For the 2021 Voters Guide, we emailed candidates a set of questions on professional experience, local priorities and general issues. We have included those questions and the unedited responses. We have noted when candidates left questions unanswered. We have also provided links to candidate websites, campaign funding reports and other local media coverage when available.
Any questions or suggestions should be sent to: whitmancowatch@gmail.com
CANDIDATE QUESTIONNAIRE
How would you describe your current occupation or job title(s)?
I work in property maintenance.
What other memberships or community affiliations would you like to share with voters?
I am a current board member of the Palouse Lion’s Club.
What, if any, charities, political campaigns, or nonprofits have you donated money or volunteer hours to in the past year? The Palouse Lion’s Club and the rose ladies.
What professional accomplishment are you most proud of and why?
I can mow a lawn really fast!
What is your vision for Palouse as a community, and are there any other towns you seeing doing things right or would like to emulate?
I simply want competent management with an eye to human liberty. I don’t remember being impressed by any city governments; civil mismanagement is a huge problem nationwide.
What is your top priority for quality of life and what, if any, changes would you make regarding that issue?
It is for each man to determine his own priorities for life quality. A city’s job is to provide basic services such as water/sewer, roads, security, and park maintenance; it is not a city government’s job to make arbitrary decisions about what constitutes life quality.
Has the city done a good job supporting local businesses and how do you know? What else could the city council do to help encourage economic growth and development?
No, and in fact they’ve uncritically gone along with illegal, tyrannical mandates from the state which have put an extreme strain on businesses and steamrolled over the entire concept of freedom.
Governing responsibly and fairly with fiscal discipline is the city government’s only role in promoting business growth.
What is the best action the city government or the council has taken in the past five years?
They made appropriate choices for staffing the Department of Public Works. This is the only thing they have done right that I can think of and I’m pretty sure 90% of that was that the right people happened to apply.
What is the worst decision or biggest opportunity the council has missed the past five years?
The entire flag debacle was a case study in political mismanagement. They couldn’t have done a better job of breaking the public into factions of mutual hatred if they tried.
I intend to repeal the flag code and cede the responsibility of hanging flags to the Lion’s Club, who had done an excellent job for decades.
What do you think will be the most significant challenge or threat the City of Palouse will face in the next five years?
Simply recovering from the mess we’re inheriting will be very hard.
Coming hyper-inflation due to the wildly irresponsible actions of the federal government will also be challenging, which is why we need to do everything we can to be responsible now.
As a steward of taxpayer dollars, how do you approach balancing demands for city service against the citizen tax burden?
By seeking to keep the tax burden as low as possible while providing essential services.
What city infrastructure do you think needs the most attention or additional funding, and why?
Like most cities, much of Palouse’s sewer infrastructure is around 100 years old. In theory, this should be repaired by a master plan instead of chasing around problems as they happen.
Unfortunately, the monsters at the state Department of Ecology want us to pay millions of dollars for a new sewage treatment plant so the squawfish can get sewage discharge a degree cooler. Thus, there is no money for other infrastructure products and it doesnt appear possible to beat the state.
What is your highest priority for city parks and recreation efforts? What, if anything, would you like to see changed?
We clearly need an actual adult to manage the pool next summer. I have worked as a lifeguard, I am well aware of how dangerous it is to mismanage a city pool.
What, if anything, would you change to make the city more transparent or to improve communication with the public?
Just be transparent. Besides some private information about city employees and taxpayers, a small city government has no excuse for secrecy.
If you could wave a magic wand and instantly change one thing about Palouse, what would it be and why?
I would make it part of Idaho.