Hello everyone.
Welcome to tonight's Live Wire chat with Idaho Falls City Council candidate Sharon Parry.
My name is Kortny Rolston and I'm the city editor at the Post Register. I will be tonight's moderator.
Basically, what that means is that I'll be making sure there aren't any personal attacks. We're expecting this to last an hour, but may go longer if we get enough questions.
Have fun.

You can start asking questions anytime. She's answering one right now.

For just over fourteen years I have served on various city committees and commissions, including Parks and Recreation Commission, Traffic Safety committee, and the Planning and Zoning Commission. Also nine of those years I served three terms on the school board in district #91. Within those positions I established a voting record.

What do you see is the biggest issue that needs to be addressed in regards to the Idaho Falls Police Department and its new Chief of Police? Another way of asking the question is, what do you think the Police should be doing different or better, if anything?

The first question Sharon answered didn't appear, but her answer did. The questions was "What separates you from your opponent?"
We've got the issue resolved now so the question she is answering should pop up.

The city council needs to support the mayor's choice for Steve Roos as police chief. Steve was an excellent choice-- we don't always have to go out of town to get an expert when hiring. Chief Roos mentioned the need to have the department not be as top heavy. We will need to look at his suggestions and means for accomplishing that.

Sharon,

what's your understanding of the situation behind Chief Livsey's resignation? do you think he was treated fairly? Was it time for him to go?

I attended both of the press conferences-- Kent Livsey's and Mayor Fuhriman's. I think we need to go with the information that each man gave at those conferences. I didn't see their comments conflicting. There management style differences. Kent was a marvelous police chief who brought timely innovations to the department. He did a great job over each of the 12 years he was in Idaho Falls. I do not know anything about the details of his contract not being renewed otherwise. Council members perhaps know more than I do, but often personnel issues need to be kept confidential.

Sharon, What role do you think the City Councilmembers have in securing higher education in Idaho Falls?

Council members need to be cheerleaders for higher education expansion. Higher education campuses bring a multitude of richness to communities including academic and cultural. Council members can advocate for expansion of higher education in Idaho Falls through building personal relationships with leaders of higher education, legislators, and proponents of higher education expansion. This obviously takes long-term efforts and time. A long-range plan to expand higher education within the Idaho Falls city leadership would help in this.

Can the City Council Members influence whether or not competive bidding for benefits, such as health insurance for city employees, begins? Has it been a practice in Idaho Falls to just renew the present contract, or have competitive bids been requested (if you know)? Overall, how do you see yourself entering that dialogue about renewal of benefits and opening the opportunities to other insurers?

Council members are builders and guardians of the city's budget. With healthcare benefits comprising such a large portion of total compensation packages, yes, council members should promote competitive bidding for benefits. I am not sure as to whether this has been in practice or not. Also, regarding healthcare benefits, the city can very likely reduce premium costs by introducing a viable and usable employee wellness program and through a program similar to an HSA.

If you are elected, with your background in P and Z, education etc., in which department/departments do you think you can have the greatest positive influence?

With safety as my top campaign platform, and since I have served on two committees under former Police Chief Livsey, I could contribute to the Police committee. My background with the school board will probably be most helpful working within the structure of the council itself. I have really enjoyed serving on the P & Z Commission. There really is something great about seeing a city built and expanded bit by bit. I would especially like to be on the council's P&Z committee.

If elected, how will you go about working with department heads who've been with the city for years? Since you wouldn't have as much experience as some of these officials, how do you make sure their houses are in order? Would you feel comfortable voting against a department head's budget request?

My overall general philosophy of government employees is based on high expectations for performance with little tolerance for inadequacy. I believe a sitting city councilmember who is a good listener can get a pretty good feel for how efficiently and effectively a division is being run. Financial audits never hurt either, of course. Voting against a department head's budget request? Yes, I would feel comfortable voting against unnecessary requests. I have reviewed last year's department requests compared to the list of granted requests. This was a good exercise and gave me a good bit of insight as to your issue.

