Last Moscow candidates forum before Tuesday

Oct. 31--The four candidates for three seats on the Moscow City Council completed their final local political forum before Tuesday's election at a Friday afternoon event hosted by New Saint Andrews College.

Questions were developed by students of the religious liberal arts college. Incumbents Jim Boland and Dan Carscallen and challengers Kathryn Bonzo and John Freeland participated.

Many of the questions from NSA students focused on economic development and rules affecting businesses. All of the candidates said they want to help attract more students to the University of Idaho as a way to create a larger customer base for local businesses and to recruit more businesses to operate in Moscow.

Here is a summary of candidates' thoughts not already heavily publicized after other similar events:

* Carscallen, who is seeking a third term on the council, said he looks forward to the Joseph Street ballfields opening up next year and saw virtue in the city finding ways to work with other local entities to benefit residents.

When the City Council and school district board signed off on the agreement, "I did feel a little tingle," he said.

The failure of the city and Latah County several years ago to reach an agreement about constructing a joint law enforcement facility was "disappointing," he said, attributing the plan's demise to the recession.

When asked what kind of business he wanted to see come to Moscow, he replied, "Anything we can get as long as it fits" because "there's a whole gambit of people they need to get along with."

He cited as an example of such uniqueness the operation "Mototrax," where three people developed a system that turns dirt bikes into snowmobiling bikes.

* Bonzo was asked a question about decision making and she replied by describing a situation encountered while on the Troy City Council years ago. The city was choosing an insurance company, and another elected official had a friend who owned an insurance business and wanted that person to have the account.

"I spoke out against it," she said. "It caused a riff by my speaking up."

She said it was difficult decision but it was the only stance she could take because allowing such an agreement to be made would have been wrong.

When asked what she would want to see added to Moscow's downtown, she said she would like to see public restrooms constructed and add elements that would make it more park-like.

She said the council can provide "a municipal platform" that would include emphasizing the community's quality of life, such as interest in the arts, friendliness and rural setting, as well as Gritman Medical Center and the University of Idaho.

She talked about the growing need for thinking regionally and including the county areas as well Lewiston-Clarkston and surrounding communities.

n Boland said he wants to improve human-powered infrastructure and increase the number of safe pedestrian and bicycle routes.

He responded to a question about the role of the City Council in promoting growth by saying that implementing too few or too many regulations could be harmful.

He said passing restrictive zoning laws could make it difficult to find businesses that fall within guidelines. He said subsidizing businesses isn't a good idea either because a city could "get the wrong kind," he said.

The "middle ground" is to provide infrastructure so businesses can move in easily.

Another question posed was about competing with Pullman, which was able to lure Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories while Moscow seems to be more a place for small businesses.

Making changes to current zoning rules and beefing up infrastructure could make Moscow more attractive to larger companies, he said.

"We're not devoid of these things, we just need more," he said.

Boland was asked how he felt about gun control and whether this type of government regulation was important. Boland said ownership of firearms is similar to owning a car because it takes knowledge to use both properly, so firearms should be somehow regulated. He owns a mobile slaughterhouse and uses a firearm to kill the animals being prepared as food.

"I did it seven times before lunch," he said.

While firearms can also be "a lot of fun" for some, they shouldn't be in the hands of some people, he said.

Boland described events that transpired before Wal-Mart built a large location in Pullman instead of Moscow. Moscow, he said, played "a bad chess game."

Boland and Carscallen said the council's attitude has changed toward businesses and that more effort is being made to welcome new ones.

* Freeland emphasized his conservative viewpoint, activities in local and state GOP politics as well as his age to the college audience.

"We need somebody who represents our population," he said.

He'd like to see tuition decreased so more students can attend college, even open up the system more to youth in the eastern portions of Washington and Oregon, he said.

Because the University of Idaho is such a dominant fixture of the city, the council needs to put much thought into how emerging policies would affect it, he said.

He said he thinks city officials should do what Texas Gov. Rick Perry did when he visited businesses in other states and encouraged them to relocate in Texas.

When asked about local government regulating businesses, he said he'd have to think about it because it was "a complicated question."

Freeland also wants to make sure all of the city's K-12 students have enough to eat all year long, which could mean providing more of a summer lunch program.

Freeland talked about finding another location for the Latah County Fairgrounds. He said that would allow space for such things as local rodeos to provide entertainment in a highly agricultural county. With the space open by moving the fairgrounds, the ice rink could be enlarged and a joint city-county law enforcement complex with a jail could be constructed there.

Terri Harber can be reached at (208) 883-4631, or by email to [email protected].

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