Forum highlights candidate differences

Approximately 75 residents attended the Sisters City Council Candidate Forum last Thursday evening at Sisters High School auditorium.

Moderator Jim Cornelius, citing a smaller-than-anticipated audience, thanked those in attendance for choosing the forum over the evening's numerous sports offerings. Cornelius was also quick to thank the candidates for their willingness to serve the community in a volunteer capacity. City councilors receive no salary or benefits.

"It takes a lot of courage and commitment to run for local office," said Cornelius.

Hosted by the Sisters Area Chamber of Commerce, the event gave all six candidates (Wendy Holzman, David Asson, Virginia Lindsey, Sharlene Weed, Jacki Shepardson and Jerry Bogart) an opportunity to express their views on a variety of issues.

Holzman was the only candidate not in attendance. A previously scheduled family trip necessitated her absence. Cornelius read Holzman's opening and closing statements.

The evening started with each candidate giving a two-minute opening statement citing their reasons for seeking a council seat and their qualifications.

Following the opening statements, each candidate had two minutes apiece to answer five questions. The questions were compiled from those received by e-mail from Sisters Country residents over the past several weeks. The candidates did not see the questions prior to the forum.

The following is a summary of the questions and responses from each of the candidates present.

Question No. 1: "Why do you want to be a city councilor and what business, government, or community involvement qualifies you to be one?"

David Asson cited his years of business experience as a CPA, involvement with the city's budget committee, his homeowner's association, and friends urging him to get involved now that he was retired.

"Meeting these people (in volunteer city government), seeing the dedication and long hours they put in, I was impressed, got the urge to try to help out, so I decided to jump in," said Asson.

Virginia Lindsey said, "I decided to become a city councilor after working on the (city's) budget committee for three years. Also, having been around Sisters for so long, I do want to see it recover and getter better and larger."

Lindsey also cited her extensive business experience in both large and small companies as factors that enable her to understand the needs of existing and potential businesses in Sisters.

Sharlene Weed has been a city councilor now for six years. Prior to her council role Weed served on the planning commission for four years. Commenting on why she was running this year Weed said, "My Mom reminded me that there are a lot of people out there who don't have a 'voice.' When you have the opportunity to have a voice you need to take it."

Jacki Shepardson got right to her main concern about the present council:

"I decided to run because I feel we lack diversity on the council. I come from the lower level of individuals that comprise 51 percent of our population, that's a voice that hasn't been heard on our council. Many of these people came to me and said 'Jacki you really need to do this, you could be our voice.'"

Shepardson also cited her government experience as a local labor union president for the Department of Motor Vehicles in Salem. "I've also been the site coordinator for the Sisters Brown Bag Food Distribution program for the last 8-1/2 years," said Jacki.

Jerry Bogart initially answered sarcastically "That's a great question. The long hours, the great pay, the personal attacks that happened, those are the three best reasons. Honestly, though, I like Tom McCall's statement: 'This is your community and it's your responsibility to help out.'"

Bogart has been a councilor for the past two years and also serves as vice chairperson of SBART (Sisters Business Acquisition & Retention Team.) Jerry is also the Sisters representative on EDCO's (Economic Development for Central Oregon) board of directors and a small business owner for the past 11 years.

"I can identify with the problems that small business owners and citizens are facing right now," said Bogart.

Question No. 2: "Describe a current council action that you would have handled differently. What would you have done?"

Virginia Lindsey: "Selling our garbage service to HCD (High Country Disposal). The city enjoyed $85,000 a year profit from this service. HCD immediately raised rates and now we're at risk of losing our recycling center. I fought against it but it passed anyway."

Sharlene Weed cited the widely reported controversy over the recently hired economic development manager, Mac Hay. "To me that's just poor government, poor process. It's deceptive, not transparent, very bad process. I would have had a job description and a council discussion before hiring," said Weed.

Jacki Shepardson agreed with Weed but added "The (independent contractor) contract was inappropriate. I would have requested a more detailed contract and I would have requested the person be an employee of the city, where we could supervise their actions and ask for deliverables."

Jerry Bogart said, "To tell you the truth I'm very satisfied with the way the council is right now. However, I did object to a large pay raise the council gave to one employee recently. I was the only one who voted against it. I didn't think it was the right time to do this in this economy."

David Asson also spoke to the hiring of the economic development manager: "I don't find anything wrong with the contract itself. It (the hiring process) could have been an opportunity to get more information out to the community; we should have gotten the people behind the effort, now we're going to have to work harder to do that."

Question No. 3: "What are your views and what, if anything, will you do to help organizations like the Sisters Park & Recreation District and the various charitable organizations in Sisters Country?"

