Editor’s note: Our Town reporter Don Murtha interviewed the seven candidates competing on the Nov. 6 ballot for three seats on the Silverton City Council. This contains more information than the Oct. 15 print edition.
By Don Murtha
Ron Butcher
If elected, Ron Butcher said he would address citizens’ concerns including establishing a balanced budget, keeping the swimming pool open and resolving the apparent discord among council members.
Butcher is familiar with budget systems from his volunteer work and his insurance business.
New sources of revenue are needed to balance the budget, he said.
“I would like to see more non-retail business in the city,” he said. “There is an empty building out on Mill Street that could bring in jobs and revenue for the city.”
High on Butcher’s list of priorities is the city swimming pool.
“I don’t know if there is an answer to keeping it open if we don’t pass the coming ballot measure,” he said. ”It would be a great loss to the community to have it shut down.”
Butcher said the city has little need for additional parks.
“The parks we have are adequate and I don’t know if we have any more room for parks,” he said.
Butcher said he could bring a “fresh voice” to the council.
As to the discord on the council, Butcher said he had heard about it and “it’s a shame.”
His solution would be first to find the cause of it.
“Then to hear every side and work with people trying to solve their issues,” he said.
Laurie Carter
Incumbent Laurie Carter takes credit for having money from city parking meters donated to charities.
“The first $7,000 will go to the city mural project and the rest will be distributed among other causes,” she said.
Under the framework of the council action, police will no longer issue parking tickets and money from the meters will be collected by a volunteer instead of a paid city employee.
She is running for the council, she said, to accomplish priorities she sees for the city.
“Our sewer system is antiquated at best and decayed at worst,” she said. “We must have improvements to our infrastructure before we can hope to draw new business to the city”
Her own priority is the improvement and upgrading of the city’s park system.
“Where my daughter lives in Beaverton there is a park within a short walking distance of almost every neighborhood,” she said. “The city council wants to have Coolidge-McClain Park as our primary use of park resources. Other neighborhoods have no parks in walking distance where children can go to play.”
She cited Pioneer Village as a place where children have no park they can walk to. She envisions connecting the city’s parks through a trail system from Pioneer Village Park to the Oregon Garden and all of the city parks between.
Carter said she thinks she has the qualifications to continue in her position with her experience on the council. Carter said she brings unique skills to the position on the city council.
“For one thing with age comes wisdom,” she said. “I am smart and well read and I may not be everyone’s favorite but I make every effort to get along.”
Jason Freilinger
Jason Freilinger has a laundry list of things he would do if elected that would benefit Silverton:
1. Fixing the city’s decaying infrastructure, primarily the sewer and water system and traffic problems;
2. Correcting the city’s financial crisis;
3. Maintaining the small town character of Silverton;
4, Restoring civility to council meeting and
5, Maintaining moderate growth in the city.
“I am passionate about Silverton,” he said. “Every thing I’ve worked for is here. The only time I was away from here was in college.”
Freilinger said the forthcoming election will be crucial to the city’s future.
“A big part of this election is what do we want to do in the future,” he said. “Do we want the kind of explosive growth that has no accounting for downtown or do we want moderate growth that pays for itself and will bring us eventually out of our financial crisis?”
Uncontrolled growth would detract from the city’s character and consume resources that could be dedicated to existing problems in the city infrastructure, Freilinger said.
“I don’t believe in throwing up subdivision outside of the city that will not contribute to the city’s well being,” he said.
He said the one path that will create new subdivisions outside of town and leave the inner city to fend for itself.
“That’s not the Silverton I want to live in,” he said. “We do not need to reinvent Silverton with development outside the city limits that includes new bridges and roads.”
“Silverton is unique,” he said, “just take what we have and keep the character of Silverton as a small town.”
Freilinger said Silverton’s general fund has a shortfall of $800,000. He blames the shortage on the extravagance of the current sitting city council.
“The city has been taking from one pot and putting it in another.” he said, As a member of the city council, Freilinger said, he would be “a voice for calm and reason.”
“I will always deal with other councilors in a civil manner with respect and dignity,” he said.
Ken Hector
Ken Hector said the city’s sewer and water system and streets are old and in many cases in desperate need of repair or replacement.
“There is no easy way,” he said, “We really do have to address the long-term solution to our infrastructure’s problems.”
There are two ways to finance the needed funds, he said. The city can raise rates or finance the necessary work by a bond issue.
“It’s a matter of pay-me-now-or-pay-me-later and the longer we wait the more it will cost,” Hector said.
But, he said, there must be concurrence on the city council before anything can be initiated.
That is why he is running for city council.
“There is a lot of dysfunction, back biting and in-fighting that is a product of failed leadership,” Hector said.
He said when he first came on the council in the 1980s the council members might disagree on issues, but they were able to be respectful to each other and reconcile differences.
“Now there is so much ill will it is hard to get anything done,” he said.
