Four candidates are seeking two at-large seats on the council. They are Scott Davis, Michael Haubrich, former Councilman Terry Moehnke, and Eugene Newsome. The top two vote-getters will replace incumbents Quennel McCaleb and Lydia Schuur, both of whom decided not to seek re-election.

In Ward 3 Todd McCubbin and Dennis Mernka are seeking to replace Councilman Dave Flattery, who is running unopposed for mayor. Ward 3 is the northeastern part of the city.

In Ward 4, Councilman Kim Alstott is being challenged by Ed Touney. Ward 4 is the north central part of the city.

The candidates for the at-large seats and the Ward 4 seat sat down for interviews with Messenger Editor Bill Shea. The Ward 3 candidates provided answers to written questions.

Those interviews and the replies to the written questions are presented in today’s edition of The Messenger.

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City Council, At-Large

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Scott Davis

Address: 317 Ave. E

Education: Graduate of Fort Dodge Senior High School

Occupation: Employee of Elanco

Why do you want to be on the City Council?

“I’ve become very passionate about city government, how things are ran. I just find it very interesting, and I want to be part of the solution, not the problem. So I think that’s kind of why I decided to throw my name in the hat and see what we can get done. ”

Why did you choose to run for an at-large seat instead of a ward seat?

“I ran for Ward 1 two years ago, and lost to Jen. This time I decided to go at-large instead of the ward because I know more people in the city of Fort Dodge and I figured that’s a way I can help everyone instead of just being kind of limited to Ward 1.”

What would be your No. 1 priority if you are elected?

“There’s a lot. I don’t know of one specific.

“Budget is one. Infrastructure is another. Along with infrastructure is seeing more businesses come to Fort Dodge to be more of that central hub that people used to come to Fort Dodge and shop all the time Basically work with the people of Fort Dodge, work with the other city leaders to try to develop a plan to bring that here.”

What would you propose to do about the problem of homelessness?

“Another big question that people have brought up is the homelessness in Fort Dodge. I’ve met with a couple different people on that. There’s ideas floating around. I think a big thing with that is we have to get the services here in place to help them.

‘The state has cut the budget on that. We need to have places for them to go with the mental health where they can get the help they need, to help get the services, to help get them medicated, to get the different things they need. And the state has cut that so bad that it’s down to the bare minimum.

“We need more mental health providers locally and the state level. I mean you go out to Berryhill, a lot of that’s done telehealth. I don’t know how many people know that. We don’t have the providers here in Fort Dodge. We don’t have places for them to go, you know, like when we had Three East.

“We have the Beacon and I think Brian does a great job, Brian and his staff there, helping those gentlemen. They have a structure that they have to follow.”

What would you propose to do about deteriorated buildings in Fort Dodge?

“We’ve got to find a way to either get the buildings occupied or to find the money to tear them down if they’re not salvageable like South Junior High (former Fair Oaks Middle School) for instance. That’s an eyesore in the city of Fort Dodge. I think that needs to be torn down.”

What would you do with these properties after the buildings are demolished?

“Well, they could either sell the lots to try to bring investors in to do affordable housing, apartments, stuff like that or even retail. We could always definitely use more retail. I mean that’s for sure.”

What would you advocate doing with the Warden Plaza?

“I’ve heard several different ideas. It would boil down to cost, right? I know it’s a historic site, has got historic value, but at this point it’s deteriorated so much I don’t think you could save it. To me, I think it needs to be torn down. We could free that up to be a parking lot, or housing, apartments just like we did across the street at that old city parking lot. They could do a half block of apartments there, you know.”

What would you recommend for economic development?

“For economic development and job creation I think we should have some type of tax abatement for these people that want to come in and build. We need to offer different things. I know there’s a lot that goes into that part of it.”

Are you familiar with the tax incentives the city has now?

“No I am not. I’m not sure what they’re doing because I didn’t really look into it.’

What would you recommend to improve public safety?

“We need to find a way to retain our police officers, first and foremost. We keep losing police officers to other cities, other agencies. So we need to find a way to retain them. To me, that’s one of the biggest when it comes to public safety.”

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Michael Haubrich

Address: 734 Exposition Drive

Education: Graduate of Northside-Onslow High School in North Carolina, trained in auto body at Coastal Carolina Community College,

Occupation: Full-time employee of Elanco, part-time animal control officer with Webster County Animal Protection

Why do you want to be on the City Council?

