04/03/2023
Brian Watson is someone who enjoys a challenge. With every challenge, he becomes stronger and more resilient. A simple-minded man who would help anyone with a simple vison, “nothing is impossible with hard work, dedication, self-belief, and a need to improve every situation with truth and fairness.”
Brian Watson was born August 4, 1979. From an early age of 15 years old, he was unfortunately determined and adult by the state of New York and pushed out of school. He was expected to survive with all odds stacked against him for his survival in life. Unfortunately, without a high school diploma and no work history it was a struggle for work always hearing the words “he could not”. This was the best thing that could ever have happened. He developed a new skill in life, resilience and determination. He developed into an individual who would not take “no” or “you cannot” for an answer. He believed he could do whatever he wanted and accomplish anything he set his mind to accomplish. He was told he could not run a successful store, but he started a successful one in Brownville, New York. A year later, he relocated to Watertown for a better location in beautiful downtown where he stayed for 3 1/2 more years. He knew deep down in his soul there was more he could accomplish. He decided to start a business as a contractor. He still has this business and is highly successful.
Brian has several issues he is passionate about in the town he loves and serves. Brian will work tirelessly to help solve these challenges for the improvement of Watertown and her citizens.
These issues are:
Housing and property damage:
Affordable housing is a subject that is in dire need of a solution. I believe this could be solved with as little as enforcing the laws we already in place and increasing individual developers and investors buy simply protecting their investments. When a local landlord invests into a property, his rent is based on his investment. The more they invest in recovering property damage the more rent increases along with cost of living. The lack of law enforcement in protecting property damage has simply left our city in devastation with more homeless people and stagnant or depreciating property value. Rents continue to increase as a direct result of property damage. This results in more homelessness and less affordable housing.
Loss of Investors:
Outside investors are just as important in the community. The community itself without these investors, would not have bought these ghost homes and refurbished them creating jobs. There would never have been a Walmart, Taco Bell, Stuarts, Burger King, or Dollar Store. Anything everything starts with investment and it is a key to our city’s future. Unfortunately, we need to change things to make our town and community more attractive to outside investors. We are slowly chasing our investors away year after year. More investors leave than come. Once they are gone, so is Watertown. Our investors are the backbone to our future.
Infrastructure:
The foundation of our city is crumbling. Our water and sewage systems are failing us. This is a critical issue. We have known about for several years about these challenges and have failed to solve the root problem. The belief of city leaders that the basic needs of the community are not as important as “entertainment” attractions. No matter how many entertainment venues we have, no one will want to live in a town full of drugs, crime, homeless, pot holed roads, polluted water, and decreasing property values. I believe without solving these problem, we will continue to pollute our river, our town, and our economy. We will continue to have problems with basic, clean drinking water. Our roads continue to cause damage daily to our everyday driver’s vehicles. For our everyday worker the cost of repairing a vehicle can be overwhelming. While our taxpayers, the average working person, suffer the cost, our roads continue to crumble, our homes are losing value by the year because of a variety of things. Number one are city’s condition we have hundreds of ghost houses throughout the city, standing and devastation with no investors to invest in these properties or town slowly becomes crippled by it.
Quickly, our property values are decreasing when they should be increasing as they are nationwide. This is the sign of a dying economy and a dying town. What will our children inherit if we continue to elect the same type of people to council? A crime infested, economically challenged and broken town no one will want to live in much less move to or invest. What legacy will you leave behind? The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over hoping for a better outcome. Stop the insanity once and for all.
Give the people of the North Side a voice at the table for a change. I challenge you to make the choice to pick a different option. What is good for the lowest among us is good for all of us. Choose, this election, to make a difference and stop the insanity once and for all. Help balance the council take the power away from the haves and help council members understand not every one’s biggest worry is what new car should we buy or where should we go in Hawaii for vacation and how to get the cheapest flights though Canada. Some people worry about how their kids are going to eat, how they will put clothes on their kids, pay utilites and how they are going to pay the rent.
Vote for Brian Watson, the working man’s choice. Be the difference you want to see for yourselves and your futures.
