EAST IDAHO ELECTS: District 33 senate candidates share their platforms

IDAHO FALLS — Democratic candidate Jerry Sehlke and Republican candidate Dave Lent are running for Senator of District 33. EastIdahoNews.com spoke with both of them to see why they feel they are most qualified for the position.

DAVE LENT (REP)

Give us some background information about yourself.

I’ve been involved on the school board for Idaho Falls School District 91 for the last 12 years and was involved as the chair in bringing in Compass Academy and the bond where we rebuilt the four elementary schools.

I was asked by Mayor Casper to be on the committee that evaluated and proposed that we take Eastern Idaho Technical College and turn it into the College of Eastern Idaho.

I was on advisory board at Idaho State University for their corporate training group.

By profession, I’m the site-wide training manager for one of the Idaho National Laboratory contractors– so my job is workforce training in the corporate world.

What is your platform?

To build on the current momentum we have with economic growth and primarily focus on developing a workforce that will sustain that economic growth.

Both my experience at the school level with District 91 and then at the other end of the spectrum in the corporate world of education uniquely qualifies me to see the whole spectrum from kindergarten through a career.

What I plan to do is build (education) pipelines that start in high school and move into our community colleges and our universities. Then the terminal objective is the youth and people from our area are employed at the INL and other higher paying jobs, so they can stay in our area.

Do you feel the needs of District 33 are being met and, if not, how do you hope to change that?

Well, I think we need to address the success we’ve had economically. It’s not that the needs aren’t being met as much as there are new needs emerging which we need to take advantage of so that we can build on our success.

An example is we need an educated workforce to basically fill the need we have for technical jobs up and down the valley. High school education anymore is not preparing people for the workforce and only about 20 percent of our population goes on to college so we have a large segment of our population that’s left with two things — no degree and a large educational debt. Both of which are negatives.

What would you say sets you apart from your opponent and why should people vote for you?

What I think I bring… is working at bringing stakeholders together in a compromise and then collaboration model instead of division and dysfunction – which tends to be the rule of the day politically.

My strength is in collaboration, teamwork and being innovative in solving really tough problems that haven’t been able to move along because of this dysfunction that comes from the polarization of the two parties.

What would you like voters to know before Nov. 6?

I would like them to know that we have a great state and my prime objective is to protect our state and keep it what it is.

I love our state. My why, the reason I’m doing this, is to build on the strength that we have and make a better tomorrow for our kids.

JERRY SEHLKE (DEM)

Give us some background information about yourself.

My wife and I moved here 33 years ago after I finished graduate school. I spent 31 years as a Principal Compliance Engineer at the Naval Nuclear Laboratory and as an Advisory Scientist at the Idaho National Laboratory here in Idaho, and advising various other individuals, agencies and organizations around the world on the energy, water, and associated natural resource issues.

At the INL I worked and provided leadership in such diverse areas as: research and development, regulatory compliance, environmental restoration, water resources policy, planning, monitoring, and protection programs. I have participated in the promotion of the INL (e.g., the Energy Film/Expert Panel Series and the New Millennium Nuclear Energy Partnership) and planning and implementing various environmental and sustainability programs, designing and implementing climate change adaptation/resilience programs and Energy/Water Nexus programs.

I am a veteran of the U.S. Army Security Agency and the U.S. Army Reserves. I hold degrees in Biology, Entomology, Hydrology, and a Ph.D. in Water Resources Law, Management and Policy.

What is your platform?

I’ve studied broadly and that’s helped me get a broad understanding of many topics and taught me how to link ideas together to think through large problems and to be able to solve large problems.

Like so many of our kids here in Idaho, they didn’t see a bright future here and so they ended up going off to school elsewhere and then they stayed away. Like so many of our young talented people they found that there is a better economic opportunity, better professional opportunities elsewhere. We’re having a real drain of our youth. Even the kids that are staying now are not finding a break…For them to find a living wage to be able to make a good living to have good benefits to have health care, they’re not finding that here. So they’re moving away to other places that offer that. We need to grow really good paying jobs. Idaho is leading the nation in growing jobs, but they’re many jobs that aren’t at a living wage.

How do we build the things that will keep our kids here, or bring them back? How do we make Idaho strong and how do we make it prosperous for everybody? How we do that, in part, is through education. With education what we want to do… We need to have multiple approaches at it because welts of different people that have lots of different talents and goals and idea.

We need to start building a system where people come out of their K through 12 academically strong and capable of both making living and if they want to go on to college and be able to get into college and actually pass and make it all the way through college and become professionals. Or, to go on to trade school. I come from a farm background. I love people with trade and those capabilities to be able to work with their hands and minds and those other things, but we need to be able to have a strong system to do that too.

Many people work two or three jobs and can’t afford health care because they’re working for minimum wage.
I’m very much supportive of proposition two. I think that it’s cost effective if we look at the amount of money that it’ll cost. It’s really a shift more than an added burden for the most part.

Idahoans deserve to have that coverage to have that healthcare.

Do you feel the needs of District 33 are being met and if not how do you hope to change that?

It goes right back to the first things we talked about which was we need to improve our education here so our students can do well, and they can prosper if they stay here, or if they decide to move on. That they are well educated to where they can be academically sound to move on to college if they want, or that they can be competent educationally to go on and get jobs here locally. I think that’s really important– and I think everybody here in the district needs to be as healthy as they can.

We need to make healthcare available. If we can’t have a healthy, well-educated population in our district this district will not succeed. We need to have both of those also because we want good people to come here, we want well-educated people to come, we want the INL to bring people here and we want our hospitals and our other businesses to bring people. But if we can’t make good conditions here that people can raise successful families, raise their children here to be healthy, happy and well educated we won’t succeed in the district.

What sets you apart from the other candidate?

Dave and I agree on a number of things, we disagree on a number of things, but what I would say the biggest difference that the public should be thinking about right now is that Dave he would be in as the Republican, I would be in as the Democrat.

Right now we’ve had 60 years of Republican rule (and) they’re absolutely solid where they’re at. They really don’t have to do anything they don’t want to do because they essentially have a monopoly. Dave, he says that he’s going to be a moderate and not be like the rest of the Republicans here in Bonneville County. But, what we see is those who do not follow what they’re instructed to do for legislation– they’re pruned from the vine. They’re removed.

How swift and how harsh they can be in removing people that don’t follow their agenda. While Dave has good intentions and such, I don’t think that he can follow the moderate agenda that he says he can. I can fully do that as a Democrat. I can control my own position. I will not have that problem. I can keep a close eye. I can provide an input in the issues. I have a much broader background, I can give a much broader perspective. I can be both the loyal opposition to them and I can have the competition of ideas with the Republican Party that he can’t have.