“I want to be able to make decisions for the community to make forward progress. A lot of people complain about things around here, but not many, unlike other candidates and myself, have decided to step up and actually try to do something about it.

“And helping people anyway I can — that’s just kind of my nature.”

Why did you decide to run for an at-large seat instead of a ward seat?

“I figured that since I have people all over Fort Dodge that I know it would suit me better to be able to represent everybody instead of just my ward.”

What would be your No. 1 priority if you are elected?

“I’m going to have to say the emergency services — police, fire and EMS only because I volunteer and work alongside in the county whenever Fort Dodge Fire Department responds out there. I’ve talked with the Fort Dodge local fire union 622 and they’ve endorsed me after we talked about a lot of the things that I can see. They’re already stretched thin. They’re already taking on county coverage. I’ve been going to all the county EMS meetings to make sure that we can supply them with personnel, equipment.

The second station is very important. Other candidates have knocked it. They clearly didn’t understand the meaning of it. It was meant to support the county and the city residents.

“The Police Department on the other hand — a lot of the same recruiting issues and trying to maintain morale and good staffing but without having to go over budget. That’s something I’m definitely going to make sure we can have more officers but not have to go over budget or not have to levy a tax or franchise fee.”

How would you pay for new offices without a new source of revenue?

“I think the city could host some concerts or other events where we can get a foothold on the tickets, instead of just the hotel tax. If we can get a hand on some of the ticket sales and some of that revenue, we could build up a fund, pay down some of our debt to increase the operating budget.

“Hiring officers that are already certified from other areas is also cheaper. It costs $9,000 to put a brand new officer through the Iowa Law Enforcement Academy. But if we can find officers from bigger cities like Chicago, Minneapolis or Milwaukee with three to five years experience it would only cost the city $2,800 to put them through the academy and they can be on the road much faster.”

What makes you think officers from the bigger cities would want to come here?

“They’re disenchanted by their local leaders. They’re not getting the support they need. Some might want a different change, but they still love the job of being a police officer. If we can get a couple of them, that’s all we need — a couple, not 100.”

What would you propose to do about deteriorated buildings in Fort Dodge?

“We’ve got to get rid of them. It’s going to hurt. I know some people would like the nostalgia, but the cost of keeping them is going to outweigh the cost of tearing them down and trying to rebuild a much more modern downtown.

“But in that same sense, I would like to see some city code ordinances trying to make sure the outside of the building can at least have the facade of a good old downtown look for the nostalgia effect. ”

What would you propose to address the homeless situation?

“I’ve looked up if we could get the shelters or maybe a mobile shower trailer that would also come with a laundry hookup. If we could sweep up as many homeless as we can and have social workers and other specialists to help with mental health and substance abuse be able to be on site and document these individuals and see what we can do as far as resources to allocate. Can we find them a bed in the state to help them get better? If there’s substance abuse, can we find a substance abuse place to put them in?

“The cost to rent the trailer for one week would be $8,500. I think that’s something we can probably fundraise instead of pulling out of the city funds.”

What would you recommend to improve economic development?

“The fact the we have Highway 20 on our front doorstep — Amazon already has a distribution center here. Utilizing other companies success and promoting that to other organizations, which I think the growth Alliance doing really good with.

“Making sure that our water department, our fiber, our power grid, can beagle to take on these bigger corporations, whatever they might need to do. And making sure that when we do alow some of these companies in, they’re paying good hourly wages or salaries.

“With that job creation we can probably get more housing built. And it will create other economic ripple effects in a positive way.”

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Terry Moehnke

Address: 222 Crestview Drive

Education: Optometry degree for Southern College of Optomtery, Memphis, Tennessee; master’s degree for Nova Southeastern University in Fort lauderdale, Florida

Occupation: Optometrist

Why do you want to return to the City Council?

“Well, I think there’s some unresolved issues that I think have been dropped. I think the Oleson Park rejuvenation has been put on the back burner. Expo Park – there’s been a lot of plans being made for that and nothing’s been done. Work on the riverfront is coming along well, most of it down by the nature center, but there was talk at one point about doing some work up by the Hydroelectric Dam to make that more user friendly and that has not been happening.

“There’s just some things that I think need to be done.

