The Council Candidates Answer a Few Questions

City Council Notes - 9/26/06

By Rudizink

As reported last night in our brief interim report in this space, the city council selected Susan Van Hoosen to fill Bill Glasmann's vacated At-Large Council Seat "A."

Unlike the process occurring one week ago, wherein the 39 prospective council applicants were afforded only four minutes each to tout their qualifications, the council allowed each of the final five apparently unlimited time to ramble on. No evidence of any time constraints were evident, at least not to this observer.

And finding themselves unrestrained by alarm clocks or other apparent time-management contrivances, several of the candidates seized the opportunity to ramble on seemingly endlessly. Jeremy Taylor, for instance, went on for nearly 30 minutes. Not that we're complaining, mind you. Jeremy Taylor is actually a very entertaining and likeable fellow. His serial anecdotes and slogans were a true joy to the ear of this oh-so-ever-humble blogger.

And none of the final five will ever be able to complain that any of them were deprived of the necessary time to put their best foot forward.

The 2-hour open session process (followed by some 30 minutes of closed-session deliberations) was structured around a list of five questions, which were pre-submitted to each of the council candidates. After addressing the initial questions, individual council members asked specific questions of their own.

The candidates addressed the council in the following sequence:

John Thompson, Susan Van Hoosen, Theresa Grijalva, Jeremy Taylor, Brad Florence.

We provide here the "quick & dirty" version:

1) Describe your communications style

For the most part this discussion centered around the noble concept of listening and asking questions. For instance, Theresa Grijalva emphasized her active and inquisitive nature, good listening skills, and open, receptive attitude. Admiral Taylor also stuck to the same basic theme, emphasizing in delicious military style that he does not remain in "transmit only mode." Susan Van Hoosen was very succinct, offering that her style boils down to asking questions and doing the necessary homework to understand issues.

2) Describe your experience in evaluating complex issues - provide an example.

A broad question like this (calling for specific examples) invited lengthy responses, and several council applicants did not disappoint. Admiral Taylor, for example, discussed in detail the process by which he was called upon to implement a new security plan for the entire U.S. Navy (the U.S. Marine Corps included.) Information like this cannot be delivered in a few short sound-bytes, nor was it. Ms. Grijalva was equally detailed in describing at length and in wonderful detail a waste-disposal project that she had researched for our neighbor to the North, the City of Logan, including methodological details that left much of the council audience (not us) yawning and looking at their watches.

Ms. Van Hoosen, on the other hand, was again succinct and to the point, hammering again her propensity to listen and understand issues, using short anecdotes from her teaching career to highlight her solutions to complex problems.

3) Describe how you stay organized and maintain a balance with many competing responsibilities

For the most part, each of the candidates devoted their responses to intricate explanations of an array of day-timers, day-planners, calendars, Palm Pilots and other devices which they have employed during their careers. Once again, Mrs. Van Hooser was particularly concise. "Prioritization is key," she said.

4) Explain your understanding of the Mayor-Council form of government - how it is set up, how it works, what the council's role is.

Each of the candidates exhibited a fair lay understanding of the respective roles of the city's executive and legislative branches, we think. Each demonstrated knowledge of the principle of offsetting checks and balances.

5) What do you want us to know about you that you haven't already shared.

This question afforded the opportunity for each of the candidates to encapsulate their most favorable traits, and most of them took the opportunity to do just that. Most impressive to this writer was Theresa Grijalva, who emphasized here own highly-favorable professional evaluations, and her co-operative and caring nature. We were also quite impressed with Admiral Taylor, who emphasized his ability to assemble and rely upon expert advice. Mr. Florence neatly distilled-down his own favorite character traits: hard work, loyalty, family values and passion. Once again, Mrs. Van Hoosen stayed on message with emphasis on listening and understanding issues.

6) Specific Questions from council members.

In many ways this segment was the most interesting part of the whole transaction, and provided significant insight into a few council-members' own mindsets.

Notably, Brandon Stephenson was dogged in his questioning, asking what we thought to be a loaded question:

1) Which value is most important to you? 1) economic development, 2) community stability , or 3) quality of life? (as if one value might be more important than any of the others.)

John Thompson seemed a little perplexed by false choices inherent in the question, but eventually offered his preference for quality of life. Mrs. Van Hoosen quickly took the wind out of Mr. Stephenson's sails however, forthrightly stating that each value was equally important and interdependent -- and that these ideals could not be put in neat rank order. The rest of the candidates took Mrs. Van Hoosen's cue, and responded similarly.

Councilmen Stephenson also spent time trying to ferret out any anti-gondola bias, repeatedly posing the preposterous (in our view) hypothetical question:

2) Hypothetically, how would you make a crucial decision on a project that would divide our community down the middle?

Each of the candidates handled this question gingerly, initially feigning no understanding whatsoever of what Mr. Stephenson might have been hinting at. Ultimately though, those who further delved into the question seemed to lean toward balancing of interests or consensus-building solutions.

Mr. Safsten seemed to be completely hung-up on improving the tax base with this question, posed to most of the candidates:

3) How would you expand the city's tax base?

With 2006 real property tax bills recently in hand, each of the candidates responded appropriately, and with remarkable political savvy. "Increase retail sales," they responded, to the last man and woman. "Increasing the property tax is the wrong approach."

Mr. Florence also offered that he only patronizes Emerald City businesses, if possible, and suggested that a similar ethic ought to be made official Ogden City promotional policy.

Mr. Safsten also introduced new terminology to the discussion with the following question, directed to most of the candidates:

4) What do you think about "middle class blight?"

Your humble reporter confesses he was himself "stumped" by this question, as were some of the council candidates, evidently, judging from body-language clues. Middle-class blight? Is that similar to "country club poverty," we asked ourselves silently. Many of the townsfolk were also scratching their heads re Mr. Safsten's intriguing query.

Mrs. Van Hoosen knew exactly what to do with this question, however, and responded with a theme that rang out throughout the rest of the night. The concept of middle class blight is largely a "perception problem" she said, perpetuated by people who do not live in Emerald City. Local folks love their city, she offered, despite critics who reside elsewhere. She added that she had lived in various other towns around the country, such as Washington D.C. and New Orleans. They're nice places to visit, she said (paraphrasing,) but when it comes to calling Emerald City "Home," "how could any place be any better?"

The latter comment definitely put your WCF reporter onto the Van Hoosen bandwagon, even though she had originally been our second choice, slightly behind the very cerebral Ms. Grijalva.

We've composed this article on the fly, and will augment it from time to time today, as our calendar (and presently-malfunctioning blogger.com software) permits. For now though, we're going to fire up the old lawn mower, and eliminate a little middle-class blight of our own.

Feel free to offer comments or questions. Your humble reporter will be happy to address on the main page any questions that we may have inadvertantly left dangling.