until the election she made time to talk with everyone," said Petre.
Faculty and students had coffee with Sheila Simon at Jeff Petres house located at 915 W. Linden St. Tuesday April 10th for an informal round table discussion about Carbondale improvements.
Sheila Simon is running for mayor of Carbondale in the up coming election Tuesday April 17th. Currently Simon is a council member on the Carbondale city Government.
Simon was listening and taking notes as students and Faculty asked various questions ranging from improved streetlights to balancing the City's budget.
SIU student Ken Newcomer asked Simon what impact would she have on student renters? Simon responded with her "Safe Neighborhood" plan.
Simon said the information that I would like to implement came from a neighborhood study circle group. The neighborhood study group devotes time to look for improvements for the Carbondale residential community. Because of their efforts we have added a one page addition to specify their (landlords) late fees and zoning to all renter applications. Landlords are very resistant about giving out information.
"They are making out like bandits. I have a list of bad landlords and Home Rentals is always at the top." Simon said.
Simon encourages everyone to fully read all material before singing any contract to avoid any problem and or know what renters are getting into.
High on Simon's agenda is to make Carbondale a self-governing town.
"We have all the resources we need to do pretty much everything already in Carbondale. I was just dealing with noise violations for some of the bars. We have a professor on campus that just deals with noise so why not use his expertise to self-govern this problem internally? We don't use many of our available resources. And I would like to change that," Simon said.
Ryan Sweeney agreed and asked if anything was being done with recycling in Carbondale or on campus.
"I live in Lewis Park and so many students just throw away so much recyclable material," Sweeney said.
Simon said if more students would recycle that would be great. SIU just finished a nation wide campus recycling competition in which we placed in the middle of the pack. That may not sound great but this was the Universities first time in the competition.
"We have good curb side recycling right now. We are working on grant that would fund recycling bins for apartment complexes and businesses. We have real possibility to make this a lot better," Simon said.
Jeff Petres who is doing ethnography on Sheila Simon said he was happy to host an informal environment for students and faculty to ask questions.
"This is a great opportunity for students to get involved in the mayoral election. I feel that for the most part, students don't feel connected to Carbondale. Simon is really connecting with this group. I'm vary pleased that with one week until the election she made time to talk with everyone," said Petre.
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