Down to five

On July 20, the Valley Service Organization (VSO) hosted the first of two forums as the remaining five of the eight town council candidates gathered at the Platte Valley Community Center (PVCC) Great Hall. 

Michael Cooley, John Jump and Steve Heinitz had all withdrawn by the time of the forum.

While a handful of potential voters were in attendance, many more tuned in through the Saratoga Sun Facebook Live stream. Due in large part to ongoing issues surrounding the Town of Saratoga, the financial woes in front of the current governing body were an overarching topic of discussion for the five candidates, four of whom will advance beyond the primary election on August 18.

Under introductions, a number of the candidates stated they had moved to the area to raise their families and that the current financial situation had been an impetus to run. In the case of Ben Spaulding and Creed James, their involvement in Platte Valley Little League was an added catalyst for announcing their candidacy.

“One of the biggest things (why) I’m running; I started up the Platte Valley Little League and for the last 18 months I’ve been battling with the Town on trying to get our rec department and our little league program up and running and met a lot of resistance,” said Spaulding.

“I’m on the little league board with Ben and we’ve pounded our head against the wall for 18 months with the town and it just seems like we can’t get anywhere. I think there’s more the Town can do for the youth of the town. We got to find a better way to encourage the youth in our town so we have programs where kids can excel and succeed,” added James.

It appeared that the town’s finances could not be mentioned that night without also mentioning Councilmember Jon Nelson, who has tenaciously pursued answers regarding ongoing financial issues. Tasha Worthington, in her introduction, stated that Nelson had inspired her to run.

“Obviously, everybody knows Jon Nelson’s name,” said Danny Burau. “We’ve all talked to him, asked his advice. I’ve talked to a former councilman about the time commitment and what this is going to take.”

Though there were questions for the town council candidates regarding finances, one of the first dealt with the 2016 Master Plan. A guiding document adopted by the Town of Saratoga in 2016, the master plan is supposed to serve as a guide for the governing body in future development of the town.

Spaulding, James and Teubner each admitted that they had not read the master plan, though Teubner added that she had served as the executive director for the Voice of the Valley speaker series in 2007 and 2008. Worthington, meanwhile, stated that the budget could serve as a roadblock to pursuing whatever visions people had for Saratoga’s future.

“It so happens my father-in-law and my brother-in-law are community planners, so when we were thinking about moving here and talking about starting a business, they did manage to track that down. Even from Denver and North Dakota they found it,” Burau said. “It’s been a while since I’ve read it but what I remember thinking, looking at that plan, is that it felt like a comprehensive report of what we had here but I didn’t see or feel a tone of future planning.”

A question relating to the June 23 report given to the governing body by third-party accounting James Childress (see “Bubble gum, duct tape and pickles” on page 1 of the July 1 Saratoga Sun) asked the candidates how they would have voted. Along with the news that the Town of Saratoga had a total of $3.7 million in deficit over 10 fiscal years, the use of overhead interfund allocations was used to explain the transfers of enterprise funds into the general fund. The current council voted to accept the report 3-1.

“Regarding the interfund overhead allocation stuff, I think James worked pretty hard on that report. I disagree with it in a lot of ways. I don’t think you can go back and say, ‘Well, gosh, 20 years ago we should have been charging you this for this service.’ I think anyone that’s in this room or has ran a business can say that,” James said. “You can’t go backwards to make up for what it is. To me, it seems like it was more of trying to find a way to explain how the Town got into this mess. I don’t see how you can do that.”

“State statute mandates that town’s are not allowed to run in the red. So, that was the justification for using those enterprise funds the way they did. I would not have voted in favor of that,” said Teubner. “I think that, if there was an issue, it should have been addressed and brought up long before it was and that, also at the same time, there should have been some true conversations. Some collaboration amongst the Town and those boards to have an understanding of what was going on with those funds.”

Additional questions for the candidates included how many town council meetings they had made in the past three months. Many of the candidates stated that while they had been to some council meetings in person, they watched many of them as they were livestreamed by local media. It was also asked which one of the nine boards or commissions the candidates would serve on with most focusing on the recreation commission, planning commission or the Saratoga-Carbon County Impact Joint Powers Board.

Later, it was asked why none of the candidates had considered serving as a liaison between the Saratoga Town Council and Town Hall. Most of the candidates responded that they had been unaware such a position existed, which is currently filled by Councilmember Judy Welton, but that they felt that such a position would be especially important moving forward.

After a little more than an hour and a half, the forum concluded and seeing the five candidates generally in agreement that the Town of Saratoga had a tough road ahead and they each wanted to have a role in solving the current issues.