Council candidates offer pre-election viewpoints in Q&A

CHOOSING LEADERS

By Bob Miller ~ Southeast Missourian

Cape Girardeau city government could be headed by a majority of newcomers pending the outcome of Tuesday's elections.

Marcia Ritter and Walter Wildman are running for Ward 6. One of them will replace Butch Eggimann who, along with Ward 2 councilman Tom Neumeyer, have both reached their term limits.

Neumeyer will give up his seat to Charlie Herbst, who is running unopposed in Ward 2. And Evelyn Boardman is challenging incumbent Frank Stoffregen for the Ward 1 seat.

In addition, former councilman Melvin Gateley and banker Jay Knudtson will face off for the mayor's seat, being vacated by the term-limited Al Spradling III.

The polls will open at 6 a.m. and close at 7 p.m. Tuesday.

Each of the five council candidates were interviewed separately by the Southeast Missourian and asked the same four questions:What important differences do you feel voters should be aware of between you and your opponent and why will those qualities make a difference if you're elected? (Herbst, running unopposed, was asked what qualities he had would make a difference.)

Boardman: I think my opponent probably has the same objectives I do for the city. I haven't talked to him. But I think I can bring an objective and positive perspective to the council. I've worked with city hall over the years very closely and have always had a good working relationship with it. The city has been good to me, and I'm basically looking at city government as an avenue of community service. I have the time, I have the energy and I have the interest. I'm a good team player and willing to be attentive and do my homework and help make the choices that work best in the community and all the citizens, not just Ward 1.

Herbst: My qualities are my past experience and the ability to get things done. In my experience of working in the neighborhood as community service officer for six years, I handled a lot of conflict of quality of life issues, law enforcement issues. I had a pretty good track record in those six years of getting things done. So I think people, as far as name recognition with me, they know that when I'm elected to city council, even though I don't have an opponent, they can trust me to get things done for them.

Ritter: I believe my negotiation skills are very important to the city. I believe my fiscal responsibilities of large non-profit organizations will make a big difference. I believe I'll be able to transfer that to the city government. I have the experience of working with the development of a staff. I've been involved with physical plant development and the expansion at the St. Francis Medical Center. The city council isn't involved in running the day-to-day operations of the city, but I've been involved in looking doing those designs and how you finance them and also the implementation. I have a commitment to the community that has no ties to an agenda.

Stoffregen: One of the main differences between me and my opponent is that I'm a lot more conservative and more oriented toward bringing businesses in the community. I believe our city has our priorities a bit mixed up. We need to get our essentials out of the way: police and fire protection and our city employees haven't had a salary increase in the last several years. We need to get our priorities in order and what's important for the city and what's important for the growth. I voted against a lot of spending that they've wanted to spend last year, but they've kind of gotten their way anyway and spent the money. But I think there's a lot of things that we've spent money on that could be better used.

Wildman: The differences between my opponent and myself are, to my knowledge, limited because I don't know her characteristics that much. I do know that I have direct executive management experience for about 30 years. That gives me the experience of being in the seat where the buck stops. When decisions have to be made, that experience is important. The important difference between the two experience levels is, in my mind, that I have worked directly with government because of what I did. I've worked with government on all levels: city, state, county and federal. It gives me an insight on how government works. That, combined with the executive administrative experience, puts me a cut above.The city is having trouble meeting its budget and has formed a committee to look into possible tax increases. Would you push for putting a tax increase to a vote? If so, what kind?

Boardman: Well, I certainly don't have the experience that city hall has right now, but I do know we'll have to look at funding for some of the basic services pretty shortly -- fire protection, police protection, water and sanitation. I'd have to have some reference from them. I'd like to work on this and look at some of these issues. It may be a sales tax increase or whatever, but I'd like to be part of the council that explores that. It is going to have to be addressed shortly.

Herbst: My first order of business is a retreat we've got scheduled for April 26. My first response would be to look at the proposed budget for next year. That's part of our job as city councilmen, to review the budget and offer our suggestions and maybe our business expertise in some areas to cut back on.

There are certain services we have to offer. However, there may be some areas where we can cut back a little bit the next two or three years to cut back on the amount of spending so that it matches the amount of revenue. We can't keep overspending every year. It's very possible we're going to have to raise the general sales tax. We've got the transportation tax. There's a portion of the tax that we pay that is for the health tax. There's a cigarette tax and some other taxes I'm probably not aware of. But it's been quite a while since we've had a general tax increase for general revenue and that would probably be the first thing I would look at.

We might have to raise fees, too, but I would hope that sales tax would generate enough revenue that we wouldn't have to raise, say, sanitation fees.

Ritter: I think to begin with, it should be the responsibility of the council to look at the fiscal management of our areas and departments and make sure they're functioning as efficiently as possible before you look at tax increases. After that's been done, then I think one has to start looking at the various options. I think you can look at usage taxes, but I'm not sure they bring in the type of revenue that we would need. I also think you need to look to see if you can do some shifting. Identify the core services that the city needs and assure that they have the support they need.

Stoffregen: No, absolutely not. The city has had a lot of growth, a phenomenal amount of growth and an increase of businesses coming into town and our tax base has grown every year. I think it's more of getting our priorities back in order and spending money where it needs to be spent and not wasting it on things that don't matter. One of the things that comes to mind is that we can find money on a study. They wanted to do a $14,000 study to see if Cape Girardeau airport was blast proof if somebody set a bomb off and how we could make it more blast proof. Well, that's just totally ridiculous. Literally, a terrorist would have to wait all day long to find 10 people together to blow the thing up. The mentality on spending money on studies and stuff has driven me crazy over the last year. We spent $42,000 on a study on our police department and I think that was a waste of money also.

