By JAN McLAUGHLIN
BG Independent News
The race for Bowling Green’s Fourth Ward City Council seat pits a long-time council member who has served 15 years against a candidate looking to serve her first term.
Republican incumbent Bill Herald is nothing if not thorough. He easily rattles off numbers to show his commitment to the elected position. Last year, he attended more than 100 city-related meetings. He just held his 63rd Fourth Ward quarterly meeting for constituents. And so far this campaign season, he has knocked on more than 1,250 doors – spending more than 120 hours.
Democratic challenger Audrey Baker has none of those statistics to cite, but she does have ideas.
Baker, formerly a bartender, is now a full-time student at Bowling Green State University, studying politics, philosophy, economics and law.
Her priorities are focused in the downtown area of Bowling Green.
Baker would like to see more safety measures, “especially after dark.” While she appreciates the recent efforts to light up the downtown alleyways, some walkways are still too dark for pedestrians to feel safe.
She would like to see the city partner with more bars on educating staff on trafficking and non-consensual interactions.
“I want to make downtown a safe place to be after dark,” she said.
Baker also would like the city to help fill empty commercial spaces across the city and create more activities for young families.
“We need more things to do in Bowling Green,” she said. “There aren’t enough things to do. It’s kind of a desert in Bowling Green at the moment.”
Baker advocated for short-term partnerships creating pop-up shops in the downtown, more art displays, more encouragement for young retail entrepreneurs, and more university partnerships in the downtown.
Baker recognizes that Bowling Green is experiencing the same housing crisis seen throughout the nation.
“Watching the homebuying process here in town is kind of vicious,” she said.
Without more housing options, Bowling Green won’t be able to retain its younger residents, she said.
“We’re losing one of our core strengths as a city,” she said.
Baker was also critical of the city’s zoning, which limits housing density and won’t allow neighborhood businesses in residential areas.
“We should be allowed to have bodegas in Bowling Green,” she said.
Bill Herald has worked as a data scientist and is currently an assistant professor of computer science at the University of Findlay.
His priorities on City Council have been quality safety forces, a healthy budget, top-notch utilities, and constituent service.
“The city and council has to be responsible to the citizens,” he said.
Herald is a big believer that the city needs to shift more money to street and sidewalk repairs.
“It’s continually, for me, going to be a priority,” he said. “We need more money.”
While knocking on doors this year, Herald has noticed the disrepair of the walkways.
“We have some areas where the sidewalks are in really bad shape.”
And now the city has a database that shows the condition of all the sidewalks in town.
“It’s for systematically ranking the quality of sidewalks,” and should be used as a mechanism to determine which need repairs first.
While Herald supports the city’s climate action and sustainability plan, he sees a need for cautious progress. “We need to be strategic and smart in how we approach them.”
He would like to see the city be more supportive of renewable energy in residential areas. “It benefits the whole community,” he said.
Herald is also a proponent of neighborhood revitalization, and suggested City Council look for “gaps and loopholes” in the zoning update.
“We need to revisit the new zoning code we put in place.”
He is concerned about the need for reasonably priced new homes, and suggested the city should look for ideas beyond the stereotypical single-family homes.
“How is it we can diversify, redefine homes,” Herald said.
Earlier this year, Herald had suggested that City Council create a housing commission – an idea that was tried before with questionable success.
“That was met with resistance from other council members,” Herald said.