Hector said he is running for city council to attempt to heal the dysfunction and accomplish the work the council is elected to do.
“Part of my skill is to work to achieve collaboration with diverse groups of people,” he said. “We had our disagreements but we were able to get over it in the past.”
“Now it’s all about getting people to put aside their personal agendas and it takes a change in the make up of the council and that is where the voters come in,” he said.
“I have a track record of 16 years as mayor and prior to that eight years on the city council,” Hector said.
Steve Kaser
If elected, Steve Kaser said his priority is to clean up the financial crisis the current city council has created and to “get beyond the bigotry that keeps us from solving our problems.”
“Silverton’s financial state is in a shambles put there by the four councilors who consistently spent more than the city had, “Kaser said. “And they refused to follow the mayor’s leadership.”
“When the mayor said quit spending they didn’t listen to him,” Kaser said.
“Council members can’t get beyond Rasmussen’s manner of dress and his lifestyle.”
Kaser said the current council has failed to see the problems with the city’s infrastructure.
“Our infrastructure is in deplorable condition,” Kaser said.
A member of the Silverton Budget Committee, he has seen how spending choices are made.
“You ask a question and you get a blank stare or ‘I don’t know,” he said. “I expect the people who are responsible to look you in the eye and give you a straight answer.”
Kaser said spending is in the hands of the city council.
“Every dime that is spent in the city has to be approved by the city council,” he said. “So why are we $400,000 in debt? How did we get into this mess and who caused it? The council has not accepted responsibility.”
The council hired a consultant for $30,000 to tell them what has to be done. He said the consultant will appear at the Nov. 5 council meeting Nov. 5.
“As far as I can tell there will be no time for the public to ask questions and that’s no good,” he said. “I am going to call for a separate public meeting for open discussion on this situation.”
He said he is more qualified than other candidates to fill a seat on he city council because, he said, he has the wisdom and the courage to “call it like it is.”
“No other candidate can be as direct and to the point and defend his position,” he said. “I know this town better than anyone else.”
Dana Smith
Dana Smith is disturbed by the backbiting and rancor among current city council members.
“In the past couple of years personalities have gotten in the way of sound decision making,” she said. “It doesn’t help advance the livability of the City of Silverton.”
Smith said she would alter the rancorous disposition of the council by basing decisions on information, “not on prejudices or emotion or who makes a proposal.”
Smith said she would call on her engineering background and previous government experience in making decisions as a member of the council. She has a master’s degree in civil engineering and has served six years on the Silver Falls School Board.
“I am a moderate,” she said. “I take an analytical approach to making decision. I approach an issue with an unbiased, reasoned point of view.”
She has been involved in city parks planning in Silverton since she was appointed as Silver Falls School District representative on the city Park Master Planning Committee, a joint effort of the city and the school district. Out of the committee’s work came a joint agreement between the city and the school district for shared use of city parks and school district facilities.
Smith is concerned about the condition of the city‘s infrastructure and how it would hold up to a seismic blow or other major natural disaster. She attended a symposium recently on Oregon’s ability to withstand a catastrophe.
“Codes did not have seismic activity addressed until the eighties,” she said. “Before that our approach to seismic considerations were ignored.”
Seismic considerations aside, Smith said, Silverton’s utilities are old and subject to the decay of age.
“Our water and sewer systems are subject to catastrophic events,” Smith said. “The systems we have are wearing out, especially in downtown. In some parts of town we don’t even have storm sewers. We have to have a long-range plan for solving our infrastructure problems,” she said.
The repairs could be paid for with Urban Renewal funds and System Development (SDC) funds in addition to other sources.
“It is essential to have input from the public and the people in the neighborhoods before we design a project,” she said.
Stephen Springer
Stephen Springer says the biggest problem facing the city council is rancor and ill-will among council members and he would work to resolve the discord.
“What happens on the city council filters down to the community and that is the biggest problem facing Silverton at this time,” Springer said. “So much else flow from that.”
Springer said council member don’t have to agree on every issue, but they should be respectful of each other.
“That is fundamental for the good of Silverton,” he said.
He blames the discord on the lack of positive leadership.
He said he would bring to the council experience and skills in bringing diverse parties into harmony.
“I am a problem solver,” Springer said. “All my life I have been a bridge builder and a consensus builder and in many ways, I bring leadership skills.”
Springer is a strong proponent of citizen involvement
He draws on the skills and experience he acquired as a select person, the equivalent of a council member, in the town of Randolph, Vermont.
“I would like to see the city council establish a citizen’s task force charged with the responsibility of taking a hard and critical look at what needs to be done to improve Silverton’s downtown business core,” he said
Springer suggested that such a group should visit other communities “to see how the other guy is doing.”
“We don’t need to pay for a consultant to do this kind of thing,” he said. “We have our own people who are qualified to do this.” he said.
