Politics & Government
How Will Mayoral Candidates Support Youth Sports?
Many questions were asked of the three Mayoral Candidates at the Public Forum held Monday evening. Read their answers and decide who will get your vote.
Editor's Note: Lindsey Hickman is the daughter in law of Ted Hickman, who is running for Dixon City Council in the fall 2012 election.
The three Mayoral candidates, Incumbent Jack Batchelor, Steve Alexander and Michael Ceremello, were interviewed Monday at a public forum hosted by the Governmental Affairs Committee of the Dixon Chamber of Commerce. Here's one of the questions that was asked:
All sports and activities are critical to grow a good community. What have you done to promote and support youth sports and what will you do to create and maintain facilities and programs to serve the needs of the youth?
Find out what's happening in Dixonwith free, real-time updates from Patch.
Alexander answered, "I have coached youth sports 10-12 years, basketball, t-ball, little league, soccer. I am very for youth sports. It was saddening for me to hear the city council voted to nearly double the rates for the Dolphins swim team to use the aquatic center. In a town like Dixon we don't have a lot of actives like the big cities, I think with the activities we do have, we need to support them, sometimes at any cost. The minimal amount it would have cost the City of Dixon to continue to allow the swim team to practice and meet at the center was very minimal compared to some of the waste I've seen around town. I will be proactive and support youth sports 100%."
Ceremello answered, "I am not active with youth sports. Kids have a multitude of abilities. We should have been creating more opportunities and I don't think we have done enough working with the school district to provide empty gymnasiums with opportunity to be filled with kids."
Find out what's happening in Dixonwith free, real-time updates from Patch.
Batchelor answered, "In my 31 years in Dixon, I have raised two children, actively involved in softball, basketball, soccer swimming. We have great parks. Soccer has been a big mainstay in Dixon, and now Rugby has come up. We need to provide our parks to be used by a variety of athletics and we do a good job at that. We also have good joint use agreements with the school board. Recreation programs need to be tied with working with the high school."