Morning Edition; Harvey Hutchinson

It's morning edition on KRPS. We are six days away from municipal elections taking place across Missouri. Locally, Joplin City Council elections were scheduled to take place on April 7th, but because of the pandemic, the elections were shifted 60 days to Tuesday, June 2nd. This morning, we hear from Harvey Hutchinson, who is running in Zone 2 for 4-year seat. I first asked Harvey, like all candidates, to introduce himself to voters. Well, I'm a lifelong businessman. I'm an international business consultant. I actually have operations in India and other parts right now, and company were there, there are six of us. I have investments in it. I believe we're in family values, I believe we're in the right thing, also, American servities. I'm kind of an activist on the local and national, other than local, I mean, in the state and regional and county, and servoants and committees there, and I've been around quite a bit. I know what's going on, got good into this, and good feelings for things, and I believe I can offer that.

And it's... If you are elected to Joplin City Council, what are some of the things that you hope to get accomplished? One of the things, of course, is track new industry. I mean, that's the way to bring in the revenue, to be able to pay our farm and be able to pay our policemen at number one, and the infrastructure. The best thing that ever happened if we could bring it part of that Tesla plant to move here. And my favorite, I mentioned earlier, has always been the gun manufacturers. And one of the key things, I think our labor force is just right, they're all hunters, they're all alone guns, and the education training, we have a great training program, the chambers set up with Crowder, do it custom or otherwise, that we could have those kinds of highly skilled laborers to do that. One of the other things that makes us attractive in the gun manufacturing sector is the walnut for their stocks. Now, a lot of their stocks are made with components, but still for a real fine gun, you want a walnut wood stock.

And I think the state, most around 11, has about some manned plus percent of the Walmart wood production in the United States, but we're sitting here, poor, it's just right. And again, on the crossroads, to the country, we're... There's like a handful of zip codes, just a handful, not very many, that you can actually ship from one coast. I mean, you can go to the east coast or you can turn around and go to the west coast. And without ever having to make a relay or a train or, you know, or connecting a trip or anything else, you can just go straight shot from here to the east coast or straight shot back to Los Angeles. And we're perfect for that. All right. We'll end on this. We're out shaking hands with voters and knocking on doors. Give me your best pitch. Why should I vote for you? Well, as I said, I've run the four, I've served on the boards. I know what's going on. I'm a successful business man for 40 plus years. In fact, I'm still practicing the international business consultancy. I know what's going on and what it is.

I am a very active in the chamber and I know what we need here to bring here to make the city go to increase our base and be able to make the quality of life better, which is really what it's all about. And in the course for that, the actual number one reason for having a city council, if anybody has ever watched the cowboy and western show when they're always higher than Marshall, or when they set up a city, one thing higher than Marshall will come in and protect themselves. Well, that's what we do here. We hire the police department to protect the second thing is the farmer so we don't burn our houses down and after that, the infrastructure. And so that's the whole reason for us existing and that's why, and I can really contribute to that because I know how it works and what goes on and I'll be very fair and I'll also be very attuned to any of the constituents, the whole 50,000, or even those outside that have a staker that they can call me anytime 24, 7, I mean that I work 24, 7, and I welcome their call or their text and their email or whatever, regular mail. That's my pitch.

I'm there to work for them and I'm auditioning for a job is what it comes down to and I plan to do it on their behalf as best of my ability. All right. Harvey Hutchinson, you're running for zone two, a four year seat on the Joplin City Council. I want to thank you for your time this morning. Thank you for having me very much. I appreciate you doing this. That was Harvey Hutchinson, who is one of three candidates running to fill a four year zone two seat on the Joplin City Council. You can learn more about his campaign by visiting his Facebook page at Harvey Hutchinson for Joplin City Council. I also wanted to mention that I reached out to Keenan Cortez and Jib Scott for Kennedy of the interviews, but they didn't respond to my request, but the invitation is still open until this Thursday. You can also hear this interview again, along with the rest of the candidates running for Joplin City Council this year at our news blog, krpsnews.com.