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Why are you seeking public office?
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Questions addressed to Ogden city council and mayoral candidates
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October 28, 2009 |
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As a public service and without cost to the candidates, The Ogden Reporter invited those who are running for Ogden mayor and the city council to submit articles telling why they are seeking office. Each was asked to provide brief information as to occupation and family, why they are running for mayor or city council, to provide their vision of Ogden, to give their views on major cuts that may have to be made when working with the city budget, and to provide any other thoughts they feel are relevant to their candidacy. Mayor candidates were also asked: Although the mayor has no voting power, do you have any goals you would like to accomplish in cooperation with the city council?
Keith W. Berg
FOR MAYOR
`After living in Ogden and managing businesses here all these years, I want to give back to this community. I sincerely believe I have the background, education, skills and contacts that will enable me to do a good job as your mayor. It's my goal to represent the interests of the people of Ogden.
I've recently knocked on a good number of doors in the community. Some of the key concerns of the people in Ogden are: basement flooding, deterioration of main street buildings, retaining businesses and services in Ogden, and property taxes
The mayor, council and city administrator have diligently addressed these issues but more work needs to be done. It is my goal to help build a strong team to work toward further resolution of these issues.
The number one issue is storm water. Construction was planned to get started this fall. However, funds we had been counting on dried up at the last minute.
Main Street buildings, business concerns, and taxes could all be positively impacted with nurturing our existing businesses and hard work toward attracting more employment and business to Ogden. We have many assets, including the railroad that we need to promote, plan and sell actively.
Regarding the city budget, it is my understanding that we are in pretty good shape with the current fiscal year. We may not need to make any drastic changes due to cuts in state funding this fiscal year. I have not participated in building this budget and at this point I don't feel qualified to target any specific cuts.
I purchased Ogden Mini Storage in 1997.
My brokerage and investment business has been at 311 West Walnut for 22 years and my stepson, Adam Good, is a fully licensed broker pursuing a career and partnership with me. My father founded the investment business here in the 1970s. I joined him in 1987, following a 15 year managerial career at John Deere, Waterloo. My last position was Overseas Representative, responsible for marketing and service support of tractors sold outside North America.
I continue the study of business and finance. I plan to complete my Masters of Sciences in Financial Services in 2010. I wholeheartedly embrace the philosophy that you are never too old to learn.
I am a current member of the following boards of directors; Boone's Future, Good Connections, and the Ogden Scholarship. I am a member of Ogden Community Development which is in the process of reorganizing. With offices in Eagle Grove, I am a member of the Eagle Grove Chamber and the Eagle Grove Economic Development group.
I have one daughter and my wife, Susan, has four sons. Our son Wade and family reside in Ogden. Both of my parents live here. Thus, the future of Ogden is very important to me, my family, and my businesses.
David E. Huntley
FOR MAYOR
Hello Ogden. I am David Huntley. I am running to be your mayor of Ogden because I feel I have a lot to offer you and your city. I want to be your voice to improve and grow Ogden into the city where people want to live, work and enjoy life. I have always dedicated my life to Ogden. As a teenager I was involved in a Junior Reserve program with the Ogden Police Department. After I returned from active duty, I joined the Ogden Police Department as a patrolman. I became the Chief of Police and at that time I was the only First Responder for Ogden and western Boone County. I returned to active duty to become a Federal Agent with the Office of Special Investigations. Again I returned back to Ogden from active duty and I started the Ogden First Responders, becoming the first medical chief. I have a great love for Ogden and its citizens.
As you can see, I believe in Ogden. I want to hear your ideas on how you see Ogden as your town. I want to guide the city council to develop a 5, 10 and 15 year plan. The city should be proactive and be prepared for the future and not be surprised by the unexpected. I don't believe we can entice a WalMart or Pella corporation here, but we should encourage the smaller mom and pop businesses, as well a medium size businesses, to look at Ogden. Also, I would like to enact a tax abatement plan for our housing market. This would be a simple plan to allow Ogden to attract homebuyers to buy or build within our friendly city.