Sharon, just reading your answer from 7:23. You wrote, " A long-range plan to expand higher education within the Idaho Falls city leadership would help in this." I'm confused. Are you saying the City Council should have a long range plan of how to increase higher education with affiliated universities and EITC? Or, are you saying something different?

In other words, when other states have failed to met the higher educational needs/demands, private universities are now stepping in to meet the needs. Our neighbors to the south, both in UT and NV have had this happen (and I don't mean BYU). I mean like the programs being started in Las Vegas that are being expanded into UT. If Idaho doesn't value education on the eastern side, I can see how one of these "super-organizations" of universities could easily build in Idaho Falls.

Will you just explain your comment further? I don't mean to confuse you. Thanks.

City Council and the mayor need to collaborate with current leaders in higher education (ISU, UofI, EITC) and any other interested institutions. Some issues that need to be explored within that plan would include: are Idaho's high school graduates returning to Idaho after higher education? Is higher ed now offering programs in response to business/industry needs to keep our economy stable if not vibrant? What other higher ed programs should be offered to diversify our economy? Yada Yada

What type of businesses or industry do you think Idaho Falls should be pursuing to provide jobs that both pay a high enough wage and provide opportunities for growth? In your opinion, should the City Council be involved? If so, how?

Sharon is answering as fast as she can so thank you for your patience. She's agreed to go past 8 p.m. so she can answer more questions.

High tech, science sector, and higher ed jobs come to mind. TSI came in several years ago, bringing a lot of call center job to IF and to the region. The mayor and a couple members of the city council could form a team that would not only explore new business opportunities that would be attracted to our area, but they could also be the liasons that would actually invite such business to look seriously at Idaho Falls. This would need to be done in coordination with Grow Idaho Falls, Downtown Development Corp, Chamber of Commerce, and so on.

I notice that only four people have bothered to involve themselves in this chatroom out of several 10's of thousands who could have taken advantage of this opportunity to read some of your views. I think that such a high level of apparent apathy is awful. What do you propose be done to get people more involved in the community, more involved in the election process and more involved in finding out all that they can about their elected leaders, including council members?

Short answer-- off-year election. Trust me, I've been pounding the pavement and working hard. I know other candidates are too. I actually met Mrs. Idaho today-- she was so excited to think of being involved in our community. She wants an assignment on some city committee or commission. When citizens ask how they can get involved, let's capitalize on that by getting them involved.

What main issues do you see yourself agreeing with the Mayor on? What main issues do you see yourself in opposition with the Mayor on?What issues do you believe the council should address/attack right away as being the most important or needing attention right now?

The mayor and I agree on many issues including the importance of city safety, efficient city services with the customer in mind, activities and recreation for youth, and lobbying efforts to promote our city economically and otherwise. I'm thinking that the council president should actually make committee appointments for council members instead of the mayor doing so. Front burner issues: new, cheap and sustainable power sources; a viable and practical design for a new law enforcement building; improving the Hitt/1st Street intersection with Ammon stepping forward to pay its share; and a long-term design of how to attract more tourist dollars (travelers on I-15 heading to the Parks who we want to stop/stay/play in IF before heading further north).

What do you believe to be the biggest issue the City Council needs to address and what would you do to start to address it?

Our power rates need to remain among the lowest in the country. Exploration of IPP3's viability and reality would be first on my agenda. If there is not an inked deal within say 12 months, we need to look elsewhere for new, sustainable and cheap power sources. when the BPA contract expires in 2012 we especially need to have such a power source in que.
Second, it would be great to draw more tourist dollars into our city-- such funds are new money to the city. I would love to explore missed opportunities to attract more tourist dollars.

In regards to your comments regarding working with the past Chief of Police and your efforts on the Planning and Zoning Commission, how do you propose finding the money to pay for the additional police officers that Idaho Falls needs to get on the street, along with the equipment that they need to do their jobs and to do their jobs as safely as possible for both themselves and the people they come in contact with? Property taxes by themselves probably won't make it happen. Where is the money going to come from and what are you going to do to get it in the hands of the City Council?

