An estimated sixty to seventy people turned out October 3 to hear from the candidates on the November ballot for city offices.
The hour and a half forum, organized by the Monitor, featured city council candidates
Drew Dawson and Gary Richardson and mayoral candidates Gary Craft, Rusty Giulio and Lori Smith. Richardson and Craft are the incumbents and are seeking another four-year term in office. Both races are non-partisan. Held at the Jefferson High School library, the forum covered a wide range of topics. Each candidate was allowed to make an opening and closing statement in addition to responding to the questions.
PROFILES
Drew Dawson for council seat Dawson coordinated the nation’s emergency medical services programs, which took him away from Boulder for about 13 years. He was also out of the area for college but otherwise born, raised, and lived in Boulder for his roughly 70 years. He worked for the State of Montana for about 30 years, mostly in emergency medical services administration, and in the past couple of years has chaired the Boulder Transition Advisory Committee.
Gary Richardson, incumbent for council Richardson is the current councilman for the ward that includes Washington Street east, a position he has held for six years. He is an Air Force veteran. He spent about four years in Europe touring and met his wife there. They have two grown children. He has been in Boulder 33 years, worked for sheriff’s office 23 years, operated a bar in Boulder for 15 years, and has been retired for 6 years.
Gary Craft, incumbent mayor Craft has spent eight years as mayor. Born and raised in Boulder, he worked at the bank and then at school district for 30 years, finishing as school clerk for last 12 years. In that job he handled funds for both elementary and high school accounts. He has been married for 44 years and retired for 12 years.
Rusty Giulio for mayor Giulio said he got into business when only 8 years old with ag efforts. A Jefferson High graduate with logging, mining and highway construction experience, he has managed over 250 employees and overseen associated record keeping, reporting and meeting deadlines. He is the father of four daughters who are involved in operating the Windsor Bar, RGR Properties, Giulio Contractors and Giulio Disposal Service.
Lori Smith for mayor From Kansas City, Kansas, Smith was a district VP for a medical supply company in Houston, Texas. Before moving to Kalispell. She now works from her Boulder home as a medical transcriptionist.
WHY AM I RUNNING
Drew Dawson “I love Boulder, and I want to make it better, and I love public service…and I think I have some talents and experience to contribute to the cause. I want the city to be an active and aggressive partner with ‘Making Boulder’s Future Bright’…We need to move beyond the MDC and to make Boulder a place where people want to come to recreate, to work, to relax and to heal.” “I want to help the city council to proactive and not reactive.” Dawson said he wants engagement by both the citizens and the city officials, transparency of city deliberations, modernization such as a website, and clear expectations. “I have worked from the outside in to improve Boulder; now I want to work from the inside out to improve Boulder.” He has a short term job in Ohio but negotiated travel pay to be in Boulder as necessary.
Gary Craft “We’re right on the cusp of great things happening and I’d like to be able to continue that.”
Rusty Giulio “This campaign is about you the voter and concerned citizens. I will listen to your concerns.” “I want to help the residents of Boulder provide a safe and prosperous community for us all to reside in. We also need to change the way we have been doing business to accommodate our vision to make Boulder’s future brighter. It is time for a change at city hall.” The city should have a city attorney on retainer, not full time. Law enforcement needs to be more adaptable to the community needs. The city office needs to be open more and be more helpful. “The current administration seems to be out of touch with the community. We have issues that are not being addressed.” There needs to be more openness and transparency. “We need to elect someone with business experience. We need to make decisions with common sense. I’m pro-business, pro-growth, honest and trustworthy. I’m unconditionally committed to the success of Boulder and its residents.”
Lori Smith “I see a vision for the citizens of Boulder to have a stronger voice to work with the city more in a compatible manner.”
PHILOSOPHY ON THE ROLE OF GOVERNMENT
Gary Richardson “It’s just to serve the people,” to be the go-between between the mayor and the people. “City government is just, in my opinion, the protection of the city. They should do what they can do to make things easier for the people to live here and not to create any more problems than they absolutely have to. I’ve never been a large person for change. I mean, when you have to change, you do change, but if you didn’t like it when you moved here, you shouldn’t have moved here.”
Drew Dawson “I think it’s important that the people have a voice in what the government does.” The city should assure some quality of services in health, social services, housing — “maybe not to provide that service itself but to assure those services are provided to its citizens.” Government has responsibility for public health and safety, which includes law enforcement and emergency medical services. Government should not intrude in a citizen’s privacy. The city has a fiduciary respon- sibility to “live within its means and not obviously incur a debt to provide those services.”
