Councilmember Farrow Sworn In

Steve Farrow was elected to the Dalton City Council representing Ward 4 in November. He’s a Dalton native and graduate of Dalton High School, the University of Tennessee, and the University of Georgia’s School of Law. He has practiced law for nearly 40 years and also has extensive experience in state government, serving as a state senator from 1993-1996 and also serving on the State Transportation Board, the State Board of Workers Compensation, and the State Ethics Board.

Mr. Farrow was sworn in to office at Tuesday night’s City Council meeting. Before that meeting, he shared some thoughts on his term ahead.

You’re being sworn in to the council at tonight’s meeting and finally getting started officially. What are your thoughts on beginning your term tonight?  

It’s been a busy two months, but I’ve managed to meet with all of the department heads and I’ve really been extremely impressed with the leadership we have in the city. I’m certainly looking forward to working with all of them. I’ve taken time during the interim period to meet with all the council members as well as the mayor to orient myself and to get to know them better. I anticipate that it will be a great working relationship. I think the council has all of the same goals and seems to be moving in the same direction. That’s exciting as well.

With all of the work you’ve done to get up to speed, what are some of the things you’re excited about working on early on? What do you want to tackle first?

One of the issues that I did stress throughout my campaign was that we need to do several things to make this community more appealing to middle and upper-middle class people. I think that it’s no secret that 60 percent of the people who are making over 40,000 dollars in this community aren’t living here anymore. That’s probably the case in the county too and not just the city. One key is recreational infrastructure. We have a lot of wonderful facilities but we still have things we need to do to make it more appealing to people who would want to live here. For instance, there are really no designated bicycle trails for what I call road bicycles, and unless you want to ride on the open road in traffic you pretty much have to go to Chattanooga to ride your bicycle. My kids are all grown up and I can take the time to do that on a weekend but if you’re a young family I don’t know how you can take the time to do that. That’s one example. There’s not enough housing here, and there’s certainly a concerted effort in that direction and there are things that are in the offing there to work on housing. There are some infrastructure needs and hence the Market Street project which is starting to come to fruition. So it’s an exciting time to be coming in and I feel that there’s a desire on the part of the leadership to move forward in a lot of these areas and build on what we have and to add to it to make it an even more appealing community.

So when you look at Dalton, where do you see the community and what is your vision for Dalton’s future?

We are the envy of so many communities in that we do have a lot of industry and a lot of jobs here. We have outstanding infrastructure as far as our schools go, we have a quality of life that a lot of communities don’t have with the Creative Arts Guild, with all of the great things that are going on in downtown Dalton. So, it’s a great place to live, and we probably need to do a better job of selling that to people who want to come here. And the vision I really have for the future is that we build on that. For instance, we need to have a library here that’s better supported and not one of the lowest funded libraries in the whole state of Georgia. That’s an example of something that we haven’t done. We’ve always been known for having a great recreation program here but there are some things that maybe we’ve fallen behind on and there are some things that maybe weren’t necessary 30 years ago that are necessary now. My vision is really to have a community that is appealing to everyone.  

A lot of leaders start at the local level whereas you’ve got a lot of experience as a state senator and also a member of several state boards. How do you think your experience with state government will benefit Dalton as you work on the city council?  

I guess I have done it a little in reverse but one of the good things about that is that I’ve been exposed to things all over this state, and I know that we aren’t an island up here. I think that my background in areas like the state transportation board will be invaluable as we look at our infrastructure needs as a city and as we look at ways to take advantage of funds and opportunities at the state level. Those are things that I look forward to using as I step forward in this new role. In addition to all the things I’ve done at the state level, in my professional life I’ve also been a city and county attorney for a several cities and counties and I hope that all of that experience of representing cities and counties will give me an idea of the kind of councilman I want to be and the kind that I don’t want to be.

With that knowledge base and experience, you’d seem to be in a position to hit the ground running in a way that people who aren’t experienced with government might not be.

I think I’m prepared. I think that all of that wealth of experience like you say will help me to hit the ground running from the moment I take my oath tonight and that’s the advantage I guess of doing it in reverse is that I have the benefit of all that experience to apply to this position. And now my work will be all concentrated here in this community where I live and work every day and I can make a difference here that will last after I’ve gone and maybe the things I’ve done before at the state level were more indirectly affecting Dalton.

You are from Dalton and when you’ve talked about the city your love for Dalton comes through. What does Dalton mean to you?

My parents were not actually from here, and they chose Dalton because that’s where they wanted to… it’s where my dad wanted to have a medical practice, it’s where they wanted to raise a family and it was a great place for me and my siblings to grow up. Even thought I had other opportunities after I graduated law school I felt a strong pull to come back to this community just because I loved it so much., During my professional life I’ve had opportunities to go practice law somewhere else but I’ve always turned away from those opportunities because I felt strongly about staying here and making it a better place to live and work.

Is there anything else you’d like to add before you get started?

At some point I need to say that one of the great things about Dalton is that its diversity. Again, you know a lot of communities don’t have the diversity that we do and I think we ought to embrace it rather than shy away from it. I’m one of the biggest Dalton High soccer fans around. Our diversity is just a wonderful component that a lot of communities don’t have. And I think that over time the community has gotten closer. I think initially there was a knee jerk reaction among some people when you had new people coming to our community, but as with all immigration I think as time has gone by we’ve realized what a rich resource it is. It’s made our community stronger. If you think about some of the communities elsewhere in Georgia where you don’t have any industry, you don’t have any diversity… we’re in a pretty good place.