The fire department doesn't have the equipment it needs, the police department needs more equipment. Our fire station on the northeast side of town has curtains that blow when the wind is blowing in the winter time, it's that dilapidated. The fire trucks hardly fit into it. But we can find money for everything else when we can't find money for the essentials and basic needs?

Wildman: The first question is a good one and it's appropriate for this community. I think any tax question, obviously, should go to a ballot. Prior to that, the homework has to be done by the staff, which is being done, as far as department heads evaluating the priorities, their goals and their needs. I think the city has to ask itself what it's there for, has to ask what its purpose is. And my opinion is that it's to provide, first of all, the foremost basic services -- police service, fire service, streets, sanitary, sewers and water. And those are priorities that have to be met first and, in my opinion, have to be done in a top-notch matter. Everything else then becomes a nice, but not mandatory, thing. I really want to be careful not to make the priorities up, but I think those kind of priorities should be assessed. Maybe we ought to back up and have zero-based budgeting where everything is on the table except for the basics. Whatever we're spending on as a city should be challenged and justified. And if, then, there needs to be an increase in taxes, make sure it clearly is laid out to the people that if you want these services.

What would be your top priority on the council?

Boardman: My top priority would be just to try to ingrain into working with the staff and the rest of the city council and ingrain myself into the team. And then I guess meeting with the citizens and listening to them. I'm already hearing a lot of issues that people have and want to discuss. It will be fun, an interesting journey.

Herbst: Well, the first thing is what we just discussed -- the budget. I know that there are city departments, primarily public safety, that have been very outspoken in the last two or three years in terms of needing some of what they deem basic life-saving or crime-fighting equipment that they need to do their job. I think that's very important. Two things we have to look at first is public safety and sanitation, and water and sewer are the most important services we have to offer the city for basic quality-of-life issues.

Stoffregen: There's probably not a top priority other than giving our city employees a raise. I think that would be high up on my list. And to get the fire and police department the equipment they need to do their job. For instance, I think the police department's cars need cameras so they can record their stops. I think the fire department needs updated equipment.

Ritter: One of the things that has really come to light as I've been campaigning is I think there needs to be better communication between the community and the city council. We need to look at new avenues of how to do that. It's obvious that when we have less than 10 percent of the people that come out and elect the city leaders that we need to come up with different avenues. It's available today for people to come to the city council meetings, but one of the things we need to do is be ambassadors to the community and hearing what the citizens' concerns are. That's one of the things I've learned in my other administrative positions. You have to be out there with the people. They won't come to you in your office.

Wildman: I think my biggest priority would be to help the city maintain its position as a regional hub and a regional leader and maintain that leadership role.

What do you feel is the most important issue facing Cape Girardeau?

Boardman: I think it's the funding of those basic city services -- the fire, police, water and sanitation. I think our fire department is basically stuck in the '70s. I think they answered about 2,700 phone calls last year as opposed to 519 in 1979. And they have one less fire truck this year than they did in 1979 and about the same number of personnel. They deserve better than that. They need our support and we need to take care of their needs.

Herbst: I think growth. We're locked going out toward the interstate out that way, but I think we can grow along the corridor going north along the Interstate where the university is looking at building a technology park so that's a possibility of annexation. I think we need to look at where Cape wants to be in 10 years. The city is growing west. We've already annexed out to Notre Dame High School. If those areas are going to grow, are we going to annex those subdivisions out there? That would bring in more revenue for us and more households, but can we support that infrastructure-wise with our sewer and our water without taxing the system we have now? The River Campus is a big issue in my ward, and I hear both ways from citizens who are supporting it and who aren't supporting it. I think if we as a council decide to proceed with this, then we've got to win back the trust of the citizens involved and show them what they're going to get for their money.

Stoffregen: Financing, of course, is an important issue. But the biggest issue to me is getting our priorities straight. One of the things that has really bothered me is the River Campus. They told the voters they were going to do one thing and kind of changed their mind and did it differently. One of the things I accomplished more than anything else last year was keeping the cameras off the red lights, where they automatically issue tickets to anyone who ran a red light. A lot of places that had done that have found out that they've had problems and that the cameras cause a lot of the problems I said they would and took them out. It's not so much an accomplishment of any one thing I'm trying to get into the city as much as trying get priorities straight.

Ritter: I think we have to be thinking how we bring business to Cape and economic development. We have structures that work on that, but as a council I think it's an issue we have to work on and make a priority. And I did a ride around with the police and after talking to them and some of the firefighters in the community, and we have a bunch of loyal staff that has stayed with us. And you have to take care of the staff. We have to make sure they're properly educated, motivated and have the proper equipment. And more and more, I think the health and safety of our citizens and the staff has become more paramount.

Wildman: I think Cape Girardeau has had the history of tremendous public spirit and pride, and that's one of the reasons we're where are right now as a regional hub. I think the biggest challenge of our future is to stay up with and lead this region in all areas of economic development and technology. We're known as the center for education, retail and medical services. I think the city's responsibility is to establish the proper infrastructure to make that accessible to the region. The new bridge coming in will be a tremendous thing, but it will create challenges. The federal building will come in and create challenges. All those challenges should be met with an overall plan, an organized plan, to provide the basic infrastructure -- streets, power, water, sewers, drainage, the whole bit. That's the responsibility of the city's leadership to make that infrastructure available to growth.

bmiller@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 127