By VERNON ROBISON
The Progress
More than 80 people attended a candidate Meet and Greet event held on Wednesday evening, Oct. 12 in Scotty’s Bar and Grill at Falcon Ridge Golf Club. The event featured Mesquite City Council candidates Karen Fielding, Joey Bowler and Paul Wanlass; as well as District Court Judge Dept. 17 candidate Jennifer Schwartz.
Attendees were able to socialize with the candidates informally as well as enjoy light hors d’oeuvres and other refreshments provided by the restaurant. Then each candidate had a few moments to introduce themselves to the crowd and speak about issues important to them.
In her introduction, Schwartz said she had been born and raised in Nevada. But her family had been Holocaust survivors who had emigrated to the U.S. after World War II.
“My family taught me about hard work, compassion, integrity and honor,” Schwartz said.
Schwartz, who had travelled from Las Vegas to attend, expressed how pleased she was to come and meet people of Mesquite.
“How many of you look at all the judge candidates on the ballot and just have no idea who any of them are?” Schwartz asked. “Well now you know one of them and you know who you are voting for.”
Wanlass, who is running for Council Seat #4 against incumbent Karen Dutkowski, spoke next talking about an urgent shortage of workforce housing in the community.
Wanlass pointed out that there was no place in Mesquite that an average family starting out could afford.
“We need to have someplace for our workforce to live,” Wanlass said. “Even us retirees need that because we are going to need the people in that workforce to help us as we get older. This has become a key issue in our city.”
Bowler, who is running against Pattie Gallo for Council Seat #3, also emphasized the development of affordable housing as a key priority.
“Last year there was an 800 unit apartment complex that came to the council for approval,” said Bowler. “That would have gone a long way towards solving some of our workforce housing problems here. But it was denied.”
Bowler emphasized that there is no reason to look down on apartment projects of this kind. “Most of us when we were young started out in apartments like that,” Bowler said. “That is the kind of housing that our young people and families need in order to come back to the community.”
Fielding, who is running for the Council Seat #1 against incumbent Sandra Ramaker, listed a few of the top priorities she would keep while in office.
The first was to provide more housing priced for the workforce.
The second was to keep the police and fire departments fully staff in order to ensure public safety in the community.
The third was to be fiscally conservative.
“I will not raise your property taxes,” Fielding pledged. “If something comes before the council to increase taxes I will absolutely vote against it.”
In a brief question/answer period with those in the audience, local resident Steve Reynolds asked Schwartz about her position on the ‘Catch and Release’ policies enacted in many major cities across the country.
Schwartz responded that ‘Catch and Release’ is not a Nevada program and that it likely never would be.
But Schwartz did state that she would like to see some reforms on the current cash bail requirements in the state. She said that in many cases, the cash bail requirement kept the poor in custody while rich offenders go free.
Schwartz suggested that there be some flexibility to allow other restrictions besides cash bail for the release of non-violent offenders.
Another resident asked the City Council candidates about what he perceived as an explosion in housing starts in the community over the past 18 months. “You all talk about controlled growth, but it doesn’t seem like that is what we are getting,” he said. “We don’t have the infrastructure to serve the influx that all of this will bring. I think there should be restraints on new housing starts until we can grow responsibly.”
Fielding, a realtor, responded that there had not actually been a real explosion in new housing starts in Mesquite.
“Most of the housing that is building now was approved many years ago and is only now being built out,” Fielding said. “We haven’t had any big projects be proposed for a while now. If anything, the real estate market is slowing down and we are seeing it cool off.”
But Fielding added that she is a pro-growth candidate. She agreed that it must be “feasible growth,” however.
Another attendee asked the candidates about the water resources in the community and whether there was enough to continue to grow as being proposed.
Wanlass fielded the question explaining that he had spent his 30 year career working for a large water district in northern Utah.
Wanlass said that he had initated some meetings with Virgin Valley Water District General Manager Kevin Brown to talk about the district’s future plans and strategy. He had come out of these meetings confident about the VVWD plans for the future.
“I looked through all of their documents, their plans and their studies, and I fully understood them,” Wanlass said. “I can tell you that everything they are doing is in the right direction. They are on top of it. They know what they have to do and they are doing a great job. There is no reason to worry about our water resources at this point.”
