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A member of Buena Vista City Council for the past six years, Stanley Coffey is seeking election to a new fouryear term. During his time on Council, he said, he’s always tried to work for the best interests of the city and its citizens.
A top priority of his is for the city to invest in an “upgrade of the wastewater [treatment] plant, which is far overdue. Also, we are working on getting our streets repaved. We can’t get them all fixed at one time. But we can do so many each year. This is being worked on now – the number we can do and what the cost will be.”
Coffey said he’s “all about keeping our schools. I don’t think the citizens are going to let the schools go. City Council and the School Board need to sit down and do some soul searching about how and where these improvements can be made. The city cannot afford a new school at this time. The cost to start out was [around] $35 million. A year later, it was almost $54 million. I would love to have the school complex at the high school. There is just no way that can happen at this time. Our best bet would be to work on upgrades on the schools we have.”
Everything Council does must be done under the constraints of holding the line on taxes, he said. “I’m against raising taxes on our citizens. We have a lot of citizens that are on fixed incomes and are struggling now due to the inflation, gas prices, grocery prices. We need more industries in our city. We need more businesses in our cities. We need to show people coming into our city that want to start a business that we are able to work with them and not have the cost to opening a business too costly to do so. We want to be business friendly. All of these will encourage our tax base, food tax, real estate tax, sales tax and so on. This will increase our tax base for the city.”
Disparagement of Council on social media has become a pet peeve of his. “One of my main issues that bothers me most is people getting on social media and beating up Council,” said Coffey. “These same people never come to Council meetings. They don’t have a clue about what is going on. Come to these meetings and state your case to us. I listen to every person that stands at the podium and speaks. I would rather they do it there than on social media. Please come to the meetings.”
Coffey serves on Council’s public works and safety committees. “I go to all of the committee meetings to know what is going on. I go to the finance meeting to voice my opinions. The public is invited to all these meetings.” He encourages city residents to “please come to these meetings to find out what is going on in the city.”
A native of Buena Vista, he is now retired, having worked 24 years at wastewater treatment plants – seven-and-ahalf years in Lexington and 16 1/2 years in Buena Vista. He was an active member of the Buena Vista Rescue Squad for 25 years, having served as captain. He is now an inactive life member. He is a charter member of the Rockbridge Community Church of the Nazarene and served on the church’s board for eight years.
