By SUSAN BERG

Managing editor

The resounding theme at a candidate forum for Marion City Council and mayoral candidates Sunday afternoon at Marion Senior Center was the call for city council to become more cohesive and have less bickering at meetings.

Noticeably absent was current Mayor Mary Olson, who is seeking re-election.

Moderator Greg Bowers read a statement from Olson before the forum began indicating that “due to events that occurred at the Marion City Council special meeting on Friday, March 12 at 10 a.m., I have been advised not to participate in the candidate forum.”

Candidates participating in the forum were current councilman and mayoral candidate Steven Smith and council candidates Jerry Kline, Chris Meierhoff, and Dick Varenhorst.

There will be two open council seats to be filled in the April 6 election as well as the mayor’s position.

Each candidate was given two minutes for opening and closing statements and two minutes to answer each question.

The candidates were seated in alphabetical order with each candidate taking a turn at being first to answer questions.

Following are their responses.

Opening statements

Kline said he was not a politician and had lived in the area most of his life.

“Most of us are just average people doing the best we can,” he said.

He is running for a council position because he is taking his turn, doing city business.

“I grew up here,” Meierhoff said. “This community has a lot to offer everybody. We all have to work hard to make this happen.”

He wants to see people work together and in the right direction.

Smith said he is running for mayor because there need to be more than one person running for the office.

“I’m pleased to see candidates that offer youth, maturity, and direction,” he said. “We don’t have a good, unified council at this time” but Smith is hopeful, with the election of new people, more agreement might be reached.

Varenhorst said he is running for city council because he also wants to see competition.

“The council needs to be proactive instead of reactive,” he said. “The council will put things off for weeks and weeks when they need to be taken care of right away.”

Questions from constituents

What is the role of mayor and city council member?

“The mayor should be a good leader, first and foremost,” Meierhoff said. “It starts with how meetings are run which need to be run in an organized manner. The mayor is a vote just like any other council member but is out front for the city. The mayor needs to be professional in how she or he acts and a little more aggressive to get things going.”

Smith said a mayor needs to be a good representative of the community and a good moderator.

“A mayor will never run the city,” he said. “We have a five-person council who should make decisions for the city. The mayor should be like a prime minister except he or she votes.”

“The mayor is like the point man for the council,” Varenhorst said. “If the city is celebrating an event, that’s the mayor’s job. The mayor’s job is to represent the city. The council is there to advise the final decision. This is a problem I’ve seen for some time. There is too much diversity on the council and we need unity.”

Kline said the mayor has one vote and is “in front of us and takes a lot of heat.”

Do you believe every problem should come before the city council?

“Living in a small community, there are things that come up that need to be addressed but could be addressed in the administrative function,” Smith said. “There are fine lines. That’s where the mayor has to step in and make those decisions.”

He continued that with a public forum available at council meetings, issues could be brought before the council and addressed at that time.

Varenhorst said there needs to be a chain of command.

“If problems are not rectified then they need to go before the council,” he said. “We can’t handle everything for everybody. That’s why we have employees in place to take care of those problems.”

“Issues do need to be brought up,” Kline said. “We’re supposed to answer most things people want. I think it needs to be done.”

Meierhoff believes the resolution of issues should start with the administrator.

“If you don’t get satisfaction, then go to the council,” he said. “People need to attend council meetings to become informed. There are some things that don’t need to come before the council.”

What is the role of the city administrator?

The administrator is hired to oversee department heads and the running of the city, Varenhorst said.

“He has to implement city policy approved by the council,” he said. “He does that at the request of the council and has to answer for what he does. He’s responsible for the daily running of the city.”

As far as Kline is concerned, the most important role of the administrator is overseeing the city’s budget.

“Some cities have overspent,” Kline said. “His job is running day-to-day activities and putting out a lot of fire.”

“Budget is first and foremost,” Meierhoff said. “Everything should go through him. If a citizen has a complaint, it should go through him. He should give the council facts from research so the council can make decisions. I think David Mayfield has helped the council a lot.”

Overseeing department heads and following policies are the primary functions of an administrator, Smith said.

“He has a big responsibility to the city,” he said. “He is evaluated every year like every other employee. It’s not an easy job and takes a lot of criticism. We are training people to take the position later on. We know we’ll have to make adjustments in the future.”

Are you pleased with the accomplishments of the city council, and, if not, what should be done differently?

“I don’t have an agenda,” Kline said. I can’t say that I’ve been happy but not really unhappy because I haven’t been a part of the decisions. I would like to see the council get along better. That’s a tough thing when you’ve got different people.”

Meierhoff said he was pleased with what has been accomplished.

“There weren’t people running (for the open council positions) so that’s why we’re here,” he said. “You can’t complain too much if you’re not part of the solution. We elected them to make these decisions. I think they’ve done fine. As far as how things can change, it’s nice when people can work together. You’re not always going to agree.”

