"Amid the Rocky Mount City Council having a reputation for at-times bitter and contentious meetings, a candidate for a position on the council is calling for treating people with respect to be standard operating procedure.

Lige Daughtridge, who is seeking election in Ward 5, said as a City Council member, one leads by example and said, “If you want respect from the citizens that you’re representing, you’ve got to show respect. And so that’s the first thing that we need to do as leaders, is we’ve got to show respect to everyone.”

Daughtridge said adults, when they were children, learned about treating each other the same.

“Why don’t we put it in practice as adults? Sometimes, if you go out to City Council meetings or if you go out in public and you get on social media, we act like a bunch of children — but quite frankly, children act better than we do,” Daughtridge said.

Daughtridge was responding to a question at a recent forum posed to him as well as other candidates for City Council and mayor.

The question was if elected, how the candidates would work to foster unity, equality and equity across the city groups, as well as municipal employees, residents in various communities, people of different races or religions and lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgenders."

http://www.rockymounttelegram.com/News/2019/10/01/Candidates-offer-ideas-to-promote-unity.html

Ward 5 candidate Lige Daughtridge said he believes there is a great example of affordable housing for senior citizens in the ward: Covenant Homes off Country Club Road. Daughtridge emphasized the need to support the location as much as possible.

Daughtridge went on to say he believes the elderly should have the opportunity to go to work because jobs are available and given employers cannot always fill them with qualified people.

“We also need to expand on certain things like gatekeepers that go into various homes of the elderly one time a year,” Daughtridge said. “We can expand upon that. And it also teaches our young people some skills and to see how other folks live — and also come together as a community and work together.”

http://www.rockymounttelegram.com/News/2019/09/29/Candidates-discuss-senior-housing.html

Candidates discuss gentrification

Friday, September 27, 2019

Ward 5 candidate Lige Daughtridge said while he believes the city does need to prepare for the issue of gentrification in the long term, he believes there should have been discussion before the October 2018 opening of the Rocky Mount Event Center.

“We’re doing this after the fact, but one thing that we need downtown for the event center and the downtown to be successful is we do need folks with money coming in,” Daughtridge said.

“But we also need the mixed-use in there — and we could do that by incentivizing builders and people to come in through zoning,” this to allow for perhaps more dense housing, Daughtridge said.

http://www.rockymounttelegram.com/News/2019/09/27/Candidates-discuss-getrification.html

 

Candidates discuss jobless rate

Sunday, September 22, 2019

Next to answer was Ward 5 council candidate Lige Daughtridge, who is a board member of the Rocky Mount-based Carolinas Gateway Partnership, which is the chief industrial recruiter locally.

Daughtridge said the partnership, in conjunction with the area’s government officials, is working with the community colleges to train a workforce. Edgecombe County is going to be the scene of New York-based Corning’s future distribution facility and Chinese-based Triangle Tire’s future manufacturing facility.

Noting he operates a small business, Daughtridge also spoke of the lack of potential future employees both being trained and having soft skills to work with people. Daughtridge said his bottom line is jobs are available.

“I’m out there giving jobs every day — and I know what it takes for people to get a job,” he said. “The big thing that everyone needs to get a job is you show up for work and you work harder than the next person.”

http://www.rockymounttelegram.com/News/2019/09/22/Candidates-discuss-jobless-rate.html

 

Council candidates pledge accessibility

Saturday, September 21, 2019

Ward 5 candidate Lige Daughtridge said he believes the standard procedures of a council member including meeting with constituents and having quarterly meetings, if possible, at various places, throughout the respective ward.

Daughtridge, emphasizing transparency citywide, also said, “We need to televise live the City Council meetings and the rest of the meetings — and record those.”

Daughtridge also said Rogers was quite responsive when he reached out to him.

“And I plan on continuing that when elected in City Council Ward 5,” Daughtridge said.

http://www.rockymounttelegram.com/News/2019/09/21/Council-candidates-pledge.html