Mayor George Bray is releasing a series of City Profile episodes in which he talks with members of the Paducah Board of Commissioners. On this City Profile episode, Mayor Bray interviews Mayor Pro Tem Sandra Wilson, the longest-serving female elected official, who has served on Paducah’s City Commission since 2013. Wilson is in her seventh term as City Commissioner.
In Wilson’s seven terms, the Board has appointed Wilson as Mayor Pro Tem for five of those terms, a position Wilson currently holds in addition to her role as Paducah Area Chamber of Commerce President/CEO.
During her career, Wilson has always worked to move forward in the business and government world. Wilson was the first woman to serve as Chair for the Paducah Area Chamber of Commerce board and to chair the Greater Paducah Economic Development board. Mayor Pro Tem Wilson said that at many times in her career, she was the only woman in the room at a meeting. “I really feel like being in those roles has helped me learn what’s expected and hopefully encourage other women not be scared to put themselves out there in leadership roles in our community.”
In this episode, Wilson discusses the series of events regarding the development of the Murray State University Paducah Campus on Sunset Avenue more than a decade ago that helped her decide to run for office.
“I hope we all see the difference that the Murray State building is making in our community,” said Wilson. “It’s a satellite campus for Murray State. It’s not the main campus, but we’re 50 minutes from the main campus. People can continue to get bachelor’s and master’s degrees in this community. I’m really proud of the work we did then. It was a joint effort to get a lot of people on board, but I think it has really helped our community from an economic development prospect.”
Mayor Pro Tem Wilson focuses on economic development and growing the Paducah community from multiple approaches with the ultimate goal of being the place that people choose to live.
In a recent meeting with high school juniors who may consider leaving the community for higher education, Wilson said, “One of the messages I wanted them to hear from us is that we want them to come back to this community. We want them to make this their home. We want them to be our entrepreneurs. We want them to be small business owners. We want them to be in the medical profession. We want them to be nuclear engineers. We want them to be truck drivers. We need all kinds of trades – all kinds of construction.”
In this 28-minute episode, Mayor Bray and Mayor Pro Tem Wilson discuss a variety of topics including the BUILD grant project along Paducah’s riverfront, housing, the Greenway Trail, the Paducah Sports Park, economic development prospects, the Southside, infrastructure and city services, and the childcare challenge.
In addition to airing on Government 11 (for Comcast subscribers), the episode also is online at paducahky.gov and the various social media outlets for the City of Paducah including Youtube and Facebook. Visit the City’s Youtube channel (paducahkygov) and become a subscriber to be notified of new videos.
City Profile is produced through the television production facilities at West Kentucky Community and Technical College.
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