Kent Livsey was fairly comfortable with the number of staff funded in his department. As the city continues to grow, however, more staff will need to be hired. While growth does pay for itself when it comes to infrastructure, it also appears that it does, in part, pay for other services also. Division heads have most of their budgetary requests met while the levy rate has seen small decreases. It's a tight balancing act.

It has been said that some City Council members have to recuse themselves in voting on certain annexations or developments. Would that be the case for you?

Thanks, Kortny. Didn't mean to ask so many questions. It is nice to have someone bright on the other end answering!

If elected to city council, I suppose I might need to recuse myself from P&Z issues that I participated in at the commission level-- haven't thought of those applications overlapping for maybe a few months. Second, if P&Z issue involves land proximal to our real property of home or business, then I would need to recuse myself. Third, my husband who is an attorney does not discuss his work with me, and I have never discussed my work with him; so we wouldn't know of any conflicts of interest with P&Z issues because of our separate work. Hope that answers that question thoroughly.

Not a problem. We created Live Wire so people could ask those in the news their own questions.

Cityrez, Would that be perhaps Craig L. - a department head who appears to some to have too much power?

I'm just posting some of the comments that weren't direct questions to Sharon.

I wasn't referring to craig in particular. My question is how you would generally deal with all the department heads?

Thanks, Kortny. What can I say - I see important issues that need to be discussed by someone. I can't say that I see all of those currently in the City Council this open to dialogue.

Thank you for your time and your responses to our questions. I appreciate it.

Thanks again Sharon for being such a good sport and answering all these questions. A positive attitude can carry a long way. You mention meeting Mrs. Idaho. Collaborations can make many things possible that wouldn't be otherwise.

If elected and you had another City Council Member, who appears to be oppositional to many ideas, how would you work with him or anyone else with a similar disposition?

Thank you so much for your time and answer. I wish you the best of luck and encourage you to keep reminding people of your record starting with District #91 etc.

TSOWEST

P.S. Is Idaho Falls getting a Costco soon? :)

Sharon, Thank you for all of your answers. I wish some others would ask their questions too. I appreciate you taking the time to do this and make your views known.

Oh, your 8:09 answer prompted another question. What about a convention center. Is there a way for the City Council to work say with private businesses and others to develop a convention center that also provides venues for more entertainment locally?

Sharon is taking one more question that is already in the queue and then we'll be wrapping up for tonight. We'll be posting the transcript of this chat online for people to see.
On another note, Sharon's opponent, Dennis Patterson, is participating in Live Wire tomorrow night. Larry Lyon is scheduled for Monday night and Tom Hally has agreed to do it Tuesday night.

The Idaho Falls area is long overdue for a larger convention center. Our region has to pass up so many conferences and conventions because we do not have a large enough venue, facilities and amenities (e.g. a four-day Idaho School Board convention with 900 attendees could be here every three years if we had a facility to accomodate it). I'm also still a little burned by the efforts of out-of-towners that sunk the event center vote of several years ago. When people travel they generally expect to pay an extra lodging tax to fund other cities' event centers. The whole issue for Idaho Falls needs to be revisited, including collaboration with private business.

Is this useful to you (and the PR), Kortny? To see what our real concerns are, varied as they may be. Or, do you think the PR has a good sense of the things mostly asked?

Thanks to you, Aaron (who checked in briefly), others who asked questions and mostly to Sharon. It would be interesting to see how Mr. Patterson answered the same questions asked tonight of Ms. Parry.


TSOWEST

Thank you for participating folks. Other issues, comments or questions? Contact me at either sdparry@cableone.net or 709-2904.

TSOWEST,

It actually is helpful because that way we can see what issues people care about and want to know about. It keeps us in touch with what our readers think is important.

Sharon is done answering questions so we're going to end this chat.
Again, thanks to all of you for taking the time to participate. If you have any suggestions on how to improve this, email me at krolston@postregister.com.