As a member of the council, Smith said he has seen progress but it has been slow.

“I expect it to be slow because government is always slow,” he said. “We have to make improvements now to change our future. Planning and zoning has come up with a great plan to move forward.”

Smith continued that younger people need to be involved and said the purchase and installation of new playground equipment in Central Park was a prime example of working together.

“I’m pretty much pleased with the council,” Varenhorst said. “Infighting and bickering does not help the council at all. (At one of the meetings) the chief of police was asking for an administrative assistant and somehow the council got on the subject of dogs running at-large. It wasn’t on the agenda and shouldn’t have been discussed.”

He continued that Marion is not a “user friendly” community for startup businesses and that needs to change.

Quick answer, does the current council take too much time, the right amount of time, or too little time to make a decision?

Meierhoff: “Too long.”

Smith: “It depends on the situation.”

Varenhorst: “The majority of time, too long.”

Kline: “Depends on what we’re talking about. Some things have to take time. Big decisions take longer. I don’t know. Sometimes it’s too long and sometimes it’s too short.”

When should a city council rescind a decision?

“People come to the council and present one problem,” Smith said. “Sometimes we make a decision based on who is there. An example was the sidewalks (as part of the Safe Routes to School project) on South Cedar Street. We made the decision not to do those two blocks because we needed to use the money somewhere else. We had information (in our packets) before the meeting and made the decision, not necessarily because people were there who didn’t want the sidewalks.”

He continued that the council needed to be open to the public. At times, there are pressing matters and decisions have to be made right way. Otherwise, the council needs to step back and make decisions, he said.

“No one is perfect,” Varenhorst said. “You can have someone make a sound decision based on facts right then and be a wrong decision because not all of the facts were in. We need to be able to rescind and amend decisions. If an injustice has been done we need to correct it.”

Kline agreed there were times when government needs to rescind decisions.

Meierhoff wants time to make those decisions, particularly complaints that come from the public forum part of council meetings.

“I would want two weeks to make a decision,” he said. “The council had a plan (for the Safe Routes to School) with ratings of importance and money to do this. If money runs out, the city won’t be able to do the work. We spent two meetings (discussing the issues) because we made a decision and then rescinded it. You had a plan and there was no reason to rescind. Use some common sense and then you won’t have to rescind decisions.”

Something occurs and you know what probably ought to be done but it’s not allowed by current city or state ordinances. What do you do?

“Find out if it is a city statute and whether it could be modified,” Varenhorst said. “I’m not going to make the decision myself. It needs to be a council decision. I can only present my opinion but it’s up to council to decide.”

Kline said he would make sure the council was within the law.

“If there was leeway, get it back on the table to straighten it out,” he said. “There’s a proper way of doing it.”

“I’d make sure everything was legal before doing anything,” Meierhoff said. “You have to be legal about it. If there’s a wrong that needs to be righted, then we need to make an informed decision and do the right thing.”

Any action has to go before the council, Smith said. He would be willing to call a special meeting to determine a decision.

“We would need to bring in the administrator and attorney and make sure we follow those guidelines,” he said.

What’s the worst thing the council has done the past two years?

“Not worked together,” Meierhoff said.

Smith said the worst thing is the council making the paper every two weeks. He was concerned about how constituents perceive what happens at meetings.

“The council has made some good, sound decisions,” he said. “We’re going to have to make some adjustments and budget decisions. It’s a good time to have new leadership involved.”

“Contention among council members has been the worst thing,” Varenhorst said. “It holds us back as a council and as a city. It’s not constructive. There will always be disagreements, but if you can get a consensus of what is good for the city and people of Marion, then you don’t need all of this bickering. Discussions? Sure, but you don’t need shouting matches.”

The state has all kinds of budget issues. What won’t we be able to do in the next two years that we are doing now?

“I don’t know until I’ve been on the council,” Meierhoff said.

Smith said the city would be able to continue to do what it’s always done.

“We’re not hurting at this point in time,” he said. “We don’t know what the future will bring. We’ve seen big changes in the school district and I think it’s coming to the city of Marion. We’ve had to raise water and electrical rates. Those things we won’t have any control over.”

“As a city, we’ve been lucky,” Varenhorst said. “Many places have been hit extremely hard but not us. The school district is seeing tremendous budget cutting. It’s one of our largest employers in the city. We need to be razor sharp on what we can keep and what we can’t. We have to look at the picture over a longer period of time. I don’t think there’s one thing on the city budget that we can say, ‘Yeah, we can cut that’.”

Kline said we’re not there yet.

“From past experience, there are things we could knock off,” he said, “but it will come down to what people demand. Less services? Reduce the Marion Recreation Commission budget? Decisions will be painful. Everybody would hate a tax increase. The council would have to decide what is best.”

What is the role of the economic development director?

