Come the end of the night Tuesday, Jim Garrett says he will be a winner regardless of the outcome of the city council election which pits him against incumbent Ernest Bobbitt.

“It doesn't matter if I'm elected,” he said in an interview last week. “I'm a winner just volunteering to be on the council. I did my part. I volunteered.”

Garrett doesn't feel the election is about the theater. It's about the budget and tax increases. “For 15 years we've had one of the highest tax rates in the state. The theater does not impact the budget. The budget is set in stone. We still have to pay the debt. The theater has no impact on us. The debt is there, it's permanent. It's a debt we have to pay off.”

Garrett's concern in his bid to unseat Bobbitt is, “So many other municipalities can operate on less than we can. Why are we the highest? We're spending too much money. What we need to do is listen to (Finance Director) MeLinda Hite. We need to look at her her recommendations and decide. Council has not done that.”

When an essentially new council was elected two years ago, Garrett said he thought there would be cuts. “We haven't had any. Cuts needed to start a long time ago. It's not like this year was a surprise. They've known it for five years. They should have made a move then. My goal is to encourage them.”

Garrett said he has talked to some of the department heads who have told him they could make cuts big enough so that city administration wouldn't have to make them.

On tax increases, Garrett said a property tax increase should not be considered until the budget, “is cut to the bone. Now is not the time to increase taxes. The economy is suffering.”

A tax increase would place a high burden on property owners. “Nobody is going to come out of this good.”

Property owners will have to contend with a revaluation which is likely to increase the value of property, Garrett said. If the budget isn't slashed by $2 million, Garrett says he can see a 20 percent to 30 percent tax rate increase. “Our city can't tolerate those kinds of increases.”

As far as addressing crime, Garrett believes the only way to push crimes out of neighborhoods is to, “Make it less profitable for property owners to neglect property, It's easy for property owners to neglect property. If we get rid of the ghetto environment crime will be reduced. When (former city manager) Paul Sabiston was here he put a push on strict guidelines. He enforced the guidelines. If you relax the guidelines, no one follows the rules. Paul Sabiston was too strict. The current (administration) is too lenient.”

Garrett, who owns rental property, says he does his part to help. “We do criminal and credit checks. We're comparatively in court far less than they (competitors) are. We have far less destruction than others. When you have higher standards you get better quality tenants.”

A resident of Roanoke Rapids for 30 years, Garrett said as a property owner, “It's in my best interest to keep taxes down and cut the budget. Not only is it in your best interest, but it's in the interest of every taxpayer in the city. The money we have to spend is better for us to have it than to have the government control it.”

Garrett said he is running a barebones campaign. “I'm not wasting my money campaigning. I think the performance of Mr. Bobbitt is your best campaigner. He helped build the theater, he helped go in secret meetings, he didn't inform the public of the feasibility study. He constantly increases the budget and votes to increase the budgets. He also voted for an increase in his pay when he voted to hold the line and not increase city employee pay.”