“Moving forward, I think we’ve got a lot of good projects in the works. I think infrastructure work is progressing very nicely. I think the town is slowly but surely looking better. But we have our issues, and I want to be part of the discussion moving forward on that.”

Why did you decide to run for an at-large seat instead of a ward seat?

“The four-year term versus two-year term was a little bit more appealing to me. I think I can get more done in a four-year period of time rather than I can in a two-year period of time. I think with the change of leadership with the new mayor coming on it was just a better decision on my behalf to run for a four-year spot rather than a two-year term.”

What would you propose to do about deteriorated buildings in Fort Dodge?

“Nuisance and abandoned property has been a top priority for me for years. I’ve always been an advocate for getting things done. Burnt out houses bother me. I think the owners of those houses need to be controlled a little bit better. I think the city needs to make some major adjustments either in the ordinance or in enforcement. We need to make the owners responsible for the demolition and removal of those properties. It’s not the city’s responsibility and it shouldn’t be the city’s responsibility to tear those houses down.

“I’ve actually proposed that we enforce if you have rental property that you have an insurance policy that’s verified in the rental process on the property to ensure that we have money available to take care of the property if it does get damaged beyond repair. And as kind of a side note to that I would like to see them list the city as an additional insured on the policy so that our costs are recoverable. I hope that we can get something like that enforced because I get tired of the burnt out houses. There’s two of them over by Duncombe school that have been there for years. We’ve got one on L Street by the prison that’s been there for 10 years just sitting there and nothing’s been done.

“They take them to court, the people don’t pay their fines, they don’t show up and there’s an assessment put on their property but they don’t care about that. Some of these property owners have got other properties in town that are very nice properties and they’re kind of flaunting the fact that they don’t do anything. They have enough money to do something if they want to. I think it would be interesting if we could somehow or another figure out a way to put liens on their other properties to make them take care of their problems that are their problems, not the city’s problem.

“The other issue is, of course, what are we going to do with all these empty buildings. We have the Warden, the Federal Building, South Junior High (former Fair Oaks Middle School),. We’ve got the Trolley Center that’s sitting empty. Heartland is sitting empty. Land o’Lakes is sitting empty.

“We made the decision to take South Junior High back from Foutch Brothers, which was a mistake. I think we should have had some kind of monetary pushback for them,

“Same thing with KDG at the Warden Plaza, even though it was a mistake from the get-go. We should have had some kind of a recourse, monetary recourse against them. I think that’s one thing we’ve kind of learned that if we’re working with an out-of-town developer we should have some kind of recourse available if they do not do the project they say they are going to.

“The biggest problem we have right now is the cost of taking them down. They applied for an EPA grant for the asbestos removal at the Warden Plaza, $600,000 I think. We did not get that grant. So I mean if the city’s going to tear it down, the first thing the city is going to have to do is go in and take the asbestos out.

“I would like to preserve it, but at this point I don’t see how financially it could be done. If we’re going to do anything, get the windows fixed, make it look more appealing. Get in and clean it up and make it more presentable to developers, but again that’s going to cost money and the city doesn’t have that kind of money. Unless we find a grant from somewhere, we’re going to have a hard time doing anything with it.

“And you’ve got South Junior High. At South Junior High we had an offer from Walmart a number of years ago, probably eight or 10 years ago. Walmart wanted to put in one of those hometown express stores on that corner. Foutch Brothers told them they’d sell them the building, but they wanted $2 million for it. And they had gotten for I think like $1 from the school district. So Walmart backed out. But I think potentially demoing that site and developing it into some type of a retail facility. If it was up to me I’d go back to Walmart and see if they were interested in the property. They seem to have money.”

What would you recommend to deal with the problem of homelessness?

“I realize that these people are having issues. A lot of them are mental issues. There are medical issues that prevent them from doing a job. I think we’ve got plenty of professionals in town that should be able to get enough people together to form some type of a group between the hospital, CFR, Salvation Army, the Community Health Center, YOUR Inc., all these different groups that deal with these types of cases on a regular basis and I think we all need to sit down in a room, have a discussion and appoint an advocate or two to go out and talk to these people. Identify the people that are homeless if we can — there’s a lot of people that are hard to find because they’re couch surfing or whatever – and find out if they’re eligible for any benefits if they are having problems and then we can work with the groups, organizations and agencies that are out there to get those people in touch with the people that can help them.

