Here are the Advocate News Interview questions and answers. Please read and comment. 1. What are your qualifications? • Employed with City 29 years. • Holder of 65 Technical Certificates of training. • Emergency Management training including Earthquake and Tsunami. • Lifelong citizen and volunteer in the community. • I am an experienced user of the Citys financial software and purchasing system. I will research how and where the money flows. 2. What are your ideas for dealing with continuing water issues? The following issue will take more than 150 words to tackle. Please do your best to look at my solution. Our water infrastructure is capable of double its current output. However, our sources are not. There are many free sources and storage available, but it will take a partnership with Georgia Pacific to obtain them. GP has rights to Pudding Creek water and they can draw 646,000 gallons per day. Georgia Pacific has rights to Noyo river water and they can draw 970,000 gallons per day. Noyo water could be pumped to Pudding creek for storage or directly to the water treatment plant since GP shares our water intake system. There are two developed wells on the mill site. One produced up to 72,000 gallons per day. Alder creek is flowing 25-50 gallons per minute currently in this drought. When cleaned to state standards, the mill pond could hold 1 to 1.25 million gallons of free raw water from Alder creek. There is also a pond just east of the mill pond that holds 700,000 gallons. Pudding creek held at one time 2 to 3 million gallons. It will take pumps and new piping to get the water to the treatment plant. There is potential of a 1.75 million gallon a day total source and 4 million in extra storage close to the city limits. Desalinization is still on the table. I have a plan for a lower cost project that would utilize our gravity system as well. There is a well on the Goble property east of Fort Bragg off of Sherwood road. The city tried to develop that well some time ago. That well could provide 1,000,000 gallons a day. It was too salty to treat with our conventional water plant. We could obtain the well and pump the water to the current water plant and build a desalinization plant next to our current plant. The desalinized water could be put into the tank and gravity fed to town. The by product could be put into the sewer system and diluted and then treated at the waste water treatment plant. This is the most cost effective way to do desalinization. 3. What are your thoughts on how to attract new businesses to Fort Bragg and the surrounding area? A new expanded Brewery is the most important thing we could build on the mill site. An expansion to a new facility with the potential of 200 new jobs is like a new windfall job creating business. This is my first priority. This is my plan to entice and seek out businesses. We need to send a delegation of 2 council members to other cities to seek out their unique businesses that might show interest in expanding to Fort Bragg. It starts with courting them. After talking to business owners who have opened stores in Ukiah, they expressed the ease and friendly atmosphere they received from Ukiah. I was told to model our planning process like Ukiah. They were very impressed and said that Fort Bragg can learn a lot from them. We need to start a local business owner focus group which would include a representative from the Promotion Committee and the Chamber of Commerce. Great ideas start with the people who have a vested financial interest on our community. They had expressed many creative ideas to promote their stores and tourism. We need to look at our fee structure to see if it aligns with other local communities and towns with a population of 7,000. A local Mechanic shop opened a new business and it cost them $20,000 before he drove a nail in his existing building. This is unacceptable. 4. What suggestions do you have on how to deal with the growing transient and homeless population? Homelessness is a difficult and diverse problem. Our community has championed and led in the fight to provide for homeless people. Our residents have started numerous soup kitchens, they have a developed food bank and we have a thriving Hospitality house. Our community has provide so well, we have become a destination point for all homeless to come. A destination point is not our mission. I would be reaching out to other cities, and most importantly County government to manage their homeless problem. Our current problem is the homeless defecating, urinating, littering, and aggressively pan handling (trouble makers). This behavior will not be tolerated. They will be cited or arrested and hauled to jail. We are not a destination point. We will HELP but not SUPPORT a lifestyle. 5. After talking with many people during your campaign, what do you think is the community’s perception of our city government? Perception of residents is everything, regardless of what people are told, and the style in which it is presented. The questions I get most often from residents are: 1. What really happened to the Police Chief? They want to know, and ignoring the issue is wearing on their faith in government. They want this resolved. 2. Can you change the management of the City? They want change. 3. Why is my water bill so high? The Council raised water rates and then spent $93,000 on Town Hall. Many said new curtains and crown molding......what are they thinking? People are mad about their monthly water bills. 4. Why does the Council vote the majority of the time for what staff wants without really listening to public input or making changes? They say they rubber stamp staff recommendations the majority of the time. The owners of the businesses I have interviewed want better communications, cleaner downtown, more police presence, deal with homeless, and enforce 2 hour parking. They have no faith in the Citys ability to help promote businesses and create jobs. 6. Do you think gangs are a serious issue at this time? If so, how would you propose that the city deal with them? Yes gangs are a constant problem. Gangs never stop. They just go through lulls in their activity. It is directly related to the pressure the police put on them when the rise up. The City council needs to hire the next Chief directly independent of the City Manager to take responsibility for their pick and be directly responsible for the Chief conduct. The next Chief will need to mirror gang control techniques and the determination of Chief Mayberry. He didnt tolerate or accept them, and he worked with the community to keep it that way. Will our new chief go to the parents homes of gang members to personally try to turn their families around as Scott Mayberry did? 7. How can the City identify, regulate and collect taxes from businesses that operate and/or pay workers under the table? The City currently does not review employee status or claims of expenditures of their labor, of any local businesses that have licenses issued by the City. After talking to the EDD at the state level it is not the City’s responsibility to investigate and seek out violations. They are a reporting partner. If a complaint is reported or discovered, the City is obligated to report it. The City does not have enforcement power to request employee record to seek compliance with state and federal law. The City would have to report instances of cash wages paid “under the table,” to them via 800-528-1783 for enforcement action. 8. What are your thoughts on the structure of our city government? The police Chief needs to work under the City Council, and work as an equal to the City Manager. The two can discuss budget items. Department issues with police officer conduct and discipline will solely fall under the Chief with the City Council reviewing each issue to ensure no wrong doing by either party involved. A Human Resources Committee with Council oversight needs to be formed. They would review all employee evaluations and oversee all disciplinary actions resulting from employee misconduct. Names would be withheld from the Council. Just the facts of each issue with the resulting actions taken to ensure there is no liability to the Citizens from employee demands, and possible settlements would be given to the Committee. They would respond to the public when asked. If a closed session is demanded per the will of the community it will happen. I think employee issues merit a closed session. I was one of those employees that would say yes to talking to the Council in closed session. Perform a 5 year audit for labor allocations shown in the budget to water and sewer funds. Make sure monies are being accounted properly. If any allocated position states 20% of their time is allocated to water and/or sewer, management needs to prove it by checking actual time worked reported on bi-weekly time sheets. The rate payers need justification, especially when rates keep rising.
Posted on: Thu, 16 Oct 2014 15:46:01 +0000
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