Election 2004 --Your vote counts - Rayburn wants to bring new ideas to council

Jim Rayburn

1901 N. Elm Street

Age: 42

Occupation: Chief operating officer for Champion Athletics and Champion Diamonds.

Wife: Carrie

Children: Crystal, Tiffany and Jonathan and Jonelle.

What strengths will you bring to the city council that will help the city?

I think I will bring new ideas to the council. I believe in listening to the people and am interested in their input. Any citizen who has a question for the city should have an answer within a reasonable time frame. I'm going to try hard to keep the industry part of town going. I think we need to do that as a unit.

What direction do you want to see Nevada head in the next three years?

I would like to see the growth of industry continue.

The city needs to fulfill the promises they made to new industries that have come to town. I haven't actually seen cases, but I have heard of some that have not actually got what they were promised. It's still kind of a struggle for some of them. I haven't actually talked to any of them and I'm not saying the city hasn't done this. It's just hearsay. We need to keep working with industries or we are going to lose industries. To do that the city need to get back to the charter that was originally drawn up that the people voted on. We need to keep the jobs in town. It is real important to keep jobs and companies interested in coming to Nevada. The growth of the town will benefit everybody.

The one-half cent parks and recreation sales tax expires in 2005. There is some consideration of asking the voters to renew it. What is your position on it?

I really haven‚t studied that enough yet. I really don‚t have an honest answer at this time.

What is your interpretation of the council's job as laid out in the city charter?

I think the council's job is first of all to oversee expenditures. And in my opinion the council should look at every check that's written within reason. There's no way anybody is going to sit there and look at all the checks. You've got your budget, but I feel that even if you've got X-amount of dollars set back in a budget I think the council still should oversee what that money is going for, rather than the money is just being spent. They ought to oversee a lot of expenditures.

I have had a lot people ask what you're going to do with my tax dollars. Obviously, you'd like to put it to good use and you want to be sure its spent for the right things. I want to be sure that money is not being spent that doesn't need to be spent. I think there may some places that we could cut back on spending and increase spending in other areas that would help the city even more. That is not something that can be determined without getting in there and talking with other council member. Its really important to make sure money is not being spent that we do not necessarily have to spend. And it may not be. I think the council has done a fairly good of overseeing the budget expenditures.

Do you think the city needs to be audited by the state?

I signed the petition, mainly because I firmly believe that if money is being spent that shouldn't be, every citizen has a right to know where that money is going. I don't know if they are going to find anything in that audit but I believe that if there are questions by citizens then I feel everybody has a right to see the answers. That's the main reason. I don't know one way or another if money has been spent that should not have been spent, but I guess if people feel strongly enough that they want a state audit they have the right.

Is there anything else you would like to see done?

I really believe that as a far as the 911 issue that needs to be the city and county working hand in hand on it. The city needs to be involved with the county to get the 911 expanded. I think that something that can be worked out. It is a needed thing.