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Athens Mayoral Candidates Talk Leadership
By: Alyssa Hansen
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As the election on November 8 quickly approaches, voters in the city of Athens have many decisions to make.
One of those decisions includes choosing who will serve as mayor.
The two candidates running in the race are Republican Randy Morris and Democratic incumbent Paul Wiehl.
Morris says strong leadership qualities are needed in a mayor.
“Well, I think my background in the military gave me the opportunity to lead organizations of comparable size and complexity of a city, and I believe that I’d be good at the job,” says Morris. “It’s something that I’d really enjoy doing.”
Wiehl says he takes a different approach to leadership.
He encourages communication and interaction between people to get items crossed off the agenda.
“I think there’s different styles of leadership. There’s the decider point of view of leadership, probably even going towards the military,” says Wiehl. “Coming from the academic world, really, I’m more consensus-based in terms of how to formulate leadership, how to get to an agreement point.”
However, Morris feels that there needs to be stronger communication between leaders and students.
“I would like to increase the communication between the students of Athens and the mayor,” says Morris. “…I know that if I’m elected mayor, I will meet with students at least once a month.”
Wiehl believes that it’s important to hear from everyone when it comes to making decisions that affect the whole city.
“Consensus-building from my point is a general, gentle way of leading,” says Wiehl.
Wiehl also addressed what his top priorities would be if he were re-elected, while Morris discussed how he would handle a 13 percent cut in the city’s general fund in 2013.