Forum Or Against Them

Members of the public got a chance to interact with and ask questions to local political candidates at the July 9 Valley Service Organization (VSO) Public Forum

Three of the five candidates for Saratoga Town Council attended the forum, with Mike Cooley and Chia Valdez being the four-year-term candidates and Bub Barkhurst being the two-year-term candidate.

Sophia Borg, the other two-year-term candidate, and Cory Oxford, a four-year-term candidate, did not participate in the forum.

Each candidate began with an opening statement discussing their reasons for running.

“Number one I feel like it’s important for the people to have a voice and for me to listen. The good Lord gave me two ears and one mouth and I plan on using it in that way and when people come to speak to give them the dignity and respect in listening to them,” Valdez said.

“I’m running again because the way I see it we’ve accomplished quite a bit, and I want to see that continue,” Cooley said. “I just want to help my community the best I can.”

“I want to continue doing what we’re doing. We’ve got a great council right now and they seem to be getting a lot done. I’d like to be a part of that,” Barkhurst said.

After the opening statements, candidates were asked questions by VSO organizer Connie Patterson.

Do you think our mainstreet downtown is healthy and successful and if not what would you do to change that?

Barkhurst: “I feel it is healthy. I mean the economy we’ve got - look at this last weekend [Saratoga Days] - we had thousands of people in this town. To see that many people enjoying themselves in our little town and going to our businesses and spending money, I really do feel like it’s healthy.”

Valdez: “In terms of the downtown, I think we could improve it. There’s opportunities to have a historic district - our little town is so beautiful but at the same time on Main Street how many buildings do we have for sale? How many vacant ones do we have for sale? It can always be better.”

Cooley: “I feel it’s healthy. I’ve been here for fifty years … and it changes but I don’t see anything bad about it.”

We have infrastructure issues like potholes. The process now is to let the town hall know and then it’s passed on. What would you do to streamline this process to make it more efficient to address problems?

Cooley: “I believe we are addressing that very well … just look at what we’re doing in the streets this year, we’ve done a lot. They’re still filling potholes and we have a lot more to do … Information gets to us and we get on it. We can’t get to all of them in one day … To me streets, water, and sewer is a council’s number one job.”

Valdez: “I don’t know. I just know the 2016 Master Plan … stated we needed to have bigger sewer, larger water pipes, are we doing anything with that?”

Barkhurst: “That’s actually one of the things I really like about this council. They’ve done a fantastic job looking at the infrastructure issues, labeling them, putting them in order. From what I’ve seen this council has done a fantastic job and that’s part of the reason I want to be a part of that, because this council has been so proactive in solving those issues.

What do you think about the transportation options currently available for our town? For example, do you support the walking/biking paths that have been proposed in the alternative transportation plan?

Barkhurst: “I don’t know, I haven’t really looked at that a lot, so I don’t have a solid opinion on it one way or another. I don’t really feel like we have a large enough need to create public transportation at this point.”

Cooley: “I kind of feel the same way Bub does there. We have some transportation for seniors, I think we have some organizations that help them out. As for the walking paths, one between the two schools would be great. And one from the Saratoga Inn to the bridge - tourists walk five abreast down the street and cause traffic hazards. But there’s a lot of maintenance on stuff like that. When you saddle the next generation with a big bill for walking paths and parks. Our revenue isn’t a lot in this town.”

Valdez: “I agree with Mike on this one - we need some kind of walking path by the schools and the Saratoga Inn.”

How do you plan to ensure your vote on the council represents the community and not just your personal opinions on the topic?

Valdez: “As a councilperson you are elected to a governing board, you are a legislature for the town. It’s a nonpartisan position so you have to represent everyone. My slogan is ‘Keeping Saratoga Authentic’ and preserving our history and culture … if we come together as a consensus, my goal is to listen to everybody and come to some kind of agreement.”

Cooley: “I want the Town to have the best representation. As a total council, I think we are doing a good job. Most people think we are doing a good job. If they don’t like me as a councilman, sign up and run against me. Get your feet wet - don’t come complaining to me if you don’t want to do anything yourself except complain. You can’t make 100% of the people happy but we do what we think is best for the Town.”

Barkhurst: “You do have to listen to the townspeople but you also have to use your best judgment. If you have ten people telling you it needs to be this way, and twenty people telling you it needs to be that way, then you do need to listen to the consensus of the people.”

Have you read the Town of Saratoga 2016 Master Plan?

Cooley: “I have read it and we’ve accomplished a lot of what’s in it. I think our one single best accomplishment since I’ve been in there is the people that we’ve hired and put in the front office. We’ll look at [the master plan] and make some revisions to it but I’m pretty sure all the changes we will make will be good.”

Barkhurst: “I have not read the master plan. I’ve been a councilman for a month and a half, two months.”

Valdez: “I haven’t read it from cover to cover, but I’ve read certain sections that I’m interested in. I plan to use it as a reference manual in the future.”

One of the areas that seems to be having difficulty right now is our recreation department. It seems to be in disarray and unorganized. How would you go about fixing this problem?

Cooley: “It’s not as bad as people might think. The reason why we haven’t hired a new rec director yet is we aren’t going to jump into anything. This whole thing has always been a mess. We’re working on it and it will get sorted out but we’re not going to hire the first person to walk in with a resume.”

Valdez: “I don’t know a lot about the pool and recreation.”

Barkhurst: “Yes, it is a mess. I was just appointed as the rec department liaison for the Town. I went to my first meeting and that seemed to go really well. We need to start at the top and hire the right people there and then fill the gaps as we need to.”

If elected, what steps would you take to put our town on firmer financial footing?

Valdez: “I would get involved with Carbon County Economic Development and look into supporting different businesses and small businesses.”

Cooley: “Right now we’re on pretty good financial ground. We work hard to make sure we stay that way, we’re always looking for grants and stuff. We’re a lot more stable than a lot of other municipalities.”

Barkhurst: “Our financial situation in this town from what I’ve seen right now is pretty solid. We’re not in that bad of shape.”

After Patterson asked candidates questions, members from the general audience had the opportunity to ask questions as well.

A member of the public asked how the Town should address Saratoga becoming a “retirement community” and losing out on a strong workforce as young people leave the town.

“I don’t really feel like that’s just a Town issue, I feel like that’s a people issue. I was the difficult kid who grew up here, I spent 18 years trying to get out of here. I had to see stuff for myself and figure things out and I think that’s what a lot of young people do. But then later down the road they return with their families after they’ve experienced life outside of Saratoga,” Barkhurst said. “That’s something we need to look to in the future, is how do we keep these young people or bring them back after they went to college and learned a skill or a trade.”

“You need to have work to have younger people to stay here,” Cooley said. “Right now we only have Sinclair and the mill. We need a coal mine to help them out.”

“I don’t see what’s wrong with it being a retirement community … but it goes back to economic development and how we can create jobs,” Valdez said.

Another member of the public asked about creating low income housing in the town.

“The low income housing you see on TV and stuff comes from the federal government. We have explored these avenues and have come to dead ends. Why would a contractor build low income housing when he can build one [house] and make a couple hundred thousand dollars off of it,” Cooley said. “It’s a real tough thing. We’re trying.”

Valdez said something would potentially be worked between Town owned land and private companies.

“The town itself can’t solve low income housing, that has to be investors that come in and do that,” Barkhurst said.

The primary election will be held on August 20.