“I think working with them, treating them with kindness and compassion instead of threatening them with jail is going to be the way to do it.

“It’s going to be a real problem shortly with the weather change. They’ll be back into our abandoned homes causing the problems that they do with the fires and everything else. We don’t want that in Fort Dodge.”

What would you recommend for economic development?

“You’ve got to start with the public input into that first. You’ve got to keep your city looking nice – you’ve got to make it look good. You have to provide activities for the people that are coming into the community.

“I think outreach is important. The Growth Alliance has been very good with the outreach programs. I think there is a couple of opportunities in the ag business since we are primarily ag oriented, to approach some of these ag companies and see if there is any kind of facilities that they would be interested in constructing in or around Fort Dodge.

“I think there’s opportunities. I think we’ve got the potential to bring in more small retail businesses as the mall redevelops. Downtown is ripe for redevelopment. There’s plenty of space, affordable space, and there’s all kinds of retail stores that could go in there.”

What would you recommend to improve public safety?

“I think we’re doing a fairly good job on the Fire Department end. I think we’ve been very supportive of the Fire Department. The EMS service — taking that over from the hospital I think was a wise move in the long run. It is cash flowing at this point and I think we’ve got some good people there. We’ve got good modern equipment to get good response time.

“Police Department — you know we’ve battled that … every time budget time rolled around trying to incorporate at least three additional police officers on staff. We were close a couple of times. The property tax rollback kind of affected us there for awhile. I think the future is that we probably will find room in the budget for three additional police officers, but we have to find the money for it so something else is going to have to give. It’s going to take a lot of very close monetary budget watching to increase the police budget to the point that we can hire more officers.”

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Eugene Newsome

Address: 322 Ave. F

Education: Associate degree from Iowa Central Community College

Occupation: Retired

Why do you want to be on the City Council?

“I want to be able to make sure that the minority population has a voice. I want to look out for their interests. Everybody needs somebody to speak for them.

I don’t think the people of Fort Dodge have any problem with that. Fort Dodge has changed a lot since I moved here in ’67, and they can understand that.

“Just 2 percent in town are Black people, 2 or 3 percent, but still they need somebody there to kind of speak for them.”

Why did you choose to run for an at-large seat instead of a seat representing a ward?

“I want all the people in Fort Dodge to be able to vote and chip in. That’s the reason i did that — give all the eligible people in this city the chance to vote if they want to make changes.”

What would be your No. 1 priority if you are elected?

“I’m going to try to help all the people that are walking around with no place to go and down in their luck. Help them travel through their maze and get to the help that they need. If mental health is the problem they got or a drug problem that caused them to land in that situation, help them to get out of it.

“If I’m elected to one of the seats in November, on Jan. 1 or whenever you get sworn in, I’ll have a plan ready for the City Council to look at. If I’m elected, I’ll have about two months to work on it.”

What might be in that plan?

“Temporary housing in different places — some of the empty buildings sitting around here. Modify them and make them safe and secure.

“I remember this weather in February and we had that derecho and stuff, 20 and 40 below zero. I would hate to think we would find somebody out there sleeping and they’d be deceased. It’s happened in places. We can do better in Fort Dodge. Instead of having a negative attitude because people are in a bad situation, we’re going to help them.”

What would you propose to do about deteriorated buildings in Fort Dodge?

“Look at them — see if we could remove them or repair them. See if they can be redone and put somebody in it. The city can do something like when they took over the cemetery and take over the buildings — they can set up something and rent it to people. They’ve got the authority to do that. It’s in the Constitution.

“I see them all the time. Every time I get out and think, how much would it cost to fix this one?”

What would you recommend for economic development and job creation?

“We’re not doing too bad on jobs. According to my smart phone, I see a lot of them in there, a lot of them available. A lot more people have got to utilize Iowa Central to get that training — that two year training or that four year training. They’ve got a program where you could take training for six weeks and learn how to do certain things. You don’t have to have a four-year degree.

“We’re not hurting that bad for employment here. As far as I’m concerned, I don’t think any able person should be just walking around town. They should be contributing.”

What would you recommend to improve public safety?

“I’m a big fan of the Police and the Fire Department. I support both of them — what they need, updates,

“I support cameras everywhere.

“If they say they need more people, then we’ve got to get them more people.”

