Longtime Topekan running for City Council District 6 seat

TOPEKA (KSNT)- Craig Dunstan, a Topeka resident for more than 40 years, is now running as a candidate for the Topeka City Council District 6 seat.

He joined the 27 News Morning team to speak more about why he wants to run for this position, as well as what are some of the main issues that need to be addressed in the community right now.

“I feel like I have a good pulse of the city,” Dunstan said. “I’ve been here long enough, and I feel good about the people of Topeka.”

However, something that is concerning Dunstan is the high number of homicides the city has seen so far in 2023. Within the first half of this year, there have been 19 homicides. This is more than the number of homicides that we saw for the entirety of 2022.

“We’ve got to do better there in terms of law enforcement,” Dunstan said. “The number one goal of the city council is public safety.”

He said this includes things like our fire department, our police department and things like our water supply.

“I am very concerned that we have 890 miles of water transmission lines in Topeka, of which over 60 of those are a hundred years old.”

He mentioned the water line in front of his own home is 96 years old and has broken numerous times in the years he has lived there.

“At the rate we are going, we are not going to get them all replaced before many of them just fail completely,” he said. “It’s a problem that’s going to bite us real hard if we don’t address it.”

In addition to touching on public safety and the integrity of the city’s water infrastructure, Dunstan also commented on the rising homeless population in Topeka.

“We need to make sure that we provide affordable housing, or in some cases, that we put group homes together so that they have supervision.”

He said that many people don’t understand the homeless, and it’s important that we understand them before we “try to fix their problem”.

To watch the full interview and hear everything Dunstan had to say, you can watch the full interview above.

To view his website, you can click here.