Election 2011 - Mayoral candidate Turner Askew
Turner Askew says his institutional
knowledge about the issues facing Whitefish makes him a strong
mayoral candidate.
Askew has been elected to city council
twice, first in 1999 and again in 2008, making it nearly 7 1/2
years he’s served the city. He moved to Whitefish about 15 years
ago from Memphis, Tenn., and his family has a long history in the
valley.
“There are things that need to be
done,” Askew told the Pilot. “I understand the background and I
think I can do those things better than anyone else.”
Some of those things, he said, include
tweaking the Critical Areas Ordinance and resolving the city-county
planning doughnut. He believes the CAO is cumbersome and
unenforceable.
“When the planning director and even
John Muhlfeld say they don’t understand it, then let’s fix it,”
Askew said. “I’m going to get it to the point where it makes sense
and it does what it’s suppose to do.”
The CAO was adopted by council in 2008
after years of development. Askew was the lone councilor to vote
against it. The ordinance established a list of criteria that set
out to protect the city’s water quality by limiting development in
environmentally critical areas. The ordinance has since been
amended a few times.
Askew says the CAO as it’s written now
is negatively impacting property sales.
“There’s no question it’s hurting
property sales,” he said. “We started out with water quality and
ended up with steep slopes and a matrix — things that aren’t
understood by anyone.
“I don’t want to gut it. I want to make
it something we understand.”
The city-county planning doughnut, he
says, is one of the top issues facing city council — and it
shouldn’t be difficult to solve.
“Government is pretty simple,” he said.
“The federal government is overall, the state is the next, the
county is next and city government is fourth.
“We don’t tell the county what to
do...but we can negotiate with them and that’s what I intend to
do.”
He says the 2010 Interlocal Agreement
is a good framework to follow when opening new talks with the
county.
“Let’s talk and figure out what we all
can live with and let’s go on with life,” he said.
As mayor, Askew says he wants to help
spur the local economy by eliminating unnecessary regulations that
make Whitefish unfriendly to businesses. The city needs to be
careful not to over-regulate.
“Some regulations pile on top of each
other and are so cumbersome that they hurt job growth,” he said.
“We keep passing regulations, but we never get rid of the old
regulations.”
He says prospective business owners
think it’s difficult to do business in Whitefish.
“That doesn’t help us create jobs,” he
said. “There’s a perception that businesses should look first in
Columbia Falls or Kalispell.”
Some of the regulations are
well-intended, he says, but have unforeseen consequences. He notes
the Dark Sky ordinance, which he was on the committee for. It was
developed for properties within the city, “but now it applies to
people on five acres with livestock,” he said.
“When they hear dogs barking they want
to see what’s going on out there,” he said. “Of course they want a
light, we just never thought about it.
“We need to change that. But the
ordinance has been a real beneficial thing. The stars in Whitefish
are very different than in Denver. I see very real and good reasons
for some of the regulations, but if they need to be looked at,
that’s fine.”
Askew voted against the 2012 city
budget and says it isn’t balanced due to a $300,000 transfer from a
stormwater reserve to help offset another part of the budget. Askew
has said he’s against raising taxes, but shies away from naming
specific places the budget could have been cut to make it
balanced.
“Rather than worrying about cuts, we
have to understand we can’t increase,” he said. “There’s nothing
there to increase to.”
The current council, he says, has done
a good job of tightening the budget.
“We have to be ahead of the curve on
balancing the budget,” he said. “I don’t believe we are out of the
woods yet.”
Askew has mentioned a few ideas about
developing a new city hall. He has suggested buying the Mountain
West Bank site on Spokane Avenue and using saved TIF funds to help
remodel the high school.
The current city hall site, he says,
could be turned into parking and later sold with the condition that
parking is included in any proposed development.
“It’d be nice if it was back on the tax
rolls,” he said.
Askew says an important role of mayor
is to be a good listener.
“There may be something you haven’t
thought of or the council hasn’t thought of,” he said.