Saturday, April 29, 2000
Parmelly places youth, homeless
center stage
Editor’s Note: The following is
part of an occasional series of campaign stories leading up to
the May 6 Abilene City Council elections.
By Samuel Segrist
Reporter-News Staff Writer
Abilene City Council candidate Bryan Parmelly
said his run has a lot to do with keeping his side of the bargain.
The 13-year government teacher said he’s
always taught his students to get involved if they want to change
things. And his charges at Cooper High have served as volunteers
for campaigns in the past.
“I’ve always taught participation
to my students,” Parmelly said. “This year, I decided
to put my money where my mouth was.”
Parmelly is running for the Place 2 seat
against business owner Tom Ceniglis and accountant Kris Southward.
He said he felt called to run during a prayer meeting. He joked
that he didn’t get an answer as to whether or not he would
win, but he was running with a message.
“Sometimes we teach our young people
to behave in a certain way, and then our leaders don’t follow
through with it,” he said. “I want them to see a campaign
that’s run positively.”
Parmelly said he is running an independent
campaign with no special interests behind him. At the candidate
forums, he is usually one of the first to speak up on youth issues.
“After sitting in front of hundreds
of students every day, you see how they don’t feel connected
to the city government,” he said.
Parmelly has proposed studying the city’s
park system, which he said has not kept up with Abilene’s
growth. He was highly critical of the city’s handling of
a new skate park, to be built later this summer. He said it was
“ridiculous” that the city government asked skateboarders
to fund $40,000 of the $150,000 proposed park.
The city also needs to invest in getting
its own television station on the air to better publicize the
workings of the city, he said.
Parmelly also has advocated setting up programs
to help more of Abilene’s homeless population.
“We should be ashamed to drive by a
homeless person on the way to work every day,” he said. “We’re
a better community than that, and we need an advocate for them
on the city council.”
The city’s police and fire departments
serve Abilene well, he said. And the city should take steps to
ensure Abilene is competitive with other departments in the state,
he added.
Parmelly said building a pipeline to the
O.H. Ivie Reservoir was crucial, but Abilene has to do more to
secure a good water supply for the future.
He advocates programs to encourage xeriscaping,
and wants the city government to take another look at expanding
Lake Fort Phantom Hill.
“We’re on the edge of a desert,
we need to live like it,” he said.
Parmelly also criticized the way the city
has spent some of its money recently, pointing to the $500,000
allocated, mainly through Tax Increment Finance District and city
funds, to a downtown streetscaping project.
“We can spend $500,000 to repave a
few blocks, but we can’t spend some money to keep the tornado
sirens up,” he said. The city has recently been removing
a system of public warning sirens, which government leaders say
have been supplemented with other emergency warning systems.
Parmelly is part of a family that has been
in the Abilene area since the early 1900s. He was raised on a
ranch south of town, the son of a rancher. His mother was the
business manager for the Wylie school district.
He said he has two passions in life, teaching
and politics. This race allows him to combine the two.
“I come with a unique perspective,”
he said. “I’m speaking straight from my heart.”
Contact city government writer Samuel
Segrist at 676-6744 or segrists@abinews.com.
Copyright ©2000,
Abilene Reporter-News / Texnews / E.W. Scripps Publications
|
