Morning Edition; Phil Stinnett

It's morning edition on K-R-P-S. We are eight days away from municipal elections taking place across Missouri. Locally, Joplin City Council elections were supposed to take place on April 7. But because of the pandemic, the election was shifted to Tuesday, June 2nd. This morning, we focus on Zone 3 and hear from both candidates. Last hour, we heard from Steve Erie. Up now, Phil Stinett, who is running in Zone 3, a four-year seat on the Joplin City Council. Like all candidates, I first asked Phil to introduce himself to voters. My name is Phil Stinett. I'm a lifelong resident of Joplin. I have spent a total of 16 years on the council. This is my hometown, my city, and I enjoy everything about it. So, even after sitting 16 years on the council, why are you running for re-election? I could give you all kinds of reasons, but I'll give you a couple of examples. Nothing gives me more to satisfaction or pleasure being able to help a citizen.

And because I've been around for a while, I have developed, I think, some really good relationships with department heads and employees at the city, that when I have an issue that a citizen has a problem with, and I take something down to talk to the department head about a pothole or somebody not maintaining property next door, I believe that they think that I've researched it ahead of time. I'm not bringing them something frivolous to talk about. And they'll give me the time of day to talk. They understand that I've researched it and I've made sure it's worthwhile to take their time. So, I think I can be a benefit to citizens by being able to assist them because of that experience. Although you've said on and off the board for the past 16 years, you saw your answer might be a little different. If elected, what are some of the things that you hopefully get accomplished, whether that's new or something you've worked on in the past? Laundry list there, and I'm sure everybody has got to give you a whole

lot of things. There are some things that have not gotten accomplished yet that we need to work on. And I'll give you a couple of examples. One more hall's one of them. More hall was on the radar screen as a problem when I got on the council in 1998. It's still on the radar screen as a problem because we have some issues over there. It's also, we lose money and that's okay, but we have to decide what the thing is worth. I mean, what can we really utilize it for? The other thing is infrastructure. We have tremendous number of streets that need work on. You can drive from one area town that was not affected by the tornado and then drive to an area town that was affected with pretty new sidewalks and new streets and new curbs. Nice smooth driving and everything. I think that we have individual circumstances such as more moral hall. We have big citywide circumstances such as our streets. And how do we maintain them and rebuild them?

Finally, I'll end with this. I'm a voter. Give me your best pitch. Why should I vote for you? Well, I'll tell you this. If you follow council meetings at all, you will find that I ask a lot of questions. Some of my fellow council members will say, I talk too much. Some of them will say, I'm a pain in the, can be a pain in the rear. But when I first got on council, the city was trying to recover some of the money that had been lost through derivatives. And they were actually trying to sue the accounting firm that had been their auditing firm. Within the first few months, we had several meetings back and forth to try to recover some of that money. We ended up recovering a bunch of the money. But during that conversation, I asked several of those old time council members, how did this happen? How did we get to that point? Why didn't somebody catch this or ask questions or whatever? And basically what they told me was, things were going to smooth. Staff wasn't raising any concerns about it. Making a lot of interest. I thought it was a little strange, but

didn't ever say anything. I told myself right then and there. I am never going to accept something for just face value. I'm going to question everything, even if it seems good. I believe I've done a good job over the period of time, representing citizens in their best interest because I'm not a rubber stamp person. I'm not going to just accept it because a staff member says it's the right thing to do. I want to work it out and maybe we have a great staff. I'm not here to win friends and influence people. I'm here to represent the citizens. And I believe I think I've done a decent job at it. And I promise you I'll give it my best shot if they put me back there again. All right, thank you for your time. I appreciate the opportunity. Thank you. That was Phil Stinett, who was one of two candidates running to fill a four-year seat in zone three on the Joplin City Council. To learn more about his campaign, visit his Facebook page at P. Stinett, Joplin. 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

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