By Robert Tomlinson
News Director
Editor’s Note: Four seats on the Three Rivers City Commission will be decided by voters in the Tuesday, Nov. 7 election: Mayor, Third District Commissioner, First District Commissioner, and an At-Large Commissioner seat. For the November election, The Commercial-News will be previewing the two elections that did not have a primary earlier this year and will have more than one candidate – the Third District race has incumbent Chris Abel running unopposed. This election preview article focuses on the At-Large race between incumbent Torrey Brown and challenger Jason Reeves.
THREE RIVERS — The classic tale of youth versus experience will be on the ballot in November, vying for a spot on the Three Rivers City Commission.
Incumbent Torrey Brown, who has been on the city commission since 2021, and challenger Jason Reeves, a 24-year-old who lived outside of Three Rivers for the past few years but moved inside the city within the last year, will vie for the At-Large seat on the commission in the Nov. 7 general election.
This will be the first time Brown has officially had his name on a ballot, as the At-Large race in 2021, in which he defeated then-candidate Lucas Allen, was decided via write-ins with nobody’s name officially on the ballot. Meanwhile, this will be the first time Reeves has run for public office.
Brown said he has learned a lot in his first two years as a commissioner, and that things have gone “okay” so far with being on the board. He said his goal is still the same: To help Three Rivers be a thriving community.
“I’m not a politician, I never aspired to be one, I just want to live in a better community, and I want better things for people in this community,” Brown said. “I want this to be a thriving community for everyone.”
Brown said he’s running for re-election because he doesn’t think he’s “finished” with helping the community from a seat on the commission.
“I think there’s more for me to do in this community. I think we’re getting there and moving in the right direction, but I think there’s more to be done in this community from me. I think I owe this community more than I’ve been able to give it so far,” Brown said.
As for Reeves, who works in home repair and dock removal, he said he decided to run because he is not a fan of how the city has been going.
“I’ve been part of this town for a very long time, and I’ve seen changes that I don’t really care for. If there’s anything I can do to help that, I’d like to do that,” Reeves said.
Brown and Reeves have differing opinions on the water situation in the city. Brown said commissioners can “only do so much” when it comes to addressing water, and said the city has to “jump through hoops” before they can get much-needed funding from the state.
“We’re doing everything we can as far as jumping through these hoops to be able to get to a point where when we get everything figured out where all the lead lines are, we can get it taken care of expeditiously,” Brown said. “We’re being proactive and not reactive to the situation. Most cities are not even addressing their lines yet; they’re waiting until the last minute to see if the state’s going to fund it. We don’t want to be caught in a situation where the state’s not going to fund it, and then we have to make a lump-sum payment.”
Brown said he feels the city’s doing “the best we’re able to” with addressing the water and replacing lead service lines.
“I feel that more can be done, but at this time we’re unable to do more because of the cost. The city doesn’t have that much money to go through and replace every line in the city. We have to figure out which ones are bad first before we can get to a point where we can start replacing anything,” Brown said. “There’s going to be another round of testing, and when those letters go out, the more people that respond to those letters and allow testing, the better numbers that we’ll get, the truer numbers that we’ll get as far as where the lead is in the community.”
Reeves, on the other hand, thinks the city should be doing more to address the water situation, focusing moreso on the cost of water residents pay.
“I understand they’re giving away free filters down at city hall, and I honestly feel since the water is so contaminated, they decided to raise our prices and give us these filters. It should be the other way around; they should lower our prices and still give us those filters. I disagree on what they did by raising prices,” Reeves said.
He said if elected, he would be willing to donate his own money to help the situation in any way he can.
“I would seriously suggest doing that and possibly starting to get water softeners instead of water filters,” Reeves said.
When it comes to housing, Brown and Reeves both think there should be more affordable housing available for people in Three Rivers. For Brown, he said while more housing in the area is a good thing, but there needs to be more housing that is affordable, saying he has pushed for bringing in developers to build low-income houses since before he was elected.
“I believe we need low-income housing in our community, and not just apartments, because we have families out there who are living in apartments because that’s all they can afford, or that’s all they can get into,” Brown said. “We need to figure out a developer who’s going to come here and build homes that the average man can afford. Not everybody can afford a $250,000, $300,000 house. There are some people who can only afford a $75,000 house, and those aren’t being built right now.”
Reeves said he would be in favor of more subsidized housing in the city.
“I was just recently able to afford my own place. I rent, not buy, but with inflation going on right now, it’s really hard for people to find houses,” Reeves said. “I would really like to see more subsidized housing in the city. I thought about possibly where the old hospital used to be, try to build something there.”
On the issue of homelessness, both Brown and Reeves agreed it is an issue in the city. Brown said the overall issue isn’t something that can be fixed overnight, and that it’s an issue that city commissioners alone can’t solve.
“This isn’t something that should just be put on the commissioners, because the commissioners can’t do anything without the backing of the citizens. The HOPE project, I think that’s an amazing idea. We need somewhere for these people to live,” Brown said. “We need to try to figure out how we can get someone to sponsor a homeless shelter, something like Keystone they have in Centreville. Keystone can’t shelter everybody. We need to figure out some sort of a program where we can get people housed, cleaned up, get them job interviews, we teach them how to live on their own, and then help them reassimilate into the community. It’s not an easy task, and it’ll take time, but we need people that are willing to do it.”
Reeves said he believes the city should have a plan to address homelessness, and gave a suggestion for how he feels the city could do so.
“I’m not really sure if the city has any sort of homeless shelter, but I would recommend one of these older buildings downtown turn into one, so they can have a warm place to sleep,” Reeves said.
As for the issue of marijuana and the number of shops in the city, both candidates said they didn’t mind that there were as many shops as there are. Brown said the city shouldn’t curb applications, saying that each store brings something different.
“So, it’s like, we have pizza restaurants, we have Little Caesar’s, we have Pizza Hut, we have Cavoni’s, and back in the day we had Domino’s and Goldies. We had all these options, and nobody said should we curb the pizza industry. Each one brings something different to the table,” Brown said.
Reeves said while he doesn’t have a problem with marijuana, he thinks the city could do more with the tax revenue they’re getting.
“It seems lucrative, and as far as I’ve heard, it’s doing well for the city and the city’s making money. I don’t really mind it,” Reeves said. “I would like to see them start doing a little bit more changes, maybe fixing the roads more with the money they’re getting.”
Both Brown and Reeves are also advocating for more safety and things for kids to do in the Three Rivers community.
“I do notice that the skate park over here, there’s no fence around it. I feel there should be more than that. There are three different districts in the city, possibly more, but there should be more than one bike riding or skate park area, there should be other places for them to be free and be safe,” Reeves said.
“A community center would still be something I’d love to see,” Brown said. “However, we don’t have a backing for the things that the community is asking for, that the community feels like it needs, and the city is not in a position to where it’s going to pay for a community center. So, yes, it would be amazing for this community, but we need someone to come in and say, ‘I’m going to put the community center in.’ Once it happens, I believe it would thrive and help with a lot of the issues in the city.”
Overall, both say the voters of Three Rivers should vote for them because they would be committed to seeing the city thrive.
“Everything I do, I give it my all. Since I stepped foot into this position, I’ve given it my all. I’ve given this city everything that I have to try and help improve it, and I don’t feel I’m done yet,” Brown said.
“I’m a friendly face, you can talk to me any time you need to, you can show up to my house, and I’ve always been a people person. I hope to make everyone happy, and that’s really it,” Reeves said.
Robert Tomlinson can be reached at 279-7488 or robert@threeriversnews.com.