Sharon Castle, 81, said Owensboro’s mayor must have an open-door policy, and she aims to do just that if elected to the seat this November. She filed to run for the position on Thursday.
Castle owns and manages an apartment complex, where she said she practices an open-door policy with the residents. Keeping that freedom of communication is vital to her, and she said she feels City officials do not do that effectively.
“The taxpayers of this town deserve an open-door policy, event if it means putting a detector on the front of the door,” she said. “(A mayor) needs to be able to talk to people and get back with people.”
Castle also claimed there are drug and violence issues in the school systems, saying it’s something she wants to focus on addressing. Her ideal fix is adding more Special Law Enforcement Operations (SLEO) officers in the schools. She acknowledged some local schools’ move to implement weapon detectors but said more is needed.
“There should be 2 or 3 police officers in the high schools with the ability to arrest people that have got drugs on them. You will not be able to see that on the weapons detector coming in,” Castle said.
She also wants to approach the topic of tangible tax and how to improve things for local business owners, saying that tangible tax can devastate a business.
“A lot of businesses don’t even make it the first year because some of this stuff comes into play,” she said. “So that would be something [I’d work to fix].”
Castle is technically a political newcomer but has run for multiple positions in the past. Most recently, she lost her campaign bid for West Daviess County Commissioner in 2022 and for Daviess County School Board in 2020.
