One of western Kentucky’s largest cities will have a new mayor after November’s election.
Three candidates – Republican Russ Guffey, Democrat Markeeta Oldham Wilkerson and Independent Desaepa Vansauwa – are all running in the race for Hopkinsville mayor. Guffey previously defeated the Christian County city’s incumbent mayor, James R. Knight Jr., in May’s Republican primary.
All three candidates were invited to participate in WKMS’s Voter Guide. Guffey did not respond to requests to participate. Wilkerson and Vansauwa each participated in separate interviews with WKMS to answer Voter Guide questions. Their responses appear in the order the candidates are listed on the ballot. Hopkinsville and Christian County voters can find other offices up for grabs in the general election either on the county’s sample ballot or with WKMS’s ballot lookup tool.
Markeeta Oldham Wilkerson – Democrat
Editor’s note: Wilkerson participated in an interview with WKMS to answer Voter Guide questions. Her responses have been transcribed and edited for length and clarity. You can also listen to her interview below.
Q: What should voters know about you and why are you running for office?
A: Voters should know that I am a lifelong citizen of Hopkinsville, Kentucky, where I have been a public servant basically since I was a young person starting in church, where I volunteered throughout the community. I worked, when I was a teen, in an organization where we did summer camps for people who live with disabilities. Growing up, I served on various boards in the community. I wasn't able to have a public office [before] because I'm a retired state employee after 26 years. So I worked diligently with the state on improving processes for mental health in Kentucky. I co-developed a recovery service throughout the state for persons living with mental illnesses.
I've served on several boards in Hopkinsville - Human Rights, which was formerly Human Relations, Boys and Girls Club, United Way, and Chamber leadership graduate for both the minority leadership as well as the city leadership organization. I’m a member of the GOAL Committee – which is Giving Our Appreciation for Learning – it works with the school systems, giving support…not only for the Christian County Public School System, but [all] school systems in Christian County. I'm a Girl Scout Troop Leader. I was also a foster parent for 20 years.
But the reason why I'm running is because I believe in our city. Again, I'm a public servant. I believe that if you want to see a change, you need to be the change. And what better way to be than sitting at the table? I believe in having safer infrastructures in our community, stronger economy, and a thriving community through working together.
Q: What would your priorities be, if elected?
A: My top priorities, if elected, would be working together with the city government to see what's ticking, what's not ticking; affordable housing, economic growth with employment, public accessibility, our bussing safety. Twenty-four-hour childcare, which is something we don't have – you can't have employees if they don't have childcare. Our youth initiatives – including mental health services – working with the quality of life of our constituents and the unhoused way that we have, functional infrastructures and having safe community partnerships.
Q: What do you see as the signature issue in your city over the next four years?
A: Some important issues that I see over the next four years and that I would want to address is first, collaborations amongst Fort Campbell, our county, our schools and universities, our businesses, our citizens and organizations.
A significant issue that I would like to address are the unhoused, having wraparound services for our unhoused. Affordability in housing. Our housing has a shortfall; affordable housing shortfall of about 3000 at this point.
Increase our youth initiatives so that we can have less youth violence on the streets.
Improving our infrastructure, such as our sidewalk, our busing systems, our time extensions, adding shelters in our community.
Another one is mental health and substance use. Having more collaborations with that sector of the community and working with [addressing] our gun violence.
Q: How would you work to improve the quality of life for city residents?
A: Having a background in recreational therapy from Murray State University, one of the big things of quality of life is that we need to start looking at the quality of life from our babies and assisting and collaborating to help improve the processes with them so that they can be more successful. And then, our children having things like STEM centers to assist in their education, but allowing them to have fun and engaged as well.And then incorporating like teen centers for our youth, having initiative programs [incorporating] mental health because we all know the statistics with mental health with our youth, and the suicide rate is growing.
And then for our young adults, having entertainment that would keep them in Hopkinsville instead of going an hour away to other areas. And then upgrading our senior citizens centers and investing in our senior citizens. We can do some of those things by improving our park systems. We can incorporate improving our museums. Just collaborating with some of the organizations and businesses to have a little upgrade in our city.
Q: What needs to change in your local city government, and why should people vote you into office to do that?
A: Some of the things I’ve been listening to constituents about and been looking at myself are more administrative transparency, financial accountability all around – not just from the mayoral seat, but collaborating with the city council members. More handling of Community Development Services – we've had some changes in our city where they transferred ownership of services.
And then modernization of services such as online services for people. After the pandemic, we had a lot of people who don't like to get out in the public. So, having more online and modernized services would assist in our local government.