Everyone is having to tighten their belts in today's tough economic times. Ogden is no different. I believe there are always areas where we can fine tune the use of your money. I need to work closely with each department and worker to determine if and how much could be trimmed. No department is immune from contributing to Ogden's financial health. The challenge is to not have any cuts affect the service that department provides. Everyone needs to work smarter, not harder.
I want to be your mayor. I will listen to your issues and keep everyone informed on what is going on within the city. If possible, I would set up a format where you could call in a question or concern into city hall and the answer (if not possible to talk to you direct) would be in the Ogden Reporter.
As you can see, I enjoy serving the people of Ogden. I want to lead Ogden into the future by building on its proud past.
I have lived in Ogden all my adult life except for my active Air Force time. I have been blessed to be married to Kit for 30 years. We have two adult children, James David (Barb) and Kristine (Joe). We have five grand children and all live close by. I graduated from Ogden High School in 1974 and retired from the Iowa Air National Guard in 1994. I have worked for the Union Pacific Railroad (formerly Chicago and Northwestern) for the last 15 years. I am currently a Manager of Operating Practices and am in charge of over 60 locomotive engineers. I am also the grade crossing safety manager for the Council Bluffs Service Unit which covers all of Iowa and the Eastern part of Nebraska. I am a volunteer presenter for Operation Lifesaver Inc and I am the Vice President of Iowa Operation Lifesaver. I am currently the President of the Union Pacific Employees Club #76 in Boone.
Brian T. Jennings
FOR MAYOR
My name is Brian Jennings, I have lived in the city of Ogden for exactly two years and have operated a small business for approximately six months. I have met many great people and have been lucky enough to experience the impressive amount of community involvement from the personal family level to local school events.
From the age of 5 to 18 I lived in a town with a population of 800 in Missouri. I then moved to the City of Ottumwa, Iowa to attend college. After Ottumwa, I lived in Des Moines for approximately 12 years. Over these years I have gained a vast amount of experience from real estate sales and management to Information Technology and being a father to three wonderful sons. Throughout all of these experiences and those I have left out, I have found one common tie that has existed in each of them. That common tie is customer service.
I hold a great deal of respect for the quality of life that exists in Ogden, as well as the vast array of businesses that exist here. I doubt that you would find many small towns in the state of Iowa (or the entire United States for that matter) that could boast a list of businesses that include a doctor's office, dentist office, physical therapy, hardware store, lumber yard, fuel, pharmacy, grocery store, attorney's office, etc.
Our focus now should be to welcome those from surrounding areas that support our local businesses and find ways to invite additional visitors.
If I am elected mayor, my goal will be to not only maintain the quality of living that exists in Ogden, but to find ways to better it, and to increase the involvement of everyone in our community with it's local government.
As far as goals, I would say that a focus on bettering the city of Ogden while remembering that the city is its inhabitants. Just as a business, I think that we should seek methods of maintaining a reasonable budget while serving the community.
I don't think that any candidate could say where cuts can be made until a complete study and analysis has been prepared. As with any budget, waste should be eliminated first, then a review of where sacrifices can be made.
Jason Moorman
FOR MAYOR
My decision to run for mayor came from no one announcing to run for mayor right away. I decided to run because we need a good mayor and I think I can make a difference, trying to get our young children and young families involved with the community and activities as they are our future for the town of Ogden.
I also believe that we need to run this town as a small town, not a small town wanting to be a big town. Trying to get grants and so forth to improve our sewer system is my number one goal as well as keeping this town cleaned up.
The way the economy is going we need to make smart choices. We need to meet with the heads of each department and see if cuts need to be made or see how we can be more efficient and find ways to keep our town growing. I believe I can make a difference for this great town of Ogden.
I graduated from Ogden High School 20 years ago. I am a Local 347 Electrician working for The Waldinger Corporation. I have been an electrician for 15 years. I am 38 years old and have been married to my wife Mindy for 12 years and have two children Kaden age 6 and Carsen age 3. I have lived in Ogden all my life.
