By Chris Taylor
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wkms/local-wkms-899041.mp3
Mayfield, KY – Mayfield, Kentucky is a third-class city, employing nearly a hundred people. For almost twenty one years, Teresa Cantrell has worked for the city as the secretary for its mayors. Now, she's challenging incumbent Mayor Arthur Byrn in November's election. Chris Taylor profiles the two campaigns and finds out how it's affecting their long-time working relationship.
Teresa Cantrell says she's been eying the mayoral post for over a decade now.
Cantrell- When the current mayor was challenged by another mayor, Wayne Potts, there was a contingency of citizens that came to me and asked me to run. It was a really nasty election year on the heels of the decision that our current mayor Arthur voted on himself a pay raise and it was just a lot of pros and cons toward that, but anyway Mickey Mouse could have run against him and won.
Mayor Byrn lost that 1997 election to Potts, but returned to the ballots four years later and won again. Cantrell says timing more than anything has prompted her to challenge Byrn for the next term. She'll soon be faced with an empty nest: Her son's gone off to college, her daughter will be a high school senior next year, and Cantrell herself has finished an MBA degree. Cantrell also says she recently turned down a career-changing job offer in part because she says Byrn was considering not running again.
Cantrell- He said, You know, I just.. I really feel like I need to let you know this. This may help you decide or not, but I am more than likely not going to run for mayor for this next term.' He said, I'm ninety-nine percent sure I'm not running.'
Cantrell says she used to say all the time she would never campaign against Byrn as long as he wanted it. So when he was considering other opportunities, she started making plans to run. Soon after though, she sensed Byrn was beginning to backtrack.
Cantrell- Basically saying he needed to throw his hat into the ring. You know, he had had some deadlines that weren't reached in some of these other opportunities. I'm not saying that Arthur's been a bad mayor at all. I'm not going to do a negative campaign I just feel like he's lost some of his focus along the way.
Cantrell accuses Byrn of being almost wishy washy about the position and running only as a safety net. She says since she announced her candidacy, the usually open door connecting their offices is closed much of the time. Mayor Byrn maintains he has always intended to run for re-election and Cantrell's bid has put him in an awkward place.
Byrn- I thought of her as a family member. It's made things much more difficult for me. I had worked with her for almost 20 years off and on and I was extremely disappointed and personally hurt when she decided that she was going to run.
Byrn says despite the personal toll, the strain on their professional relationship will not affect his office's performance.
Byrn- Whatever the atmosphere up here, this mayor's office will continue to run as it's always run and I will not allow anything other than that to happen.
As the mayoral race heats up in Mayfield over the next half-year Byrn will be touting a successful term.
Byrn- I feel like there's a whole heck of a lot that I still would like to accomplish. We've made tremendous strides over the last couple of years, but I think that there's a lot more that we can do. I would like to take a little different approach to economic development and try some things that Mayfield hasn't done in the past.
Byrn says through his leadership the city is in such formidable financial shape that even despite the recent recession, it's running on a surplus.
Byrn- We have been able to sustain some commercial growth over the past several years. We've also, particularly in the last two or three years, made some substantial investments for city services.
Byrn also touts his administrations' preparedness in responding to disasters like the windstorms of Hurricane Ike and the 2009 Ice Storm.
Byrn- There's no doubt that we were a leader. We had a shelter open. We had our emergency operations center open before anyone else in western Kentucky.
Teresa Cantrell can certainly claim some of that success as Byrn's right hand, but she says she wants the fact that she's challenging him to help distinguish her from the administration. She says if elected, she'd like to make the local government more about the people than the process.
Cantrell- We spend so much time in Council meetings just haggling over little specifics. And this is not just the mayor; it's the council and the mayor. You know like the distance that a sign can be or the size that a sign can be.
Cantrell says local government should make better use of its time to actually affect people and maybe not come off as so restrictive. It seems so far neither candidate differs drastically from the other. Both are waiting to unveil more of their ideas for later in their respective campaigns, hinting some of those would include enhancing the city's relationship with local businesses. Voters have plenty of time to make up their minds before the November election.