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City Council, Ward 3

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Todd McCubbin

Address: 2998 15th Ave. N.E.

Education: Graduate of Fort Dodge Senior High School, associate degree from Iowa central Community College, Bachelor’s degree from Buena Vist University in Storm Lake and master’s degree form Capella University in Minneapolis, Minnesota

Occupation: Businessman with multiple ventures

Why should the voters pick you as their Ward 3 council representative?

” I’ve called Fort Dodge home since 1980, when my family moved here and I was just 7 years old. I grew up a proud Dodger and have spent most of my life living, working, and raising my own family here. Fort Dodge is where my roots are. As a U.S. Army veteran, I believe deeply in service, accountability, and giving back to the community that’s given so much to me. Over the years, I’ve invested my time, energy, and resources into Fort Dodge from starting and helping run local businesses to creating places where people can connect and enjoy life. This has provided me an understanding of multiple layers of city government and the needs of Fort Dodge residents. I am eager to bring this same commitment and a growth-mindset to city government; one focused on accountability, transparency, and teamwork.”

What is the main issue you plan to address if you are elected?

“A main focus of mine will be on strengthening the connection between the city and the people who live here. That means improving communication, making sure residents understand how and why decisions are made, and ensuring financial responsibility so tax dollars are used wisely. I also want to keep pushing for smart development; affordable housing, better infrastructure, and supporting the small businesses that make Fort Dodge strong.

“Just as important, I want to continue building safe neighborhoods and a community where families feel secure and proud to call Fort Dodge home.”

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Dennis Mernka

Address: Kramme Drive

Education: Graduate of Fort Dodge Senior High School, studied criminal justice at Iowa Central Community College

Occupation: Retired Fort Dodge Police Department lieutenant

Why should the voters pick you to be their Ward 3 council representative?

“As a lifelong citizen of Fort Dodge and a career police officer for over 36 1/2 years I feel I have an insight to how most of the city departments run. I’ve worked with a lot of the employees and have a working knowledge on their departments.

“I value trust and transparency and would be diligent to bringing industry and retail businesses to our city. During the selling of our community to these prospective retailers and industries I want our City Council to work together with the city manager to accomplish this achievement to work alongside with many other local, state and federal growth and development groups to making Fort Dodge once again a place to come in northwest Iowa as a leader in retail and new job opportunities!

“From going-to-door to door to speak to the constituents I understand and will always have an open door, phone policy to keep in touch and gather their opinions and ideas.

“Without any doubt I feel I’m the most beneficial candidate to fulfill the duty of your Ward 3 city councilperson. My common sense approach and being in touch with the citizens with an open mind to new perspectives and ideas. As I’ve placed in my fliers I want to bring trust and confidence to our council members and citizens. With a logical approach to our city debt and obligations, trying to bring tax abatements to new housing and apartment owners and work on our city infrastructure system with a mindset to make improvements that will last for years and not just a few. Make the most out of our hardworking people’s money for a lasting community.”

What will be the first issue you will seek to address if you are elected?

“One of the main issues I would like to work on right away is the City Council consent agenda. Most people won’t have an idea what this is, but in short the City Council approved this way of passing several items on the agenda at one time without the citizens knowing about them it until they come to a council meeting and the items are listed on the tv screen. During this vote anywhere from one on up can be placed for a single vote. Each item isn’t voted on separately. By doing this many things seem to be hidden. Just recently under this consent agenda a new tracked skid loader with a bucket and snowblower was purchased for $122,621. This purchase was made to be kept at the new Pavilion. I know we have city services that can already do this same job. Why are we duplicating our resources when the city just went in debt for $12 million dollars on the Pavilion. Not a good use of our tax dollars.

“Another issues that I’ve seen lately is our Police Department has been losing officers. We need to work on officer retention so that the Police Department budget isn’t just spent on police academy training. We also need our veteran officers to have more intensive training to make them the best and most professional officers around. With ever changing laws and court decisions training is never-ending, and with a very large portion of the training budget going to the academy we can’t get other officers to worthwhile training. Our citizens deserve the best of the men in blue.”

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City Council, Ward 4

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Kim Alstott

Address: 1232 N. Seventh St.

Education: Graduate of Fort Dodge Senior High School, associate degree from Iowa Central Community College

Occupation: Retired businessman

Why do you want to stay on the City Council?

