By Marla Jones, Managing Editor • marla@southerntorch.com

RAINSVILLE, Ala. — (Full video on southerntorch.com) On Wednesday, candidates for the Rainsville City Council gathered for a forum at the Tom Bevill Enrichment Center. Place 5 candidate Mark Huber was not present.

Each candidate was asked the following questions:

• What do you think the role of a councilmember is? 
• In your opinion what are three areas that Rainsville can improve on? 
• If Rainsville votes to allow alcohol sales and you are elected how will you handle that for the City of Rainsville? 

On the role of a councilmember, Place 1 candidate Steven Fleming stated, “I think the role of a councilmember is to represent the best interests of all citizens of Rainsville. We are elected to be the voice of the people.”

“First of all I think the councilmen needs to listen to the concerns and issues that citizens have and once he has done that he needs to find out the issues or concerns,” said Place 1 candidate Arlan “Monk” Blevins on the same issue. “Then determine what we can do to fix that...he needs to go for it.”   

On question two, Place 2 incumbent Bejan Taheri said if reelected his goal was “to expand Highway 75 from Foodland to Hilltop, maybe to Cornerstone for sure.”

Taheri’s opponent, Scotty Combs agreed that while infrastructure improvements were important, the need to recruit more business and industry was equally important.

On how to allocate monies earned from possible alcohol sales, Place 3 incumbent Rickey Byrum stated there would have to be a board appointed to regulate the sale of alcohol in the city. 

“You can never really tell it's hard to say what you do with the money,” said Byrum. “You would have to come together to do what's best for the citizens to make things move forward.

Place 1 incumbent Marshall Stiefel, who is running for Place 3, stated of alcohol revenue, “that’s something that goes back that we have addressed as a Council.”

“The citizens are [about] to vote on this and a lot of it needs to be allotted towards personnel...emergency personnel. They are underpaid. We have [gone] through a dozen officers, and we’re just training them for bigger cities.” 

Place 5 incumbent Derek Rosson stated the three areas that Rainsville can improve on are continuing the improvement of emergency personnel, making sure we are resurfacing the streets and the sewers.

Municipal elections in the City of Rainsville will be held on Tuesday, August 25.