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Nearly 20 Pegram residents piled into the Chestnut Grove Civic Center on the evening of Tuesday, July 16 to question three of the six candidates running for alderman in this year’s election cycle.
Hosted by the Pegram Preservation Association (PPA), the Pegram Election Candidate Forum allowed residents a space to openly discuss their hopes for the future of the town – as well as some of their reservations with the current leadership.
While all six alderman candidates were invited by PPA, only Miranda Christy Montgomery, Chris Crump, and Randy Feidler participated. PPA President Nathan Dohese read an opening statement for incumbent Bob Sanders who was out of town. Candidate Leah Louallen also stated she was out of town, but did not provide PPA with an opening statement. Hope Tinsley did not respond to requests to attend the forum, and neither did Charles Morehead – who is running unopposed for the role of Pegram’s mayor.
During his opening remarks, Feidler said he was “looking forward to a change in our leadership so hopefully a couple people that aren't here won't be voted back in.”
Feidler’s main concern was safety. He claimed that problems he has brought up to the current leadership – like the intersection of Highway 70 and Sams Creek Road – have largely gone ignored.
Montgomery – who served as the founding president of the PPA but stepped down to run for local government – said she is running because she “really wants to see good government.”
“As many of us become more involved in what's happening in our community, we've uncovered some conflicts of interest that make us feel uncomfortable, and we feel that more diversity among the voices of our leadership is needed,” she said.
Montgomery’s top two priorities are transparency and community engagement. On the first matter, she said she plans to prioritize an updated website and making public records more easily accessible. As for community engagement, Montgomery called for “more regular meetings of our community.”
“We need to engage a consultant and really think about, what is the plan? What are we doing? Because so many of us love this place, and we need to come up with a plan for the future and then abide by it,” she said.
Crump – who moved to Pegram from Los Angeles, Calif., three years ago – said he is running for local office because he’s seen a lot of change in the town that he doesn’t agree with. Crump specifically noted that he was unhappy with the way Pegram’s current leadership handled the pending Swingzone project by Alderman Randy Howington in the residential Dreamland Estates neighborhood.
Sustainable growth within the town of Pegram – particularly when it comes to the strip of abandoned storefronts on Highway 70 – was the main topic of conversation amongst the candidates.
“You need to have outreach – you need to be proactive, not reactive,” Feidler said on the topic of bringing new businesses into the town of Pegram. “We need to decide what kind of town we want to have. I think we want to have a small town feel to this place, but we still want to have some growth where we don't have to pay property taxes and get some money from sales taxes. It's a waste of commercial property just sitting there.”
On the same topic, Montgomery said: “This is an issue that the community really cares about. It is what I hear from almost 100% of the people that I'm talking to in the community. How can we make this better? And anyone who would tell you that it is an easy problem … is lying to you. It is a complicated problem, because you have multiple property owners, we have limited ability to enforce and limited want to enforce … because it feels like we mostly have reactive leadership instead of proactive leadership. I feel that we could pursue some grant opportunities. We could pursue a public-private partnership. There are all kinds of options out there that it will take someone to use some creativity and to be proactive to try to find the solution.”
“It's not a very easy issue to resolve,” Crump said on the same topic. “I think it's going to [take] very creative methods – maybe utilizing federal grant money to come in, maybe tax incentives on these businesses. We've got to do something to drive them to want to make a change. Right now, they don't have a need to change. They're not being pressured.”
When asked what businesses they would like to see go in downtown Pegram, Montgomery said a coffee shop where people can “get together and sit”; Crump said an “escape room” or something similar in the entertainment realm for families, birthday parties, and date nights; and Feidler said he would love to see a community center – “someplace where we have arts and crafts for senior citizens … and basketball for kids.”
One resident asked the three candidates to “jump into their time machine” and envision what Pegram would look like in five to 10 years under their leadership.
“I envision at the light there, and I call it downtown Pegram, by the ballpark that we have infrastructure there where we maybe even have a bridge or a tunnel getting over that railroad track so that we're not isolated whenever the train comes by,” Feidler said. “We develop sidewalks [and] we get businesses across the street so people can walk to cultural places. People come from Nashville, it's not a drive through town anymore, they're stopping by and antiquing and going out canoeing and on the way back stopping by a restaurant and going to the ice cream store and the souvenir shop.”
“We need to build up that part of the town to make it cultural, nice, and walkable,” Feidler said.
“If I go in my time machine, and then I come back, what I see is a more even closely knit community, because we have created a dynamic public partnership through community vision meetings where we have gotten expertise about what would actually work in our town,” Montgomery said. “I see us having higher property values because we are surrounded by the Veterans Cemetery and Harpeth River State Park and the Narrows of the Harpeth and so people come to Cheatham County and to Pegram for the jewels that are where we live.”
She continued, “We have businesses that are supported by our local people – including the ones that are currently there, like the Fiddle and Pick and the pottery store – and then we have an incremental plan for revitalizing the area that we are all talking about to make it more aesthetically pleasing. And so while that might not be complete yet, because that might be a 10 year or 20 year plan, we have made some progress on that mostly working together and being open to ideas.”
“Ten year plan, I would actually like to see downtown, a thriving downtown city of Pegram,” Crump said. “People going through to the rivers, they're not just driving through as fast as they can – because that’s what they do today – they're stopping to look. They’re admiring our rolling hills and our beautiful homes. They’re spending time here and spending money here.”
Early voting for Pegram’s local elections is open through Saturday, July 27. According to the Cheatham County Election Commission, just under 270 Pegram residents had voted in the municipal election at the time of publication.
Pegram residents can also vote on election day – Thursday, Aug. 1 – at Pegram City Hall.
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