Two men with experience in elected office and business are running to be Paducah’s next mayor.
Incumbent mayor George Bray and city commissioner David Guess are both running for the far western Kentucky city’s top post in this November’s general election. The Paducah Area Chamber of Commerce hosted a mayoral forum Thursday, where the candidates answered questions on topics like economic development, business investment, housing and collaborations between the city and McCracken County.
Both candidates identified bringing more jobs and housing to Paducah as high-profile issues in their platforms. However, they have some different views on Paducah’s successes and where the McCracken County seat can improve.
Bray was first elected to office in 2020 at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. He highlighted large projects that the city and county have started on during his term, including the $65 million outdoor sports complex scheduled to be completed next year and upgrades to 911 radio system infrastructure shared by the two different governments.
If he’s re-elected, Bray said he wants to focus on change at a more personal level.
“In my first term, we focused on large projects. In my second term, we will focus on people,” Bray said. “Our citizens have spoken, and improvements in residential infrastructure, improved roads and sidewalks will be a primary focus.”
Currently in his fourth term as a city commissioner, Guess first sat on the commission from 2003 to 2006. He was reelected to the office in 2020. Professionally, Guess is a self-employed HVAC contractor and an investor in residential and commercial property.
Guess said that he’s running for office because while there have been large community projects the city has undertaken, local businesses are still closing. He said he’s seeing many of the same challenges in Paducah currently that he saw on his first stint on the city commission around 20 years ago, and said the city can do more to attract businesses and grow the community.
“We face pressing challenges: wasteful spending, stagnant growth and a bureaucracy that has hindered progress for many years. Paducah was once the fifth largest city in Kentucky. It's fallen significantly to 16th,” Guess said.
Guess said that he’s in favor of private investment to bring developments into Paducah’s downtown area, and private investments in housing in areas like Paducah’s Southside – a section of town the city government has prioritized growth in for the last several years.
Paducah introduced grant incentives last year for qualifying businesses, homeowners and residential developers in the Southside aimed at rehabilitating existing buildings and incentivizing new home developments.
At the forum, Bray said incentives aimed at the Walter Jetton neighborhood in the Southside “hadn’t taken hold like we hoped they would,” but that the city was reworking those incentives. He said Southside development is a long-term project, and that the city needs to find a way to bring more people to that area of town in order to attract businesses there.
“I think the key really is to provide the right incentives for developers, because developers are the key to building the Southside out, and the city is going to have to participate in that, because no developer is going to go in there and take a loss,” Bray said.
Guess said the Southside housing market needs a mix of public and private dollars to help keep progress going.
“Southside is a success, but we have got to, as a city, keep putting money into it. It's important to have the people that are there that can't keep their house up, to allow them avenues. But again, I'm all for private investment in that,” Guess said.
The entire candidate forum can be streamed on WPSD-TV’s Facebook page.
