Candidates discuss their priorities in Rexburg ‘Meet the Candidates’ forum
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REXBURG — Six candidates took the stage at Wednesday’s “Meet the Candidates” forum at the Romance Theater, giving Rexburg residents an opportunity to hear from those running for office in Legislative District 34 and local Madison County races.
House seat
In the House District 34 Seat B election, Republican incumbent Rep. Britt Raybould (R-Rexburg) and Republican Larry Golden are both running in the May 21 primary.
Raybould is completing her second term in the Legislature. Among other legislative assignments, she serves on the Joint Finance and Appropriations Committee. Professionally, she is the chief financial officer for Raybould Brothers Farms.
“My priority is making sure that our students have access to good schools, it’s for every one of your kids,” Raybould said. “When I say my priority is making sure that we have the right investments to ensure that we have secure infrastructure going forward – be it our roads or bridges, our water systems, access to the natural resources that help make the state – that’s in there too. I’m equally committed to having our communities feel like a safe place where our families can grow … and feel that they have a future here.”
Golden is a former police officer who served in the U.S. Navy and worked for Microsoft before launching his own construction company. He has lived in Madison County for the last three years and says he believes strongly in reining in state spending.
“I’m a Second Amendment guy. I believe strongly in the First Amendment,” Golden said. “I want my kids to grow up in a safe environment. … I want to represent Madison County, not with an ego, not with anything about me, but to serve your choices and what you want.”
He believes the state government needs to be a better steward of public tax dollars.
“There were a lot of spending votes. Every vote that came through this year was passed,” he said. “Our tax dollars are being spent, and we need to be able to preserve that money, to be able to make more people accountable.”
Senate seat
In the race for State Senate District 34, Republican incumbent Sen. Doug Ricks and Democrat Marsha Craner are both running in the general election in Nov. 5. They are unopposed in the primary.
Ricks has been serving in the Idaho Legislature since 2018 and is in his second term in the Idaho Senate.
As chairman of the Idaho Senate Local Government and Taxation Committee, Ricks said, “My focus is keeping taxes from coming out of your pocket as much as possible. My focus really has been to keep your taxes low, and I’ve been able to do that on a lot of legislation over the past couple years.”
He shared H.B. 521, which he sponsored on the Senate floor, providing $1 billion in bond funding to school districts over the next 10 years for school facilities as one of the Legislature’s best achievements from its recently closed session. That bill will provide “$22.2 million to Madison School District and $6.3 million to Sugar-Salem School District,” he said. Additionally, Madison will receive $1.57 million and Sugar-Salem will receive $440,000 annually for 10 years to pay for additional bonds, he said.
Craner is an Idaho native who has taught eighth-grade language arts for the majority of her last 32 years in Madison County.
“When politicians run unopposed for too long, they start to believe that they represent people without actually checking in with them,” she said. “They start listening to special-interest groups instead of the people that they represent. We know that this has happened in Idaho because citizen initiatives have become necessary.”
Craner characterized the last session as “an example of big government in action. When the government starts telling us what pronouns we can use, what books we can read and what we can and can’t do in our doctor’s offices, we know they’ve gone too far. Government should not be about limiting citizens’ voices.”
Sheriff
Finally, interim Madison County Sheriff Ron Ball and Brodie Riding shared why they are running for sheriff in the Republican primary election.
Ball has worked in law enforcement for 31 years in Rexburg as a patrol officer, K9 officer, drug officer, SWAT member, hostage negotiator and supervisor of investigators.
“That has all made it so that I am prepared to lead the sheriff’s office as we move forward,” he said. “I’ve been a leader at the Rexburg Police Department for over 13 years. I ran a division of detectives that were top-notch. … They were sharp, and we did a lot of good things, including having over 60% solvability rate – which is way above Idaho’s average.”
He provides regular leadership training meetings in the department.
“I think it’s important that the guys and the ladies in the sheriff’s office are able to look at their sheriff and go, ‘You know what? He’s been around a long time, and he did it right,’” Ball said.
Riding is a Rexburg native. He served with the Madison County Sheriff’s Office for 15 years – mainly in patrol, on the SWAT team, and as commander of the SWAT team. He currently works at Rexburg Motor Sports. Riding was decertified in 2019 but responded that previous mistakes do not define who he is or prevent him from serving and leading in the community that he loves.
The top priorities in his campaign for sheriff are to “get a drug task force or get with other agencies in their drug task force in combatting that (drug) epidemic.”
He also prioritizes school safety.
“Our students need to feel safe. Our teachers need to feel safe in our schools,” Riding said. “Meeting with school officials and going over our emergency plans I think is critical to the education process.”
Madison County Commissioners Todd Smith, Brent Mendenhall and Legislative District 34 Seat A Rep. Jon Weber, also briefly addressed the audience. They are running unopposed in the primary election.