Calvary Chapel Candidates Forum: Fernley City Council, Ward I Candidates

Robert Perea, The Fernley Reporter

Three of the four candidates for the Fernley City Council Ward I seat participated in the Candidates Night forum hosted May 8 by Calvary Chapel.

Each candidate was asked to rank a list of seven problems the city faces, from their highest priority to the lowest, and offer some ideas about possible solutions.

Barry Williams identified Fernley’s debt as the highest priority among the list presented to candidates.

“One of the things that I would like to see in the city of Fernley is more multi-housing units, and I would like to be able to help the rest of the city council members to get more multi-housing units, townhouses, condominiums, in Fernley to increase the population of Fernley and make it more advantage for our young people to be able to live and stay in the city of Fernley,” Williams said.

Rick Jones said aging infrastructure is the city’s biggest problem.

“We inherited that infrastructure and we’ve been playing catchup since 2001,” Jones said. “We were dealt that hand when we became a city.”

Ray Lacy said the city’s biggest problem is debt, and that it has to figure a way out of debt in order to grow.

“I’m a firm believer if we’re going to get out of debt, we’re going to explain to the people of Fernley how we’re going to do it,” Lacy said.

Incumbent councilwoman Shari Whalen was not present at the forum.