Three people seek 4-year term seats on Driggs City Council. One answered our questions.

DRIGGS – There are three candidates running for council seats in Driggs this election. There are two open seats for a four-year term.

Those running for those seats are incumbent Miles Knowles, incumbent Allison Michalski and Robert Boyles.

EastIdahoNews.com sent the same eight questions to each candidate.

Miles Knowles did not send us a response.

Allison Michalski declined to answer the questions, stating in an email to EastIdahoNews.com, “I will be traveling between early October and the election, and my time is already fully committed between now and my departure. Thank you again for reaching out.”

The remaining responses from Robert Boyles, listed below, were required to be 250 words or less. EastIdahoNews.com is publishing the answers in their entirety, and without any grammatical or style editing.

The general election is on Nov. 7.

Tell us about yourself — include information about your family, career, education, volunteer work and any prior experience in public office.

Boyle: I work overnight security at Aman in Jackson Hole. I am the former Code Enforcement Officer for the City of Driggs and Victor.

I am a lifelong resident of Driggs who grew up living in Driggs.

What is your proudest accomplishment?

Boyles: I feel I did an excellent job working for the City of Victor and helped many citizens with different issues while working as the Code of Enforcement Officer for Victor.

Why are you seeking political office within your community? Briefly explain your political platform.

Boyles: I believe people should get more involved with local politics and to set an example, I am getting involved myself.

My platform is lower taxes, lower regulation and increase government accountability.

Taxes:

I believe we are paying more then enough in taxes and other fees. I will not support further increases. Our wages are not keeping up with the ever increasing taxes and fees we are asked to pay for. It’s time for the City, just as any household would in tough times, to look at making cuts verses further increases in taxes.

Government Regulation:

The only regulation I support has to do with health, safety and welfare. As such I would like to see us go over the municipal code and land development code and remove regulations that are either outdated, unenforceable or serve no purpose. Both codes should be simple to read, simple to understand and consist of only what is needed.

Government Accountability:

I believe the government should serve the people and not the other way around. If elected I would work with citizens so when they have issues with the City they can get the answers to why the problem is occurring and see what solutions can be created to resolve them in order to ensure they do not reoccur. I will not promise to solve all your problems, but I do promise to look into them and find out why it’s occurring.

What are the greatest challenges facing people in your community? What is your plan to meet those challenges?

Boyles: I think the greatest challenges we are facing is the lack of jobs proving a living wage and forcing our residents to move away and then have them commute to work.

I would like to work to encourage more businesses to open in Driggs. I think we can do this by being more welcoming towards small businesses and by placing less restrictions on them. Less regulations, less restrictions, faster permitting and less fees.

How will you best represent the views of your constituents – even those with differing political views? How will you communicate directly with constituent?

Boyles: I will be open to having discussions with anyone that wishes to do so by either phone, email, in person or Facebook. We may not come to agreement, but I will always be open to discussion.

If you’re having an issue with the city I want to hear about it. I promise you I will investigate and find out why it’s occurring. I want the city to better serve its residents and that means listening to residents when problems occur and I want to hear from everyone regardless of who they voted for.

What areas in your community need immediate improvement? What actions will you take to address those needs?

Boyles: Jobs and housing. We need to lower the fees for building and make the permitting process faster. We need to build more housing to lower the price of housing and increase our housing stock.
Local jobs will help with many of our other issues such as child care and traffic. We need more jobs that pay livable wages within the City of Driggs. The way to do that is to increase the amount of jobs leading to increasing wages.

What parts of the city budget could use more funding? Where are places in the budget that cuts could be made?

Boyles: Public works needs more funding. It’s the one part of the city government that provides truly essential services. If public works were to shut down for a week there would be a major crisis. The people that work in public works have essential skills that they could take to the private sector and make more money. We should work on increasing the pay of our public works department workers and adding more staff members.

On the other hand, the Planning Department is over staffed and could use cuts. We have a much larger Planning Department than the other cities and much of their work could also be outsourced as a way of saving the tax payers money.

What is the role of local media in your community? How can city officials work to have a better relationship with the media?

Boyles: The local media needs to be more involved and challenge those in power. It’s the job of the media to afflict the powerful and to comfort the powerless. Sadly, our media has failed to do this, accepting press statements from those in our local office and not asking tough questions.

I would enjoy working with the media, but I hope they would hold me accountable and ask tough questions. That is their role and I want them to pursue it.