Lyle D. Conklin
FOR CITY COUNCIL
I am seeking re-election to the Ogden city council because I want to see Ogden continue to grow and see the quality of life improve for our citizens. My vision of Ogden in the future would be a town that has put in place the infrastructure that will provide for the ability of new businesses, new housing developments and recreational opportunities.
Putting those first two items in action, I would first continue to work on improving our sewer systems, both sanitary and storm. By repairing old and building new systems we would be able to encourage businesses and develop areas for new housing.
Ogden is located in a good area and being on a four lane divided highway it gives easy access to several large towns in central Iowa. This in itself offers many opportunities to increase development here. I will work with the mayor and council to encourage business to come to Ogden. At the same time we want to make Ogden a place where people will want to call it home.
When people are looking for an area to live they now look at the quality of life issues. They look at what a town has to offer for the recreational sources, such as the parks and trails. We have improved our central park in the last several years and I would like to continue to see us work on several more projects there.
Several years ago OCDC created the Prairie Park at the west entrance to Ogden and donated it to the city. That in turn led to Ogden's first bike trail from the Prairie Park to the Community Center and then a loop past the cemetery back to the school. We are considering a park on the east side of Ogden that would be connected to our trail system. There has been a lot of interest in a bike trail from the east side of Ogden to the Batten Chapel Church area which if completed would be a great tie in to a east side park. We see a lot of activity on the system that we have now and with a larger trail system we will see even more.
Of course, all of these items would have to be done in a manner that would not have us see any large tax increases. We would look at obtaining more grants as we have done in the past, and proceed in a carefully planned program to achieve our goals.
As we see in the news every day towns are taking drastic means to reduce their budgets now and for the future. We started on that early last year, there were no raises given and each of the Ogden departments reduced their budgets this year. They have done a great job in accomplishing this. We must keep a watchful eye on future developments in the economy and continue to take action as needed.
I have been fortunate to live in Ogden my entire life and retired two years ago after 33 years in the utility business. My wife Linda and I have four children and five grandchildren.
Darren Huntley
FOR CITY COUNCIL
I feel being on the city council gives me more of voice on where the city is going.
Vision for Ogden: Ogden may not grow like the bigger towns, but I will do my best to not let it decline. We need to work with ALL the citizens of Ogden and help to maintain the businesses we do have.
Involvement: I am not sure how deep of involvement one person can really get, I just want to try to get and keep the people of Ogden proud of their community.
Budget cuts: I understand there are some serious money issues all around us. I am not sure that Ogden needs to make any cuts at this time. Our previous leaders have done a good job of keeping Ogden above water.
Family: Wife, Teresa of 26 years;
two daughters, Ashley Huntley Vaughn married to Jerry Vaughn and grandson Gage; Whitney Huntley.
Occupation: Iowa State University since 1992.
Brian C. Reimers
FOR CITY COUNCIL
I have been a very active member of the city council over the years and have always had a very strong interest in helping to make sure that our community stays strong and that we can fiscally continue to offer the services necessary for the operation of city government. I have been an active member of the OCDC economic development
group. I have continued to support the services we offer and worked hard to support our Fire Department, First Responders and Police Department.
Ogden will be like many other communities in Iowa that will be challenged to continue to offer the same or equal services that we have been used to but doing it with fewer
dollars available. We will also need to keep close tabs on the many expectation that bigger government continue to make all cities responsible. To date, Ogden has done very well in this area.
I have been supportive of grant applications that we have applied for and will continue to support upgrading our storm sewer and sanitary sewer projects.
I encourage the people of Ogden to get out and vote. I believe that my voting record speaks for itself.
I have lived in Ogden for 31 years and I am running for my fifth term on city council.
Father of two sons, Luke and Seth Reimers. Luke is employed by Wells Fargo and lives in Urbandale with his wife Kara. They are the parents of two children, Ella and Cael.
Seth lives in Riverside, CA with his wife Nancy They will soon be relocating to San Diego.
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©The Ogden Reporter 2009
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