Mayor Tom Watson On Reelection & Future for Owensboro

Mayor Tom Watson On Reelection & Future for Owensboro

>>> davis county results declaring an apparent winner of the o witne owensboro race.

>> joining us, tom watson, we did want to congratulate you on your big win last night.

>> thank you.

Thank you very much.

>> it was a cowded feld tere in the race this year.

Three other candidates you had to beat out for that.

They did a pretty god job in the ars percentage points too.

>> yeah.

It was just weird with the zoom deal instead of actual having to face and we don't have aprimary.

The whole thng was covid an just din't feel like a regular campaign.

It was just odd.

You really had to have a really good social media presence and direct mail pieces o you were kind of left behind.

>> mayor watson, one thing i do want to touch on while we have you here, obviously the city of owensboro has rcently had two shootings that sadly resulted in the death of two young men in owensboro.

One of the things that we've heard from you in terms of your e.r.a.

Elect reelection.

Do you think there is some sort of issue with gun violence in o wi owensboro, especially young peple and what are you hearing from police as far as what they ned in terms of help to improve public safety in owensboro?

>> well, you know, it's terrible to have any kind of gun violence, especially children and young people.

I hold trust in our chief of police.

Quite honestly, i don't kow anything about law enforcement.

I make artificial limbs for a living.

But i rely on them to tell me what they need.

One of the things i'm trying to do is get a western kentucky police academy so we don't have to go all the way to eastern kentucky to get smebody trained.

It's kind of foolish.

That's a big deal.

And i' always in contact with the homeland security an withwh, you know, we've gotten quite a few very nice grants in the last couple of years that have helped our police department.

Our main thing is getting young people trained and getting them back home.

That's the thing right nw.

I think we have ten in the key right now.

Our more will be coming home.

I give all the credit to our police department.

I dn't want anybody shot.

I don't even know how to shoot a gun.

Don't want to kow how.

>> i hear you.

I har you, mayor watson.

One thing i guess i do want to ask is do you have a message to these young people who are, you know, running around the streets doing these things in your town?

This is not what you want to see and it also -- i mean, it lterally ruins families, lts of lives involved.

These two murders, i tink there was just an arrest was it yesterday?

Two teens.

It's funny you should use the term family.

It's very difficult sometimes when tese young kids don't have both parents at home.

They've been raised by grandparents and aunts.

It may not be in this case.

I haven't looked at it.

've been a little busy with some other thngs.

It's terrible the breakdown of a family.

I credit a lot of these problems just to that itself.

We need to b able to keep the parents with the cildren.

Quite honestly, child ause is up, suicides are up.

There is a lot of things that are covid connected.

I don't think population wise we're any different.

I actually think we're a little bit better than most communities as far as gun violence.

>> mayor watson, i want to thank you for joining us this morning.

I want to thank you for your leadership to take on tough topics like that just hours after securing your third term as the oensboro mayor is a very gutsy thing to do.

Thank yu for being so honest with us this morning aout this very serious problem in your community.

>> well, thank you very much.

We'll stay on top of it, i promise you.

>> on a brighter note, you can see mayor watson of course wth pwhraoufl beautiful bridge in owensboro.

>> we're excited.

It's going to be virtual.

>> we're going to do it some kind of technology wise, but it will be hard to keep pople coming from down.

I's going to be spectacular and we are proud of it.

>> we are so happy for you and yur city.

Thank you, mayor watson.

>>