FAYETTEVILLE -- Paul Phaneuf, a minister, author and political activist, has joined the race for Adella Gray's Ward 1 City Council seat.
"I'm the liberty candidate," Phaneuf said Thursday. "I will always look to protect personal freedom and natural law."
Profile
Paul Phaneuf
Fayetteville City Council Ward 1, Position 1
Age: 65
Residency: Fayetteville resident for about 10 months
Family: Wife, Yvonne; two daughters; 11 grandchildren; two great-grandchildren
Employment: Owner, Liberty Consulting
Education: Attended Providence College
Military Experience: None
Political Experience: None
Phaneuf acknowledged the need for some municipal services, such as police protection, road construction and trash collection.
"The footprint of government must be no more than what is necessary to properly execute our responsibilities," he said.
"Government is the lazy man's way of imposing his good intentions on other free people," he added. "It is oh so much easier to coerce than it is to persuade."
Phaneuf is one of four City Council candidates, along with Joshua Crawford, Michael Collins and John La Tour, who spoke against a contentious Civil Rights Administration ordinance at a City Council meeting earlier this week. He called the ordinance, which prohibits specific types of discrimination and creates a municipal civil rights administrator, "an assault on individual and religious freedom."
Phaneuf's opponents in the Ward 1 race, Gray and Sonia Davis Gutierrez, voiced their support for the ordinance. Gray is the City Council's longest active member with more than 7½ years in office. Gutierrez is president and founder of the New Design School in Fayetteville.
Phaneuf moved to Northwest Arkansas from Rhode Island two years ago. He has been living in Fayetteville for about 10 months.
Phaneuf said he became very involved with the Libertarian Party in the early 1970s.
He said he traveled with his brother, Emile, to Little Rock just about every week during the state Legislature's most recent regular and fiscal sessions to "encourage" and "support" lawmakers.
"My commitment is real," Phaneuf said.
A book he authored, "Sovereign Under God: A Patriot's Manifesto," was published earlier this year. Phaneuf said he's a part of the house church movement, a term used for independent Christian assemblies that gather in people's homes.
Emile Phaneuf called his brother "personable."
"He looks at everybody in a good light," Emile Phaneuf said. "If he goes into a Wendy's to get a hamburger ... before he leaves they're laughing with him."
Ward 1 encompasses a wide swath of south Fayetteville, including Walker Park, Lake Sequoyah, Mount Kessler, the Senior Activity and Wellness Center, the Yvonne Richardson Community Center, the Arkansas Research and Technology Park and several manufacturing plants, including Pinnacle Foods, Superior Industries and Tyson Foods' Fayetteville complex.
Early voting for the Nov. 4 election begins Oct. 20.
NW News on 08/22/2014