The Splash
OCTOBER 2013 • 19
NEWS
ELECTION lives a block from me and beat Tedesco to the punch in filling out the paperwork during filing week, so we will call him River District candidate No. 1. Now here’s what I’m not saying. I’m not saying that one should vote for a candidate based upon the geographic location of his or her home. Certainly not. What the existence of the first two River District candidates for Liberty Lake City Council does trigger, however, is a symbolic turning of attention to one of the important issues for any candidate in this race. How does the city prepare for the somewhat blank canvas that is Liberty Lake North? What is the community’s responsibility when it comes to residential growth outpacing school capacity? What items previously considered for south of the interstate (park features, aquatic centers, and so on) may make more sense north of the interstate? I’ll tell you what, the city staff and current council are asking these questions, and many more, and I was impressed that the new slate of candidates are asking these questions, too. I invited the candidates to a roundtable discussion in mid-September, but getting six busy people around a table at the same time proved difficult. I ended up breaking my initial visits with the candidates into three separate sessions (associated photos on the previous page). We will provide more information in future articles, but allow me to share just a few highlights and reflections from these initial meetings with the candidates: 1. People can’t stop talking about the utility tax. Nor should they. Indeed, Council veteran Odin Langford made the point
that an annual review of the need for the tax is written into the ordinance that was approved at its initial passage. As you might expect, there were no candidates who felt the tax was certain to remain indefinitely nor were there any who were ready to completely do away with it. 2. Everybody loves Katy Allen. And RJ Stevenson, too, for that matter. These relatively new city staffers (Allen has served as city administrator for more than a year now, Stevenson as finance director for more than two) are in the beginning stages of earning Brian Asmus-like popularity among the city’s slate of elected officials. This is noteworthy because of how much things have changed from the last city of Liberty Lake election cycle, when HR issues and city manager discussions were all the rage. Elected city leaders seem very pleased right now with hired city leaders, for whatever that’s worth. At minimum, perhaps it means we can talk about something else this time? 3. The race to watch at the candidate forum Oct. 2 may very well be Tedesco against Langford. Both are extremely well studied, which in their case translates into some pretty strongly held opinions. Instead of answering a question at our roundtable, Langford pulled an “Odin” and began asking Tedesco a series of questions about the finer details of one of his responses. The candidates went back and forth fairly aggressively until Jeff Sitton saved the day by asking for a turn to speak himself. Knowledge and ideas aren’t everything, but they are a lot, and those two will provide plenty for voters to think about at the forum. 4. As I was wrapping up my last visit, I reflected on the top to bottom quality of the candidate pool. This class of challengers seems to have at least started their homework, if not moved on to extra credit. Now it’s the voters turn to be engaged. Hope to see you Oct. 2 at the Meadowwood Technology Campus.
SEVERS
LANGFORD
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retreat and miscellaneous events to ensure I am both educated and prepared to transition smoothly into the council.
they are a financial advisor. I want to speak with the guy who has a few million in his own retirement account and will share with me his experience on how to get it, grow it and keep it. It’s his experience that makes him valuable. I’ve worked hard over the last seven years to make sure that you will enjoy coming home to Liberty Lake. It’s my experience that validates my vision: “protect, preserve and get out of debt.”
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Finally, for fun, who is one person, past or present, you would like to have lunch with — and where would you eat it? Without a doubt, I would like to have lunch with Thomas Jefferson. Also trained as a landscape architect, he took that planning knowledge (and vast other experiences) and put it to use in the writing or our constitution and architecture behind our government. We would eat here, in modern times, in the “Louisiana Territory” (I don’t care what home or restaurant) and discuss what he considers his triumphs and his faults regarding his decisions that impact where our society is today.
Finally, for fun, who is one person, past or present, you would like to have lunch with — and where would you eat it? I would like to take Etienne Eduard Laliberte (Stephen E. Liberty), to a picnic lunch at Pavillion Park, where I would tell him, “Thank you.”
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