BENTONVILLE (KFSM) — Early voting for the Bentonville mayoral race started earlier this week after none of the five candidates were able to get more than 50 percent of the vote in this year's midterm election.
Stephanie Orman and Jim Webb are both vying to lead the state's ninth-largest city.
The growth of the Bentonville infrastructure is a very important topic that both candidates agree needs to be a top priority.
Orman, who was elected to the Bentonville City Council in 2014 and is the director of social media and community involvement with McLarty Daniel Automotive Group, said she would be doing a comprehensive road study.
“We do have a 10-year road study online, and we are in the 10th year of that, and it needs to be reevaluated," Orman, 43, told 5NEWS.
"We need to understand the cost. We need to understand how to connect roads and sidewalks and make sure we have the funding available to do that."
Webb, meanwhile, said he'll start by looking at where the city`s money is being spent.
“First thing I`m going to do is tackle traffic and congestion by doing an aggressive budget review, by going through line by line and looking for opportunities and wasteful spending in order to put back into addressing traffic and infrastructure,” he said.
Webb, 37, was also elected to city council in 2014 but had to resign in 2016 when he moved out of the ward he represented. He is a senior national manager at Backyard Discovery/Leisure Time.
With growth also comes the need for affordable housing.
Orman said she would try and work with developers to try and accomplish that.
“When we can start to understand how industry into the area and other things that we can work on, utility rates, and things that affect everyone, we can start to work on that cost of living issue as well,” she said.
Webb said the city has a master plan that addresses the housing issue and he agrees that we need more housing for all incomes.
“It addresses areas for affordable housing which we need. We`ve got to have housing for school teachers, firefighters, police officers,” he said.
Orman said her vision for Bentonville is to bring the community together and look at projects that they can get community engagement, like an animal shelter.
Webb said his vision is getting in front of the growth and spending the taxpayer's money wisely.
Early voting continues through Monday (Dec. 3). Election day is Tuesday (Dec. 4).