MONROE - Voters in Ward 3 will have another go-round with the same choices of alderman candidates in April.
Incumbent Michael Boyce and his challenger Larry Christopher III will be vying for the council seat for the second time. Christopher ran as a last minute, write-in candidate in 2012.
While neither candidate finds the city doing poorly, both see room for improvements, particularly in the areas of expanding economic development and of hanging on to the younger generation in the work force.
"In terms of property taxes, no, that's going in the wrong direction: up," Boyce said. "There's also a demographic challenge. We have an aging population and need to retain and attract the younger people to grow the city. We've been stuck on (a population of) 10,800 for the past 30-40 years."
"We're going in the right direction, but more needs to be done," Christopher said. "Working together as a community is what sets Monroe apart from other communities; we have a lot of organizations and individual volunteers. But there's room for improvement."
Christopher advocates for expanding industrial park space and recruiting more businesses to the city while working in partnership with the county, which he said will make both the city and the county better places to live. He also believes the city needs to play up the city's new municipal airport terminal, as a recruitment tool, for businesses.
"If we are able to attract more businesses, that would allow more students to come back to live and work in this town that we love," he added.
Boyce wants to move economic development forward with the idea of city-owned fiber optics, offering plenty of bandwidth and faster speed connections at a reasonable price.
"I can see Monroe becoming a bedroom community for the state capital," he said. "People can work from home or create businesses related to larger businesses."
Boyce said he depends upon the Internet while traveling throughout the state and region for his own business in property and casualty insurance, but he also sees technology-related endeavors and health care among the different types of businesses needing Internet speeds that can be a thousand times faster than the city has now.
Christopher stands on a zero-based budgeting process, which requires every line item to be evaluated and calculated fresh, rather than simply making changes based on the previous year.
Boyce wants to see property tax structure changes.
He said the city made "in-roads" this past year by alleviating the tax burden on city taxpayers, when the city was "no longer giving away fire protection" to rural communities, but instead required the rural areas of the district to pay for the actual or close to actual costs of maintaining and delivering that city service.
He is also recommending an analysis of the workload and staff of the public safety departments, which contributes about 40 percent of the total budget expenditures.
The "budget creation rests with the council," he said.
The city is also responsible for creating the conditions for economic development, he added.
"Lower property taxes drives economic development," he said.
"A role of the city is one of getting the basic services to the people in an economic, efficient manner," he said. "I don't think success is throwing hundreds of thousands of dollars to businesses in hopes that they will succeed. The city should create the conditions under which they can succeed," he said. "They want to succeed and make a profit, and grow. And that means their (number of) employees grow."
Incumbent Michael Boyce and his challenger Larry Christopher III will be vying for the council seat for the second time. Christopher ran as a last minute, write-in candidate in 2012.
While neither candidate finds the city doing poorly, both see room for improvements, particularly in the areas of expanding economic development and of hanging on to the younger generation in the work force.
"In terms of property taxes, no, that's going in the wrong direction: up," Boyce said. "There's also a demographic challenge. We have an aging population and need to retain and attract the younger people to grow the city. We've been stuck on (a population of) 10,800 for the past 30-40 years."
"We're going in the right direction, but more needs to be done," Christopher said. "Working together as a community is what sets Monroe apart from other communities; we have a lot of organizations and individual volunteers. But there's room for improvement."
Christopher advocates for expanding industrial park space and recruiting more businesses to the city while working in partnership with the county, which he said will make both the city and the county better places to live. He also believes the city needs to play up the city's new municipal airport terminal, as a recruitment tool, for businesses.
"If we are able to attract more businesses, that would allow more students to come back to live and work in this town that we love," he added.
Boyce wants to move economic development forward with the idea of city-owned fiber optics, offering plenty of bandwidth and faster speed connections at a reasonable price.
"I can see Monroe becoming a bedroom community for the state capital," he said. "People can work from home or create businesses related to larger businesses."
Boyce said he depends upon the Internet while traveling throughout the state and region for his own business in property and casualty insurance, but he also sees technology-related endeavors and health care among the different types of businesses needing Internet speeds that can be a thousand times faster than the city has now.
Christopher stands on a zero-based budgeting process, which requires every line item to be evaluated and calculated fresh, rather than simply making changes based on the previous year.
Boyce wants to see property tax structure changes.
He said the city made "in-roads" this past year by alleviating the tax burden on city taxpayers, when the city was "no longer giving away fire protection" to rural communities, but instead required the rural areas of the district to pay for the actual or close to actual costs of maintaining and delivering that city service.
He is also recommending an analysis of the workload and staff of the public safety departments, which contributes about 40 percent of the total budget expenditures.
The "budget creation rests with the council," he said.
The city is also responsible for creating the conditions for economic development, he added.
"Lower property taxes drives economic development," he said.
"A role of the city is one of getting the basic services to the people in an economic, efficient manner," he said. "I don't think success is throwing hundreds of thousands of dollars to businesses in hopes that they will succeed. The city should create the conditions under which they can succeed," he said. "They want to succeed and make a profit, and grow. And that means their (number of) employees grow."