Lori Smith Government is there to provide a safe and secure environment for the citizens. Infringement on privacy needs to be considered but sometimes things are put in place for the benefit of the community as a whole. Rusty Giulio Government officials should listen to all of the citizens, not let personal feelings influence decisions, and be unbiased. “Government works for us and responds to our concerns, and the part they shouldn’t be involved in is private property rights.”
Gary Craft “City government does work for the community of this city.” Individual calls from citizens must be weighed with how the majority expects you to act. There are limits on what the city is allowed to do. “We are there to insure your safety, your health, and your well-being, and we can only get better and be more transparent if the community is involved with the city government.”
CAPITAL IMPROVEMENTS PLAN AND GROWTH POLICY DEVELOPMENT
Rusty Giulio “This is the time to get involved. And the one thing that I really would like to see is the young people getting involved, because there’s a lot of old ducks up here.”
Gary Craft A growth policy is “one of the foundation documents the city needs in order to receive a high ranking for grants for additional monies.” The city has now organized a city planning board and training is scheduled. The process will involve a lot of meetings and citizens need to be involved. “What do YOU want it to be? It’s not what we want it to be. It’s what you as a community want it to be.” “Get involved with it.”
Lori Smith A growth policy is “truly the beginning of making Boulder something that the citizens would like to see done, and that includes what you want your main street to look like, if you want to add bike paths…” Both documents important to help deliver the visions that the citizens plan for the city of Boulder.
ISSUE OF PURCHASE OF BUILDING FOR POLICE DEPARTMENT AND STAFF RECOMMENDATIONS
Drew Dawson City officials need to “think fairly comprehensively” and exhaust all avenues when looking at expansion. “I think it’s important that those decisions be made taking into account every possible factor.” “In terms of recommendations by staff members, I think those are obviously incredibly important to consider when making any decision but I think there are a lot of other factors to consider as well.”
Gary Richardson “The building would have needed a lot of work and money to become secure. “I was 99 percent sure” the sheriff would not approve access via internet from that building to confidential criminal justice information. The city could not afford to man the building 24 hours a day. Issues between the chief of police and sheriff were at the heart of it.
MOBILE HOME REGULATION
Lori Smith The current policy is a good one. It provides time to fix problems. “I don’t want to say that mobile homes are bad, because they are not.” But upkeep is key. “When you have no zoning, you mix the two and you have people living next to a tire store.” We need zoning designations.
Rusty Giulio City already had a mobile home ordinance, but it was not enforced. “One thing we can’t do is displace the people from their homes that live in those trailers.” “What we are really lacking is affordable housing, and we need to make adjustments to the zoning ordinances so that it works for the present time.” “We need to realize also that in Boulder we have lower-income residents so we just can’t misplace them. We have to have somewhere for them to go and we have to have some kind of affordable housing that they can afford to be able to stay here and live a productive life.”
Gary Craft “The zoning we have now in place for trailers is a great step ahead of what it had been. If your trailer was older than 1976, it had to be replaced.” Now any trailer moving in has to be newer than 20 years old. There is an affordable housing project in process and applications are being accepted. Zoning is very important. There are new setbacks on trailer separation for safety concerns.
Gary Richardson The city is not displacing people and the 20-year rule on trailers moving in is a good and reasonable rule.
Drew Dawson The city did a good job of finding a happy medium to phase out older trailers. Zoning is an appropriate function of government but it needs to be applied judiciously with citizen participation in overall planning for growth. It is a tool for growth planning but citizen involvement is key.
THE $500,000 GRANT AND WHERE THE CITY IS GOING IN THE NEXT FOUR YEARS
Drew Dawson The city needs to follow the master plan and work with the Boulder Development Fund. “Just like you don’t start a house on the second floor you also don’t start doing community development without having solid plans.” In four years the hope is to have a better downtown, a rest area, and a better economic environment. The city needs to use the $500,000 for seed money to grow community projects.
Gary Richardson “Personally, I had my doubts about the rest area. I don’t see that enhancing the community of Boulder.” “They’re not going to give us $500,000 and say, ‘Spend it the way you want to and you think it should be spent.’” “It’s going to be very heavily scrutinized by the state. And, so, I am, personally I think that we’re going to be, well I don’t know us, but I am going to be kind of disappointed in what materializes from that amount of money.”
