Guffy meets the candidates
Republican commissioner candidates address uranium mining, other issues
By Flip Boettcher, CorrespondentOnly four people, the moderator and a couple of relatives and supporters of the candidates showed up for the Republican-sponsored Meet the Candidates meeting in Guffey on Aug. 2, probably due to a lack of communication.
There are three districts in Park County. District 1 and District 2 are northeast of Kenosha Pass. District 3 covers everything else, including all of South Park, Lake George, Guffey, Jefferson, Como, Hartsel, Alma, Fair- play, etc.
There is one commissioner from each district, but the whole county votes for each commissioner.
John Tighe is the incumbent commissioner in District 1 running against Doug Tamminga in the Aug. 12 Republican primary. There is no Democrat running for the seat, but independent candidate Lora Abcarian is running in the general election.
In District 2, Dick Hodges is running unopposed in the Republican primary, but facing Democrat Lynda James and American Constitution candidate Zdenko Novkovic in the general election.
In District 3, Lillian Wissel was appointed to fill the vacancy left by the death of Doe McKay this past spring. She is facing Alma Mayor Mark Dowaliby in the Republican primary.
There were five of the candidates present at the Guffey meeting: Tighe, Tamminga, Hodges, Wissel and Dowaliby. They had just come from Lake George and were headed to Hartsel after the Guffey meeting.
Each candidate gave a brief introduction and then questions were asked from the audience. Each candidate was given time to respond to each question.
The candidates are all concerned with the county land use regulations (LURs) and how to promote business within them, as well as roads, a balanced budget and staying within that budget.
For Guffey, though, some other concerns were voiced. Four main concerns were brought up: continued funding for the Guffey Library, cell phone/telephone service in and around Guffey, uranium mining in the area, and surrounding area and increased sales taxes.
Continued library funding
For the Guffey-area residents, the library is much more than a library; it’s a community center and very important. With limited or no phone service in the area, people go to the library to use the telephone. People also use the computer and Internet service the library provides. Senior citizens gather there, and there is a very active reading program with 15-20 children on Thursday afternoons. All this, and the library is only open on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons.
Wissel said she supports continued funding for the library, but she stressed that commissioners have to look at the budget and stay within that budget.
Tighe stressed that the libraries have to be maintained because they are important to each community and they are statutorily funded.. There may be some grant monies to fund libraries.
Dowaliby and Hodges said they would definitely support the library.
Tamminga said he didn’t know that the library was so important in Guffey, but that he would support it. He said that roads were first, though.
Uranium mining
Hodges said the main concern with uranium mining is water pollution. He said uranium mining doesn’t create jobs or improve the county and is not a benefit to the county. He also said that the uranium company has to prove there would be no water pollution.
Wissel said we need to stick with our county regulations 100 percent. Those regulations do not allow for mining in a residential district.
Dowaliby said he is against water pollution of any kind, and Tamminga said we need to protect our water sources.
Tighe said we need to support the health, safety and welfare of the community. Without water, we don’t have anything, he said.
It was brought up that we share water aquifers with Fremont County (whose planning board just approved uranium mining along Tallahassee Road). It was asked whether there was a way for Park County residents to protect themselves from encroaching aquifer pollution?
The candidates all agreed to look into seeing if Park County could protect itself from such encroachment.
Cell phone/wireline telephone service
Guffey-area residents used to have analog cell phone service, which worked well in the area. And for many residents landline phone service was too expensive and still is.
Analog service was switched to digital early this year, and signal strength diminished in some areas to the point that some older residents and others have decided to move away because of a lack of phone service, said Guffey area resident Amy Mason.
Finally a 911 emergency phone was put in by the Guffey-based Southern Park County Fire Protection District board of directors and the emergency services council.
Wissel said she had been looking for cell tower sites and talking to phone companies.
Dowaliby said he voted for the cell tower on Michigan Hill that would have covered the area from Alma to Kenosha Pass, but it was voted down. He said Alma has its own cell phone problems. Some, people want the cell towers and others don’t. He has voted every time to support the cell towers, he said.
It was mentioned that South Park Telephone offers a DSL Internet service (to those with line-of-sight to its tower, on Dick’s Peak) that one can get VOIP telephone service without the annoying voice delay most VOIPs have.
Tighe said he was worried about cutting phone service to the county. Money should go first to roads, he said, but we need to keep phone service.
Sales tax increase to support expenditures
Tamminga said he was not in favor of an increase. He said $600,000 was cut from public works and that the budget is misappropriated.
Wissel also said she was against tax raises.
Hodges said if nothing else can be done, then raise the
Dowaliby, who is very pro- business, said Alma was going to collect more in sales tax this year than in property tax.
Sales tax does not come from essentials; it comes from people going through an area and spending on extras, he said. He has eased up town regulations, and made the downtown area commercial to promote new businesses in Alma. He stressed that the voters have to vote for a sales tax increase.
Tighe also addressed his stance on a sales tax. In a follow-up interview in which he provided more details, he said that he supported the last sales tax proposal, which was on the November 2007 ballot and included a 2.5 percent increase in sales tax to pay for roads. He said he would still be for a sales tax to go to the Road and Bridge Department’s budget, partly because it’s “the least intrusive” funding mechanism to improve roads, with 85 percent of the tax paid by out-of-county residents.
He said he supports a balanced budget.
Then Guffey-area resident Sam Calanni raised concerns about the Guffey area being down to one county Road and Bridge employee and whether that employee could do all the winter plowing by himself.
How can people be helped?
In Guffey there is evidence of more and more businesses closing, more people having a hard time making ends meet and more and more “for sale” signs.
Tighe supports the National Heritage designation for Park County He said it will bring $10 million into the county. The county needs to stress what it has — hunting, fishing and mining, he said.
Dowaliby said Alma is promoting the l4ers in the Alma area. He said the county needs to use what it has to bring people and dollars into the area. It needs to help businesses so that they can succeed. The county can provide tax incentives to help promote business, he said
Hodges also stressed that the county has to find ways to bring people to the area.
He said tax incentives for businesses help, but the county needs grassroots work to address strengths and weaknesses to attract people.
Wissel said if the county wants to increase taxes, the voters have to approve it. The LURs are too much now to make businesses move here. She said the county needs to make it easier for them to move here, with more commercially designated areas.
It was mentioned that the strategic master plan was to be looked at in two years.
Tamminga said Park County needs to be made an end destination, not a drive- through, and it needs more marketing. The National Heritage designation will help, he said. The county is overregulated, and it’s hindering business, and regulations on businesses need to be eased, he said.
On that note, the meeting ended and the candidates headed off for Hartsel.— Tom Locke contributed to this article