A look at the race for Charlestown Mayor

CHARLESTOWN, Ind. (WAVE) - The race for Charlestown Mayor comes down to Incumbent Treva Hodges and the challenger, Ruthie Jackson.

It’s clear both Hodges and Jackson love Charlestown, but neither believes that’s what qualifies them to be mayor. It’s a partisan race, though neither sees it that way.

”If you look out that window, you don’t see a republican road. You don’t see a democrat road,” sitting Democratic Mayor Treva Hodges said. “It’s a road that occasionally needs paving.”

Jackson, the sitting Charlestown Common Council President, is a Republican, but that’s of little importance she says.

”I have no political agenda,” said Jackson. “I’m here because I want to be here, and I love my town.”

Hodges and Jackson share a few things in common. They both want to save taxpayer money and grow small businesses, and they both think they’re the one who can do it.

Hodges is leaning on her track record as mayor.

”We have an absolutely outstanding performance record in the city right now,” Hodges said. “I made several big promises in 2019 when I ran and I’m happy to say we’ve kept those promises.”

One promise of Hodges was to raise pay for police officers. Pay did increase.

Jackson said though, that had to go through her in the council.

“I’m taking a beating because the first proposal for the police department wasn’t what we gave,” Jackson said. “I knew fiscally responsibly, we could not do that.”

Charlestown’s had well-documented struggles with sewage and drinking water in recent years, and that’s likely to motivate voters this election.

”At one point, we were given something that was going to put a 100% rate increase on our residents and that’s when we started a sewer board,” Jackson explained.

Hodges said she’s worked diligently and effectively to mitigate the problems they’ve had, including, but not limited to the building of a water treatment facility.

“I’ve held Indiana American Water accountable on the drinking water side of things,” she said. “We haven’t had any kind of significant brown water events in over a year. I got over half of the funding for that plant secured through grants. That took a lot of time and effort I’ve attended every single reading meeting that’s been available for that grant process. My opponent hasn’t been to a single one.”

Election day is Tuesday, Nov. 7.

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