The race for seats on the Atmore City Council is heating up as candidates prepare for tomorrow’s Candidate Forum at The Club and in District 2 incumbent Cornell Torrence will put his experience up against new ideas from challenger Thomas “Teddy” McNeal.

Recently, Torrence and McNeal sat down with The Advance to discuss their visions for Atmore as well as their views on, among other things, quality of life, economic development and crime.

Torrence, who was part of the administration that developed Atmore’s Rivercane area, said he is excited about what that property and the ongoing progress on the part of the Poarch Creek Indians, means for Atmore.

“I have high hopes for Rivercane,” Torrence said. “It is starting to pick up as the economy changes. It’s real nice out there and the businesses out there are doing good. I hope it continues to improve. (PCI) have been tremendous as far as hiring folks here in Atmore.

There’s a lot of folks from this area that work at the casino and hotel, and it’s real nice. A lot of folks come from out of town. It is a big plus for Atmore and the Atmore area. They’re getting ready to add more on up there and that will hire more folks. We need their help by bringing folks in. They help our businesses at Rivercane.”

McNeal said he feels education and new industry is key to expanding economic opportunities for Atmore residents.

“Airbus coming into Mobile could be a good thing for Atmore,” McNeal said. “We need to prepare our young men for, not only Airbus, but Austaul. They need to take and utilize the trade school down there to learn welding and brick masonry. It’s a good paying job, but you have to have the willpower.”

McNeal said the more Atmore residents utilize trade school opportunities, the more the city will see economic prosperity, better quality of life and even a drop in crime.

“Our young men should have more job opportunities,” McNeal said. “A lot of them are not working, they’re just hanging out in the street, and that’s not a good sign. Something needs to be done to get those men off to college and be productive in their jobs.”

McNeal also pointed to jail work programs and the founding of a city youth center as ways to curb the crime rate among young residents.

“We know we have a bunch of people who don’t want to work and their whole outlook on life is to go out and do crime,” he said. “If you take them and not let them lay down in the jailhouse in city hall and put them out there in the ditches with the inmates and make them work, you can curb all that. Curfew should be put around here, we’ve got our young kids who don’t have anywhere to go or anything to do, so they just sit around chewing the fat decide to break in somewhere. If we had a youth center for them to go to then that would take away a lot of the idle time they have to plot.”

Torrence said he feels more involvement from local churches is also a way to combat the crime rate, and thus improve the overall quality of life in Atmore.

“(The crime rate) is not the best in the world, it’s not the worst in the world,” Torrence said. “But it needs to be improved. Too much violence, a lot of it that’s uncalled for that doesn’t make any sense in the first place. I think if some of those folks who are committing these different crimes would go to church, I think it would help them. A lot of young men won’t go close to church. They find so many other things to do.”

Overall, Torrence said, the quality of life in Atmore is on the upswing, adding continued beautification projects and recreational opportunities are also ways Atmore can stand apart from other areas.

“The quality of life has improved from a few years ago,” Torrence said.  “A lot of people are doing better, living better and enjoying themselves more at different recreational facilities here in town. I’ve been on the council for four years. We are trying to improve Atmore overall, make the town look better. Most folks judge a town by the way it looks.”

This article is the third in a series discussing critical city issues with municipal candidates for the mayoral and city council races.