Vote team Gibson

To the editor,

Campaign season in Gibson, true to proclivity, has turned contentious, including someone reporting Gwen4Gibson.com as “unsafe,” temporarily blocked from the web. Mayor Gwen Arrigon is running for town commissioner, along with Myra Tyndall, who has 18 years of administrative experience in Gibson and Maxton and is currently Gibson’s bookkeeper.

Opposition strategy is “fake news” fliers and social media, claiming Gibson is “broke” because of Arrigon and Tyndall. Not only is this untrue, but in fact, the opposite is true, as reported by the finance officer at a recent town meeting. When Mayor Arrigon began two years ago, the town had lost nearly $150,000 in the previous administration, reported publicly to a town meeting by a state auditor. The town clerk and town attorney had both recently resigned, and Gibson sat atop nearly every state list of “distressed municipalities” due to failures in bookkeeping and budgeting, crumbling water and sewer systems and failure in mandatory reporting to state agencies. One mandatory monthly report had not been filed for 13 years! Arrigon and Tyndall made it a priority to return Gibson to full compliance with state and federal requirements. It took Tyndall six months to bring bookkeeping up to date, but they have balanced the budget two straight years.

Arrigon and Tyndall have endorsed John “Junior” Barry as a write-in candidate for mayor, a retired high school biology teacher and treasurer for Gibson Methodist Church. The three promote themselves as “Team Gibson,” urging voters to elect a team that can work well together, ending the dysfunction of recent years. A vote for the opposition will return Gibson to the same failed policies that brought the town to the brink of becoming the next East Laurinburg. A vote for Team Gibson will assure continuance of rebuilding Gibson’s budget and infrastructure.

Opposition strategy has employed the same intimidation and bullying tactics the mayor has endured for two years, including Facebook smears, and being stalked around town by someone with a camera. Despite constant opposition from obstructionist commissioners, Arrigon and Tydall have removed Gibson from distressed lists, made improvements to the park, and attracted a new retail store, now Gibson’s largest taxpayer. The mayor landed a sizeable grant to begin renovation and modernization of water and sewer systems that have been neglected for decades. I urge Gibson voters to vote their values, for the future and prosperity of Gibson, as is their American right. Nobody will know how you voted.

Jim Arrigon

Gibson