Rusty Giulio In four years, I envision the rest area going in and getting infrastructure extended to that side of the interstate. “The fairgrounds is one of the best facilities in the state…that’s really a facility there, and on the west side of the interstate, that really needs to be built on.” Giulio would like to see some things happen to make main street more attractive and “we really need to go out and recruit these businesses.” A lot of the $500,000 will be eaten up in engineering and administration costs “so we’ve really got to pay attention to what we’re going to do with that.”
Lori Smith “I’m very optimistic about all of it. I think that if the citizens of Boulder are persistent and insistent and help the planning board, the city officials, the development fund board and keep focused on the end goal that in four years time we will have seen a drastic improvement in the overall look of Boulder.” “Four years is not a very long time, but I still think that if you persevere and work hard, and I’m talking about everybody, you will see a change.”
Gary Craft “The $500,000 came about because there was a number of us that testified at the legislature and informed them that what they were doing by closing the MDC was a huge economic hit for the community.” “In this case there are very few strings attached. The number one string that is attached is that we have to use it in this biennium. By July 1, 2018, we don’t have any more money, so there is a whole lot of things that need to happen.” The intent is to use that money as leverage. “If you can get one for two grants, you’ve already doubled your money.” “There are going to be a lot of public meetings in the next year and a half. I encourage everyone to get there. Put in your two cents. Understand what we’re trying to do with this.” “I think that in four years, if everyone gets behind it, the community will be better off.”
IMPROVING PUBLIC PARTICIPATION
Lori Smith She said she is not satisfied with the turnout at public meetings. “The city can demonstrate to the citizens that they are interested in what they have to say.” Talk to the citizens. “You can’t force people to come, but you can entice them through your own demonstration and actions that you have promised you would do, and follow through.”
Gary Craft “Trying to get people on committees is very, very difficult… but I hope you have pride enough in your community that you will come out and help us for its future, to make Boulder brighter.” The time limit on the $500,000 makes it even more important to be involved. “Don’t be the Monday morning quarterback and get all your information from somebody else. Come down, talk to us, see what’s going on.”
Rusty Giulio It’s fairly typical of a small town to have low turnout at meetings. “Take out a loan and do something stupid and you’ll get people to a meeting,” he joked. City officials need to go out and knock on doors just like in a campaign and do something exciting to get citizens involved.
CLOSING REMARKS
Gary Richardson “I am glad to have had the opportunity to have come to this…I hope that you gathered something out of this. I know that I have.” “If I don’t win and you’ve got Drew as your councilperson, he’s more than capable of filling my shoes.”
Drew Dawson “One of the things that I am is an optimist. I think that Boulder can be improved and I think that we need to go into whatever actions we take with the idea that we can and will make Boulder better.” An “attitude that we can do it” is important. He pledged to continue to push to implement Making Boulder’s Future Bright. The community needs to overcome the inertia of the city council, he said.
Lori Smith City officials need to represent what the citizens want. “Do they want to be involved, do they not want to be involved?” “What can we do to all work together to accomplish those goals?” “Ultimately, it all comes down to the citizens: what is it that you want?” During the campaign, she has heard what people want and don’t want, “and none of it is unreasonable and all of it will be investigated and researched and addressed by me as mayor.”
Rusty Giulio “The main thing is, we’ve really got to get our young people involved in what we are doing.” “I think our next mayor has got to have a great deal of business experience, and I think I have that.” “We are entering a time that will provide Boulder with a great deal of opportunity. Let’s seize the moment. We need a leader that will assist with the implementation of our goals with your best interests in mind.” “I think differently than some people. I think MDC closing is a positive move for all of us. I think that MDC had a stigma about it that that’s why we couldn’t get people to move here and build new homes.” “It’s 100-plus years of our history, but I think it’s gone and I think it’s time to say goodbye.” “If you’ve done business with me, you’ll know that I’m fair, honest and consistent. You’ll either love me or you’ll hate me. We will plan for the future and work the plan.”
Gary Craft “I have worked for the com- munity, for the City of Boulder, for the last eight years. I would really love to continue working for you. We have a great future in store. Change is coming and hopefully you will jump on the bandwagon and help it change in the right direction. We’ve got so much going for us right now and we need community input. Come to the meetings, get involved with the discussions. I can’t stress that enough.”
