District 1 candidates – incumbent Will Sconiers and Bridges Anderson – said this week that the top issue facing their district is job creation.

Sconiers defeated Anderson, after he served for eight years, in the 2008 election.

“We need to work to try to seek employers,” Anderson said. Sconiers agreed with what Anderson said about jobs.

“We need them to come to Andalusia to help people receive jobs,” he said. “We need jobs. That’s the state of the whole nation, and everywhere you go that’s what people are talking about. We can’t wait for folks to come to us. We have to go to them and let them know what we have to offer. We can see if they can benefit us and if we can benefit them.”

Anderson said he believes that to rectify any issue in the city, the mayor and the city council must work together.

“In Andalusia if we have a reputation for how we work together, the word will get out that Andalusia is open for business,” he said. “We need to keep an open mind and look at the issues and problems at hand. We need to keep making Andalusia a better place.”

Secondly, Anderson said that the city needs to look at the overall spending process.

“We need to try to cut some of it down,” he said. “And cut down on some bills, so we don’t have so much overhead. We need to do this so that the city has money to spend when necessary.”

Finally, Anderson said that the city needs to continue to make sure that citizens have “a good quality of living, good quality of schools and good quality government.”

“Simply stated, I love Andalusia because of its natural beauty, open space, quality of life and quality of education,” he said. “More importantly, I love Andalusia because of its people – the residents of Andalusia, my neighbors. I am running because I want to keep Andalusia a progressive city and preserve it as one of the most desirable residential cities in South Alabama.”

Sconiers added housing development and an effective street program to his list of three issues.

“Not only do we need new housing development,” he said. “But we need to find grants to help in our neighborhoods and spruce up our neighborhood.”

Sconiers said the city hasn’t had a good street-paving program since the 1990s.

“We used to have a rotating street project schedule,” he said. “To do this we will need to look for resources such as grants. In my district, Jerry and Davis (streets) are pretty bad. I’d like to see us widen South Cotton, and Whatley needs repairing. There are a bunch of streets, and it’s not just in my district.

“We have to try to make them better,” he said. “I wish we could get back to the rotating project schedule. It keeps the complaints down. We have some grants pending, and it does take a lot of money for paving projects.”