What are your top three priorities?

His top three priorities are financing, maintenance & improvement of infrastructure; "fully fund public safety", including police and fire department; and neighborhood revitalization.

He says infrastructure is important for businesses & that neighborhoods need to be "sparkling" when potential new residents or employers drive through town. He says private organizations and people also need to step forward and help with revitalization.

Coleman didn't clearly list 3 priorities, but focused on these:

• Quell gun violence & increase public safety
• Attack the root causes of crime and poverty by investing in basics: the promotion of fair and equitable public schools, well paying jobs, housing & mental health services
• Expand youth engagement programs
• Raise Community Based Violence prevention funds
• Embrace large scale manufactures and incentivize small business development

He is the son of a former Decatur Police Officer, and his stepfather was murdered in the past two years in this community. He says having dealt with gun violence on both ends will help him with solving it.

He says the Macon County Jail is "the large [sic] mental health provider" in the county, and identifies this as a problem.

He says kids need jobs during the summer and after school programs so they are "not in the streets" & can invest in the community in the long run.

Karl serves on the Decatur Leadership Coalition, organized in the last year, identifying ways they can fund new programs and avenues to quell gun violence.

He says "We can't keep approaching the problem the same way and expecting different results. We have to get innovative". He says we've seen innovative solutions in other parts of the country & have to do it here with a "full faith effort and backing".

Karl is the Secretary of the Southside Improvement Association and has been intimately involved with revitalization projects, including the John's Hill Neighborhood Revitalization, Clean Up Green Up program and knocking doors to see what people want done in their neighborhoods.

He says we want to embrace large scale manufactures, but also want to lift up and incentivize small business owners.

• Safety
• Jobs
• Accountability

Says he's learned a lot since being appointed to City Council in August 2021, and that many of the goals need to continue, like neighborhood revitalization. Says homes need to be rehabbed & tear down homes that aren't fixable.

Says we need to look "out of the box" to figure out what to do with vacant lots, to get people those lands for free & improve them to bring in tax dollars and make the neighborhoods "look well".

Says we need to continue to improve our police departments, and talks about the 100+ Police Cameras in the city, which have helped Decatur PD solve some major crimes. He says nobody will come to the city if it's not safe.

Says we need to continue to support economic development and improvement, get kids (starting with 8th graders) into trades, bring in military recruiting, in part to prevent crimes, by making sure kids aren't idle.

Says we need to develop and build new careers for the people.

• Neighborhood Revitalization
• Workforce Development
• More Improvements to Downtown Decatur

Says neighborhood revitalization won't do much if we don't have workforce development. She says when people are making and earning a good wage, they'll put it right back into their home, so we need to help our population get careers they'll enjoy & love.

She says our neighborhoods need to "come together" and tell the city what they want for their community & that she doesn't believe in "top-down government". She references the Jasper Street Corridor project that is using this bottom-up model.

She says we have a beautiful downtown, but that we still have a lot of work to do.