And why I think that our constituents should believe in me is because I believe in transparency of local government, accountability, and stewardship of our taxpayers' dollars. Citizen empowerment: I believe that we should empower our citizens and improving the quality of life based on proven and tried results from other cities who have had success in the areas of their youth initiatives, their senior initiatives, their unhoused initiatives.
I also understand that a good leader helps people to develop themselves and to build confidence in the leader. And a great leader builds confidence in the people to empower themselves, and that's what I want to do for our city: is to have our citizens understand their value and that they do have a right and a voice.
Desaepa Vansauwa – Independent
Editor’s note: Vansauwa participated in an interview with WKMS to answer Voter Guide questions. His responses have been transcribed and edited for length and clarity. You can also listen to his interview below.
Q: What should voters know about you and why are you running for office?
A: I've always been here, advocating and supporting and championing our city in all aspects that I could. I think it's important to know that we are still a Commonwealth state, and as [a] Commonwealth, we look to do for the people of our city, not just the people of our party. And so, I believe that as mayor, it's very important that we carry those principles to the top office: being able to work beyond traditional party lines and put the people first.
Q: What would your priorities be, if elected?
A: I've been talking with the community because again, at this office, you advocate, you champion, and you speak for your city. And so my priorities link directly into that. So I don't have two or three; I have 10 administrative priorities. That's going to be safe streets, small business support, workforce development, budget accountability, access [to] transit, local food and farms, inclusive infrastructure, grant-first funding, community engagement, as well as equality.
…I believe that we have the people and the offices and the organizations within our community can handle all these at one time. We don't have to take a one-by-one approach if we put the right people in place. But I will say, speaking with the community, I have my top-voiced concerns…would be things that we try to tackle immediately because these are the things that the community has said that they want to see outside of my administration. And for them, that's youth job and safety, public safety and accessibility, housing, local business support, road sidewalks, and flooding issues they want to see that taken care of, as well as regional collaboration – wasting resources when we could collaborate with other departments and people that may be able to assist in things that we may not have as a city, and we’d be able to assist other organizations and departments for what they may not have as a unit. As well as responsible conversations around the data center. I know the community is really big on the transparency of that in the last couple weeks.
And then lastly, downtown revitalization – not just bringing businesses in, but fixing the infrastructure. We have a growing elderly community that will love access to downtown. We have a young population that will love attractions downtown, as well as we have businesses that will love to move downtown, but where are their people going to park? So we got to face the issue of parking as well downtown.
…We believe that we can get these things accomplished because outside of all of this, we've been working with the people that already look to face these blights. This seat as mayor would just allow us to put committees in full focus behind things that we're already doing. We don't have to restart or start from new.
Q: What do you see as the signature issue in your city over the next four years?
A: I’d say the housing shortage. We're looking at the red tape that's in place. I had the privilege of sitting in a housing task force meeting, and some developers said that the cost of building out the development, as well as ready-to-work plots, is something that we face here in the city.
Also, we're looking at the youth involvement. We got to make sure that the youth feel involved in the city, the youth feel wanted in the city as well. Outside of school, sports and school-related activities, what does the city have just at hand for our youth?
And then outside of that, you got accessible growth for our elderly community. I'm talking with a lot of my elders, and if we don't know, the two fastest growing groups in our city – and in most cities – it's going to be your elderly community and your disabled community… So, if we know that those are two fast growing groups, we need to create a city that is accessible and welcoming to these groups.
Q: How would you work to improve the quality of life for city residents?
A: I think just addressing the needs at hand. If we're looking at public safety and accountability, as well as the road, sidewalks and the flooding zones, we could prioritize the road maintenance in all neighborhoods – not just the ones that are selected through whatever process that has been done in the past. We can look at independently reviewing data to identify issues in our community. I was speaking with a young lady that stated that she worked hard to get her house, and the HOA is not enforcing rules of dumping and things of that nature in their community, and those turns into city citations. So it should bypass HOA problems, and we should be looking at these issues as a city to make sure that your hard work in obtaining ownership isn't blighted by dumping or issues that the city passes off to just another department.
Q: What needs to change in your local city government, and why should people vote you into office to do that?
A: As an independent candidate for mayor, accountability. We really need to have someone in office that is accountable to the people that got them there. I'm not loyal to no party. I'm not a part of no good old boy, bad boy system. I'm just somebody who is grown and rooted in the community and speaking to the community. I'm leading with their plight first, listening first, practical progress for every Hopkinsville neighborhood, not just those that traditionally seek the benefits.
