Chamber of Commerce Questions

1)    How would you assign priorities to City services and what will you do to ensure that quality of life for this community is not diminished?

We need to continue to concentrate on the core services such as sewer, quality water, police and fire services.

 

Of course everyone wants more and more services from the city but we need to be realistic and work hard to stay within our budget and be honest with the citizens about our finances. We can’t do additional services until the economy turns around. I have worked very hard to get the city reserve fund back up to levels where we can be confident that we can cover the expenses that always come up as an emergency expenditure.  We now have a financial policy that dictates that the reserve fund will be added to every year until it reaches a 15% level required to keep the cities bond ratings high.

We need to look at the ‘Must Do’, ‘Should Do’, and ‘Nice To Do’ model when looking at city services. In this age of limited funding we need to stay closer to the ‘Must Do’ list.
Quality of life issues should be at the top of the priority list. We need clean drinking water, an efficient waste water system, and being safe in our homes by having highly effective police and fire services.

2)    If elected, how will you represent your constituents including those who didn’t vote for you or have a different opinion than you?

This is an interesting question as I will not know who votes against me unless they specifically tell me that they will not vote for me. Since we do not have political parties at the city level, the members of the city council represents ALL the citizens of Newport regardless of who votes for or against the council members. I will represent all the constituents the same with the goal of more sustainable and accountable city services.

 

3)    How will you establish stability and harmony with Council and the community?

I believe that we have a good stable and harmonious relationship now. When I first took office two years ago I started the town halls that bring the council out to the neighborhoods. I saw at our regular council meetings that very few citizens come to these formal meetings so we needed to have the informal meetings. We have had the informal meetings throughout all neighborhoods and people seem to like the direct contact with council members and city staff. If elected I will make sure that the regular neighborhood meetings continue.

I have also met with a few home owner groups and have brought their concerns to city staff in additional meetings and found positive solutions that all parties can work with.

 

4) What are your visions for the future of Newport and how will you make that vision a reality?

I want to continue my work on assuring financial security, maintaining essential city services, assisting businesses to remain competitive and create new jobs, supporting tourism, and remaining responsive to residents. We need to work hard to keep up with rising costs of city services and demands for those services. We need to find workable solutions to the cities aging infrastructure.  Though we have addressed some of those issues such as water/sewer/storm water pipes we still have an aging pool and other aging city buildings that will soon need attention.

I believe the city is on the right track, but we've got more work to do to make Newport more affordable and livable for everyone. With new businesses like Walgreen’s and O’Reilly’s poised to build here, there is opportunity here. These large national chains would not establish here if there was not room to grow. I firmly believe that with the new business coming that existing businesses will also see additional growth.