(Photo by Tyler Pruett)
Rainsville City Council candidate D.L. Stiefel hosts meet and greet
By Tyler Pruett, Managing Editor
RAINSVILLE, Ala. — On Thursday night, candidate for Rainsville City Council Place 2 D.L. Stiefel, hosted a meet and greet with citizens at YoMoe’s. The event was well attended, and Stiefel addressed the crowd and provided them with some free yogurt.
Also briefly addressing the crowd were Marshall Stiefel, who’s running for Place 1 against Tina Pike and incumbent Joey Graham, and Gary Hartline, who’s up against Ricky Byrum for the vacant Place 3 seat. Rainsville Mayor Nick Jones, who’s up against Councilman Rodger Lingerfelt in his reelection bid, also addressed supporters.
The event started around 6:30 pm, and D.L. Stiefel addressed the crowd on his current campaign activities, maintaining Rainsville’s infrastructure, budgetary issues, and the DeKalb-Cherokee Gas Tax, to name a few items discussed.
“I’ve knocked on over a thousand doors in Rainsville already. I’ve given interviews to three different newspapers and I have a radio interview next week,” D.L. said.
Stiefel made it clear that he’s very concerned about the future of Rainsville. One overarching theme of his remarks was that the DeKalb-Cherokee Gas Tax is a big concern of the citizens, and while it’s a complicated issue, he’s working hard to look into what can be done.
“I wanted to clarify my comments from the forum a couple of weeks ago,” D.L. said, “I said I was against the D.C. (DeKalb-Cherokee) Gas Tax, and I am. I want to look at that. Some people said I would repeal it, but I can’t do that at the municipal level.”
“I can promise you that if I’m elected I’ll delve into it. I think there are things we can do as a city to help with the burden it places on people and businesses,” D.L. added.
D.L. also brought up his concerns over how our Second Amendment rights could be threatened even at a municipal level.
“In 2012, the Rainsville City Council, and my opponent was part of that 2012 city council, decided to pass gun free zones in the city,” D.L. said, “That bothers me on a couple of levels.”
“One is because I believe in the Second Amendment very strongly, and I just find it crazy that people would do away with guns, I know there are places that they are not needed and you have to be responsible,” said D.L.
“But the other part is that the constitution is being violated. Cities don’t have the right in Alabama to establish gun free zones.” D.L. added.
After Stiefel finished addressing the crowd, Hartline and Marshall Stiefel made brief remarks. D.L. recognized Hartline as being a candidate who’s a great voice of the people.
“This is Gary Hartline if you haven’t met him, and he’s became my hero as far as talking to and listening to the people,” D.L. said.
Hartline also addressed the D.C. Gas Tax.
“Something we might can do until we can figure out a long term solution, is to give a utility tax freeze to local businesses and outside businesses that want to set up shop in Rainsville,” Hartline said.
“We also can say for the next four years they don’t have to worry about an increase, and that’s something we can let new industries know that we are serious about,” Hartline added.
Marshall Stiefel then addressed the crowd, who pointed out that although he’s not sure how, he’s related to D.L. somehow.
“I support D.L., and we spell our names the same, so we’re kin somehow,” Marshall said.
“I’m for doing anything to help the city grow and create jobs, that’s got to be a priority,” he went on to say.
Mayor Nick Jones addressed the crowd to conclude the evening.
“We don’t agree on everything, but our hearts are in the right place. We’re gonna have differences. That’s part of the political process. That’s how it goes,” Jones said, “but if our hearts are in the right place and we still keep the city a top priority, and want the best thing for the people that live here, we’ll figure out our differences.”
“I think we are at the point where we can have substantive change,” Jones added.
