Ahead of the upcoming election, residents in New Iberia are getting a better sense of the three people running for city marshal.
KATC was at a forum Tuesday night where each candidate spoke about their plans.
Although each candidate has a different background -- they all seem to agree on one thing: the next city marshal in New Iberia will need to bridge the gap between the community and law enforcement.
Brett Lang, Corey Porter, and Dickie Fremin are the three city marshal hopefuls for the upcoming election.
They were asked about their plans to rebuild the trust between law enforcement and the community.
"You have to work in our communities,” said Porter. “People in our community, if they don't see their law enforcement, they feel like they don't have law enforcement. It's hard for our kids to respect law enforcement if the only thing we come do is put someone in jail."
"My phone will be on every day all day long,” said Fremin. “So, if someone has a problem or would like to speak to something, I'm available for the public. In the past, the marshal's office is hardly ever open.”
"One of my plans is to start and explore programs in high schools,” said Lang. “We're losing our kids to guns; we're losing our kids to drugs. We need a law enforcement agency that is willing to go in there and work with our teens."
A panel of three community leaders asked them questions regarding youth, drug issues in the city, and what they could accomplish in the first two months of being elected.
"Community relations and law enforcement in our schools,” said Porter. “Be able to talk to different programs that we have in the school district."
"Serving the almost 1900 fail to appear warrants that the city court has, then I want to bring credibility and stability back into the marshal office,” said Fremin.
“Start building relationships with the community,” said Lang. “Let the community leaders know, business owners know, there's a new marshal in town who cares."
We asked the candidates how they would ensure transparency between the office and the public following the charges against former city marshal Tony Migues.
They all said they feel confident they have the knowledge and trust with the community to avoid anything like that from happening again.
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