For the second time, Omaha Mayor Jean Stothert and challenger Heath Mello battle it out head to head in a debate.
Topics include how each would approach revitalizing the riverfront.
“We are moving forward with a great plan for that area and this is not something that is pie in the sky in the future this is something that our business and philanthropic community are really engaged in and want to help fund too,” said Stothert.
“The biggest concern people keep raising to me is the lack of public engagement in the process of evaluating the opportunities as well as looking at what we actually want to see the riverfront do outside of just development,” said Mello.
But some of the debate turned tense as the candidates toil over how safe the city is. And each side portraying how that data is perceived.
“Violent crime in the city is up over the last 4 years,” said Mello.
“To tell the community that the city is more dangerous or that crime is going up is inaccurate and we have the data to show it,” said Stothert.
Without being brought up during the debate the candidates continued to spar over the controversial streetcar project.
‘Unlike the mayor who said that she would support a plan to put up 30-million dollars of general obligation taxpayer money towards a streetcar, I just think right now we need to push the pause button take a step back and start over all conversations,” said Mello.
“I have not done that, that’s a false statement, we don’t even know if a streetcar is feasible-we are just right in the middle right now with a study that is not being paid for by the city, it won’t be over until October,” said Stothert.
The general election is on May 9th.