“That person should be trying to bring in new industry and businesses to the community,” Smith said. “Drawing new people is important. We need to build a bigger tax base. It is a public relations position.”

He continued that Marion has to be perceived as an open arms community and has to realize that getting large businesses like Wal-Mart isn’t going to happen.

“I think Doug Kjellin is doing a good job,” Varenhorst said. “His main focus has got to be not only attracting small businesses of 20 employees or less because that is what we’re going to attract, but to make sure people who are interested in opening business do not run into a lot of red tape. Marion needs to be more user friendly.”

He continued that the economic development director needs to be “point source” and commended Kjellin for brining in the Free Flight Association event.

“We have a tremendous amount of things here. We have so many pluses it’s not even funny.”

Kline said the position was important and he supports economic development.

“That’s the salespeople going out and selling the city on jobs,” he said. “We need to keep what we have. It’s very important. This person does this.”

“I think Doug is doing a fine job,” Meierhoff said. “We’re not going to get a big business but we need to bring in jobs and people to town. We want people to move here, gain students in the school district. He’s the cheerleader for the city. He also needs to help businesses that are here. If a business has problems and needs help, he should jump on that and help right away. That’s very important.”

What are some ways the council can encourage business development?

Varenhorst said the city needed to streamline options for startup businesses with less red tape.

“We need to be working with the banks … and streamline the loan process,” he said. “The council can only do the administrative part and encourage Doug to do as much as possible.”

“Tax incentives are No. 1,” Kline said. “(It’s also important to) have good bankers around. Red tape can bog us down.”

Meierhoff said he wanted to see Kjellin have more leeway so he can do his job.

“We have a lot of rules and regulations and we have to have them but at the same time, there has to be some give and take. We have to be willing to negotiate a little bit,” he said.

“We have a planning and zoning committee set up and a city attorney to advise us,” Smith said. “We have to be very careful of that. We can’t allow just any business to start up in Marion. If we allow one kind business to start up then we have to allow similar businesses to do the same thing. These are decisions made on the city council level. We need to follow all of the rules and regulations and address them as they come in.”

Varenhorst said one point the council has to consider is the way citizens perceive city employees.

“I’ve had people tell me they were arrogant, demanding, and heartless,” he said. “I can’t see that. That’s so dumb. Somebody says ‘You can’t do that’ after some things have been done. We’re not a town that can throw away anything. We have to keep what we have and build on it. It can’t slip out to the west of us.”

If elected, do you have any conflicts of interest, issues with employers, or undue influences of relatives or close friends that might prevent you from making the best decision for the city of Marion?

As far as Kline is concerned, he said his wife works in a different town but he does not have any conflicts.

“The community has helped me all my life,” Meierhoff said. “I want to help out the community. I chose to live here because I like this community. It’s my way of giving back. I have no agenda. I have no conflicts. If elected, I will do my best.”

Smith said as a county employee, he was a representative of the county and the city.

“Conflicts are those you choose to take on and the not the ones placed on you,” Smith said. “I have a vested interest in Marion. My family lives here — children and grandchildren. I have to support my family. I think I do a good job of stepping back to make the best decisions for the city of Marion.”

“I’m retired from the Hillsboro Free Press a year ago,” Varenhorst said. “I worked there because I couldn’t find a job in town. You have to go where you can find a job. We need more jobs here. People want to come back but there are no jobs. I have no conflicts.”

Closing statements

“I’m stepping up because I felt it was time for some younger folks to be involved in local government,” Meierhoff said. “The city council should have a cross section of young, retired, and business owners to make the council better. I will do the best I can to represent the taxpayers. There are two sides to every issue and I’m willing to listen to both sides. If elected, I will do the best I can to serve the community.”

Smith said he has served two years on the council and looks forward to another two years regardless of the outcome of the election.

“Changes are coming whether we see them or not,” he said. “More people need to step up and take part in the community. Volunteer on committees. We need help. My door is always open at my office and at home,” Smith said.

“I’ve lived here most of my life and have seen many changes in the city — some good and some bad,” Varenhorst said. “In the past couple of years, we have started on the correct route but I’ve seen us fall off. We can’t be status quo, folks. You move or you die. You have to progress and this is one of the things that continues to happen.

“I want Marion to progress, move forward, and make people proud they live in this community. We need community spirit. People know Marion because of Central Park and Marion County Lake. We’ve got a good reputation. We just have to build on it. I would like to be on the council and be a part of it,” Varenhorst said.

Kline said he was retired and in order to be an effective member of the council, a person needs to dedicate time to it.

“I have more time to devote to city business,” he said. “My mother once told me if something is worth doing, it’s worth doing right, which is true. My experience in running a business and on the council is important. There is a certain process to doing this. I carry a farmer’s notebook and when people talk to me, I write it down and will get the answer back to them. I will work hard. Let’s move forward.”