Sharlene Weed said, "One of the things that we can all do is share resources. We all don't need to buy pop-up tents for our events, we can share those things. They can also help us (the city) by letting us know what they're doing so that maybe we can fill in gaps."

Jacki Shepardson said, "We need to go to those organizations, listen to what their needs are, ask them questions, and bring that input back to the council."

Jerry Bogart agreed with Weed and Shepardson, adding, "We need to keep in touch with the stakeholders, have more meetings with the school district; right now the city gives $15,000 to charitable organizations and, if times get better, we should look at increasing it."

David Asson said, "I think we should support the organizations any way that we can but, right now, direct dollars for new parks or buying additional land - we're just not there at this time."

Virginia Lindsey said, "I agree with that. The city has been very successful at raising grants."

Question No 4: "Sisters Country residents are affected by decisions made by the city council on such cross-city-line issues as protection of Whychus Creek, traffic, air quality, development, etc. Yet Sisters Country people do not get a vote on how the city is run. What say, if any, should Sisters Country residents outside the UGB have in city matters? What actions have you or would you take to consider these residents' views?"

Jacki Shepardson said, "Having lived in Crossroads for eight years and not having a voice, I would have quarterly town hall meetings, draw those people in, get their ideas and their input."

Jerry Bogart spoke to the city's comprehensive plan: "The comp plan is due for an update, so we need to involve all the citizens just as we did with the Visioning process (2006). Let them have a say about how we reform the comp plan."

"A lot of my supporters are non-residents (of the city) and yet they run businesses and are affected by all of these decisions. I know it's a (city) charter matter but I'm open to see if that could be broadened to see if they could have a vote of some sort," said David Asson.

Virginia Lindsey said, "I'd like to see representatives from various groups come to us and give us their concerns and their interests."

Sharlene Weed reminded the audience that the Committee for Citizen Involvement (CCI) was formed about four years ago to garner feedback from both outside and inside the city. "The CCI has not been a priority of the current council, it's floundered, membership has dwindled. It's one of the things I hope to revitalize," said Sharlene.

Question No. 5: "Sisters received a 'severely distressed' designation in March of 2008 from the state's Economic & Community Development Department. Conditions have not improved. In fact we've lost employers and jobs. What do you believe are Sisters' 'economic drivers' and what specific steps will you take to improve the Sisters economy?"

"The City of Sisters has always been a tourist destination, that's the backbone," said Jerry Bogart. "Along with that come construction, real estate, and the service industries. Those are our drivers. We need to support our chamber of commerce. The current council is going down the right path. We need to focus a little more on business retention and expansion."

David Asson said, "Tourism is important but that isn't the complete answer. We need to develop some of the other assets around here, retired people with lots of information and a lot of contacts, as well as developing a database of people and resources in the community that we can draw on."

"Tourism has given us our name but we need things that will keep people here. We need year-round living-wage jobs, some type of industry, whether it's engineering, manufacturing, or distribution," said Virginia Lindsey.

Sharlene Weed said, "Our biggest asset is our natural environment, our clean air, water, mountains, ponderosa pines. Recreation, arts and culture are our biggest economic drivers. I've been encouraged by the 'economic roundtables' put on by the chamber and encourage more of those for the other economic sectors in town. I think the city could take the lead in calling together a larger 'economic summit' to report 'out' on what's going on in the various economic sectors."

"I agree with Sharlene, it's our environment, people, schools. We need to look at 'microenterprise,' look at cities like Maupin, Joseph, and Baker City. They've gone from small economically depressed towns to very vibrant towns. We need to look at them and see what they did," said Jacki Shepardson.

The candidates were asked to give either a "yes" or "no" response to four questions:

Question No. 1: "Would you vote in favor of resolutions to write letters of support for destination resorts?" Asson: Yes; Lindsey: Yes; Weed: No; Shepardson: No; Bogart: Yes.

Question No. 2: "Should System Development Charges and/or some city taxes be waived or deferred to attract or retain businesses which bring living-wage jobs to Sisters?" Lindsey: Yes; Weed: Passed on question; Shepardson: No; Bogart: Yes; Asson: Yes.

Question No. 3: "Did you/would you vote in favor of the city gas tax?" Weed: No; Shepardson: No; Bogart: Yes; Asson: Yes; Lindsey: Yes.

Question No. 4: "If elected to the council, would you like to be appointed Mayor?" Shepardson: No; Bogart: No; Asson: No; Lindsey: No; Weed: Yes.

The entire candidate forum can be heard online as part of the Sisters Talk podcast series http://broncobillysblog.blogspot.com/.