The following are Mayor Woods’ opening remarks to the Council and citizens at the January 5, 2016 Town Council Meeting.

We as a government body and as a community must come together, work together, on some common goals for our town.

Hot springs has the lowest per capita income in the state. We as a town government need to work toward making this community a better place to visit and live.

We need to revise zoning, with a goal in mind to clean up properties, and not to restrict growth. We need to help make these properties look appealing to our friends, neighbors, family, and visitors to our town.

We need ordinances that promote growth and business, not hinder it. We need ordinances that are fair and equal to all our citizens. The way today’s ordinances are written is choking growth, and putting neighbors against neighbors. This type of behaver reminds me of history class, learning about Hitler’s Germany or Stalin’s Russia.

I ask, how can a citizen bring a complaint about a neighbor putting in a trailer, when less than a block away they live in a trailer?  How can we make rules with the “this applies to you but not me” attitude?

As a government body, we need to remember, we work for the people as a whole; we need to do what’s right for all 600 citizens, not just the 12 that complain the loudest.

We need to set goals on how to make our town better for the people. Our goal needs to be: improve the looks of our streets, yards, and houses. We need to improve and work on our goals for bringing tourists to our town.

As a community we need to be capitalizing on our beautiful scenery and nature. We need to be promoting the Hot Springs valley as a nature get-away. We have spots made for the perfect mountain bike riding, hiking, cross country skiing, snowmobiling, 4-wheeling. The geology of our valley is unique — from what glacier Lake Missoula has left us to one of the only real volcanos in the area. And let’s not forget our name sake — the hot springs.

We need to work on goals that bring people here; we need to be a destination spot. This will promote growth of our town. These improvements will cause people to want to visit here, retire here, move their families here.

We need to remember that much of the cost of doing business for the town is “X”, the more people we have in our community helping pay that cost, the less it costs each of us.

What we need to remember is that people are given some basic rights and we need to respect those rights. Remember also our property rights, but our neighbors are given the same rights, we need to learn to respect each other’s rights and make this a better community.  Our goal needs to be do what is right for the people.

We need to stop all the negative, build on the positive. We as a government need to improve, and help our neighbors improve, which in turn helps all of us.

Let’s set some goals, let’s work together, and make this town better place to live and visit. Thank-you.

ABOUT RANDAL WOODS, MAYOR

Randal Woods is the Mayor of the Town of Hot Springs.  He was born and raised in Hot Springs and is a business owner in Town.

He is very involved with the daily operation of the Town.  Under his leadership the Town has been able to upgrade and expand its utility services, obtain numerous grants for upgrades to emergency services-both fire and police protection, and develop a new shooting range site.

Mayor Woods is available by appointment to discuss your ideas and concerns.