“I want to see Fort Dodge grow with manufacturing. I think that’s the most important part. And new housing additions. And just to continue to see the city grow. I want good amenities for the city. I think that’s important for manufacturing: to come in to see what you have to offer to people. I think that’s really important.

“I want to see the progress keep going with the sewers, water lines and streets I thnk that’s really important, too.”

What will be your No. 1 priority if you are elected?

“It all ties in together. If you have more manufacturers come in here, which bring better jobs, than you have a bigger tax base and you can get more things done.

“We need the streets repaired. We need to continue to replace water and sewer lines. But in order to do that we need more tax revenue and if we bring more manufacturing in, it helps us have more tax money to do that job.”

What would you propose to do about deteriorated buildings in Fort Dodge?

“One of the things we did was to set up in 2019 the Heart of Iowa Housing Trust to help lower income people live in their homes. We go in and fix up their homes. So far to date, we’ve helped 74 homes and the state has given us over $1 million to do that.

“One of the problems we have is when people couldn’t fix their house up, like their roof for example, it would leak and after awhile the house would get ruined, has mold in it. Then they have to abandon the house, and the city has to tear it down.

“When you talk about the houses that are abandoned now — we have a tight budget. We have $100,000 a year to tear down housing. Right now it costs us anywhere from around $30,000 — $35,000 per home to tear down.

“Now if you want to tear down more houses, you have to go to the taxpayers and I don’t want to do that. I’m not going to raise property taxes to tear down houses.”

What would you propose to do with the Warden Plaza and Fair Oaks Middle School?

“That’s a sore subject. I can tell you we are currently looking for people to take those buildings over for companies. I know we had some interest in the past. I still think we have some interest here in the future.

“Fair Oaks — they wanted to turn that into apartments like they did at Phillips. So hopefully, we can have another company do that.

“And we are really trying to find people to do that because it is going to cost a lot of money to tear those two buildings down. So that’s why we’re looking for people to renovate those buildings because we don’t want to put that on the taxpayers, either.”

What would you propose to do about the homelessness problem?

“If you get a place for them to stay, they won’t keep the buildings up. So that’s a problem. In other words they don’t respect the property and they just tear things apart. It costs you money to repair those buildings, so that’s another issue.

‘”To me, personally, the men’s shelter does a good job. The Beacon does a good job helping these men out. But if they don’t follow the rules, they kick them out. There should be a way for us to send them back to where they came from.

“The problem is, I heard this from (a former sheriff), he said these other counties know we have these shelters in town and without calling or asking they bring them here. They don’t call and see if they have room. They don’t tell the people coming here there’s rules they have to follow. So this is one of the problems. Do you see my point?

“You know what he told me? He said there’s counties all the way from the Missouri River that bring people here to Webster County line and they drop them off and say walk into Fort Dodge. That’s what these counties are doing. That’s what’s going on. I don’t think that’s right. It puts a burden on us.

“There should be a way we can take them back to where they came from if they’re not following the rules. If they don’t want to follow the rules, than they don’t want to get help. See my point? If they don’t want to get help, why should they be a burden on us?

“I’m all for helping people, helping them, but when they don’t want to follow the rules, what else can you do?”

What would you recommend for economic development?

“We’ve done a lot. We have the city and the county supervisors working together. That’s huge. Like our governor and other people have said, they don’t have that relationship in other counties and cities. They don’t have that relationship working together like that. So that’s huge.

“And when we’re courting manufacturing business they see that relationship as a big plus. They see us working together to get the things they need before they come.

“When CJ came in, they saw we had a 2030 plan. We had a plan to grow the city. They liked that. That’s one of the reasons why CJ came here.

“I think we’ve done a pretty good job already. I do. We work well with each other, so that’s really important. When the companies come in when they’re looking they like that spirit of unity, which I think is very, very important.”

What would you recommend to improve public safety?

“I recommend having more cameras, which has really helped a lot. I was 100 percent for that. And of course, staff. I really believe we need more police officers. That would help tremendously.”

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Ed Touney

Address: 1911 N. 17th St.

Education: Graduate of St. Edmond High School, Bachelor’s degree from Grandview University in Des Moines, medical degree from Des Moines University

Occupation: Physician

Why do you want to be a member of the City Council?

“I sure want to help my community. I sure want to represent the hard working taxpayers of Fort Dodge.

