The impetus for Peggy Lindsey to sit up and pay close attention to city hall was losing her tenant in the Whispering Pines subdivision to the overwhelming odors of the city’s overtaxed sewer lagoons. She started attending City Council meetings last summer.

Then she grew upset this past spring after the council mortgaged the Community Center building to pay for higher quality construction materials for the renovated Hot Springs Pool.

Those frustrations, combined with what she believes has been ...