Helen Anthony is one of the two candidates running to represent the Fifth Ward in the Columbia City Council. The Maneater sat down with Anthony to talk about her goals to improve the city.
**The Maneater**: What’s your background and have you ever held any elected positions before?
**Helen Anthony**: I am an attorney; I went to law school in Boston, Mass. and graduated in 1988. I moved here in November 2003, from a suburb of Boston, Mass. I was elected to Town Meeting, which is our government where I was from in Needham, Mass. In really whatever community I have lived in I have spent a lot of time volunteering. In 2007, I was appointed to the Columbia Planning and Zoning Commission.
M: What skills did you gain from this that are relevant to the city council position?
A: Well I’m running on my planning and zoning experience, and I think it’s very relevant and crucial to bring this experience to city council.
M: What other issues are close to your heart?
A: The electric transmission lines. Columbia Water and Light has proposed new electric lines out in the Fifth Ward but the proposal is for the new substation to go in at Peachtree, which is right next to Rockbridge High School and Gentry Middle School. And then originally the three lines were running through residential neighborhoods, so that was a big issue in many of the neighborhoods of the fifth.
Also, our infrastructure has to be worked on, in particular our road infrastructure. Infrastructure to my mind also includes making sure that our police and fire are staffed adequately. Our central services are really stretched to the limit and I think need to be supported and bolstered.
M: Do you have any big changes you want to make?
A: We have zoning regulations that are more than 25 years old. They are inadequate for a city that’s 100,000 and growing. The zoning regs and the land use policies that we have need to be overhauled.
M: What makes you the best candidate?
A: I’m an attorney and so I have a lot of experience with doing public outreach and consensus building. I think in order to be successful in any kind of organization you have to have the ability to respect different opinions and try to come to some sort of an agreement knowing that not everyone is going to get what they want. Those are the kinds of skills that you can use dealing with any issue that comes before city council.
M: What’s your favorite thing about local government?
A: The people; plain and simple. I am constantly amazed at the quality of the volunteers here. I like the diversity in terms of where people come from. We’ve got a lot of long-time residents but we have a lot of what I’m going to call newer residents. I myself have only been here for seven years, but I think I’m a good example of people that come into Columbia, love it, adopt it as their own city and work on the issues that make this even better than it is today.