“As we came to decide to enter the race, we sure noticed some expenses or some decisions by the City Council that brought up questions and thought, are they spending the taxpayers’ money in the wisest way? It seems like there were extraordinary expenses being made without any real debate, without any information passed amongst the City Council members or shared with the public.

“One of the tools that the City Council has is consent agenda. It’s a blanket list of things that they vote on — anywhere from 10 to 12 items. There’s very really little discussion being made and it’s a blanket yes on all these issues without any investigation or discernment of what might be in these and what’s going on. It sure seems like the general public is unaware of some of the things that are hurriedly passed along.

“My goal is to take care of the essential needs. The essential needs I think are sewer, water, EMS, police, fire. Take care of those resources as well as being judicious and discerning on other expenses. I’m not going out to cut the library, I’m not going out to cut the Blanden, or the Karl King Band, but again be discerning and use some common sense.”

Why did you decide to run for the Ward 4 seat instead of an at-large seat?

“I’m in Ward 4. I’m representing the community that I live in. I thought this would be the best place for me to go and help my community, help my city.”

What would be your No. priority if you’re elected?

“I’m sure concerned about the tax debt of the city and that tax debt being passed on to the taxpayers of Fort Dodge. I sure want to maintain the necessities, the infrastructure, and help that out. Taking care of those necessities is a requirement, but to be good stewards of the money that we have and elevate those that are in the best interests of the community and the hard working taxpayers of Fort Dodge.

“We need to be discerning about some of this money we’re handing out. Fort Dodge is currently carrying $210 million in debt. As you look at Muscatine and Ottumwa, our debt is seven times their debt. As we go to Burlington, Mason City, Marshalltown, again cities that are fairly similar to Fort Dodge, with population size and economics and blue collar workforce, we’re two and half times of Marshalltown and three times that of Mason City. It’s hard to wrap my head around why we have so much debt.

“I’d like to be more involved in the departments and budgets of Fort Dodge to find out if there’s areas where we can eliminate waste and fraud.”

What would you propose to do about deteriorated buildings in Fort Dodge?

“Obviously, if we have the owners, landlords, of some of these properties help their own properties, but if they’re abandoned, what do you do? It’s difficult, especially if a property’s dilapidated and needs to be torn down and eliminated. You know with a homeless population that migrates into some of these houses and fires happen, that’s tragic. We sure want to protect the community from fires.

“Ideally if we can get somebody in there to develop it and redo it, hey, that’s the best. But we do have some properties that have been fire-damaged, that are too far gone, yes, the city goes to expense to take those down. That’s one way of doing it. It’s a tough decision as to how to fully manage those. Again, to get the owners, landlords to come up and step up and to have another entity refurbish them would be ideal.”

What would you propose to do with the Warden Plaza and Fair Oaks Middle School?

“They’ve been problems for 20 years if not longer. If we can get someone to come in and own those and refurbish them in some way. I can appreciate that there’s going to be some high expense to do that. I think the City Council could, again with safety in mind, decrease some of the regulations and change some of the code or ordinance that allow someone to go in there to refurbish those.

“I think small business is going to be a key factor in this. I sure want to support small businesses owners who will come in a building and refurbish it. I think the city needs to relax some of the regulations, the codes to allow people to do that.”

What would you propose to do about the problem of homelessness?

Touney talked at length about the details he learned about the programs offered by the Beacon of Hope and Athletics for Education and Success.

“We sure want to help those people out,” he said. “I sure applaud their model. Their model is on course. I sure want to encourage that.”

What would you propose for economic development?

“I sure like the idea of small businesses. I’d sure encourage the growth of more small businesses.

“The hot spot is our downtown. I would encourage helping cut back regulations to make it easier for more small businesses to come downtown. I would work with Iowa central and their construction trades program I think they’re looking for projects and I think downtown could be ther canvas to paint.

“Another resource — we have a prison out here. Is there a way to have a work release environment so that those inmates can used to work on community projects?”

What would you recommend to improve public safety?

“Police is No. 1. We’ve got to make sure we’ve got a fully staffed Police Department. I sure want to continue working on the retention of our officers with the Police Department.

“Fire and EMS is the same. They’re taking risks, They’re running into fires, they’re running toward that injured person. We need to make sure they have the staffing, training and equipment that they need.”