John Schroeder, Council Position 3

I retired from Yellow Freight in California and moved to Ocean Shores to retire in 2008 , am 69, and have lived here for 8 years. Just after my first council election in 2011, I had a period of ill health, and took a lot of bad advice from Pocket Council members. When my health and energy returned, I found that the right and only way to help this city was to find ways to alleviate tax increases and to cut expenses to benefit the city’s residents any way I can. If I am elected again, my primary goal will be to stop this tax and spend philosophy, work toward a balanced budget, deal with residents’ problems and do the best I can to curtail the Mayor’s and Pocket Council’s runaway spending. Please vote for John Schroeder and visit my website at schroederforcouncil.org.

Do you favor the Point Brown Avenue redesign project moving forward, and if so, which of the alternatives do you favor and what suggestions do you have for funding?

We have already spent $160,000 of the $400,000 originally granted for this project and it is expected to cost at least $250,000 over and above the $400,000 just to get the final engineering design. If the city doesn’t have this project completed in 10 years, we are obligated to return this grant money. The city now estimates this project will cost over $14,000,000 and the city will probably have to match some grants out of taxpayer’s money. All I can see this project doing is impeding traffic flow and causing parking congestion on what is already an almost new boulevard with memorial trees and signage located. We ought to immediately halt this project, lick our wounds with these poorly designed alternatives, and concentrate on what was the original concept: to provide sidewalks for pedestrians, where needed, along Point Brown Avenue.

The city faces a dilemma with funding set to expire for seven firefighters. Do you favor retaining these positions, why or why not, and if so, how would suggest they be paid for?

This grant expires at the end of 2017, and I believe the city should keep it’s word, which was if the city didn’t get additional grant money, these temporary employees will be let go. What is the status for the grant extension? Another question to resolve is the Fire Marshall’s position that was created at the time of this grant, and how this addition impacted the expenditures in this grant and will impact any future budget. What should be done is when the pending ambulance utility rate study is completed it should be posted on the city’s website, a town hall meeting by the city to present this study should be held, and the citizens given the opportunity to review this with their own recommendations.

What three items of public interest and benefit would you propose as a council member and what three items would you like to see changed in the city of Ocean Shores?

First of all, the vast majority of people in Division 12 are honest tax paying citizens, and the city should no longer ignore their plight with the usual lame excuses, and concentrate all the resources of Police and Code Enforcement at the city’s disposal to once and for all solve their problems. If this is not done, these types of problems will slowly creep into other areas of the city, and there are signs of some of this already. The Mayor promised to add a police detective position with the new 0.3% sales tax increase. The Mayor should keep her word and immediately find someone for this position and make this problem his/her first priority.

Second, the city has taken $664,000 from the LID Bond Guaranty Fund, used $244,000 to re-pay an interfund loan to the water department from EMS and has put the remaining $420,000 into the General Fund. The total $420,000 should be transferred into Fund 103 dedicated solely to street repairs, for it is understood that over $2,000,000 will be required for these repairs. The City should also restore the $244,000 into this fund, used to retire the interfund loan. The $100,000 the Council allocated in 2007 for street repairs is a good start. A resolution should then be passed that all future surpluses available from the LID Bond Guaranty Fund should be automatically directed to the 103 Fund. Further, the city should concentrate its efforts to provide street lights on some of our poorly lighted, winding main thoroughfares like Duck Lake Drive and Mt. Olympus Ave. to prevent future incursions with our abundant wildlife and pedestrians walking at night. If the city provides the poles and wiring, the PUD will service and maintain the lights for $8.54 a month per light, which is a minimal expense for our road safety.

Third, budgets should always be our main concern, and we need to get away from the current tax and spend philosophy to a balanced budget that doesn’t require future tax increases like the new Transportation Benefit District that the residents were never given an opportunity to voice an advisory vote on, before its enactment. More of my priorities can be seen on my website schroederforcouncil.org.

As far as changes, first would be to restore honesty and accountability to city government. As an example, the State L&I investigated our utilities and found 28 violations, most serious of all, mishandling of hazardous chemicals, and assessed penalties of $18,000. Mayor Dingler’s public response was only that the state was seeking money, that she didn’t feel there was anything egregious and that they held us to a higher standard than the state standard. Remember, Mayor Dingler was the acting director of Public Works when these violations occurred. Should these problems be covered up, or should the citizens expect more accountability from our city government?

Second is to change our City Council attitude and rules to allow citizens to speak at council meetings for the long-established five minute standard and not limit it to three minutes as some council members have pushed. We need to hear from our citizens and not limit their comments because council members are in a hurry to run out the front door.

Third, I have heard many complaints about the hours that city offices and departments are open and/or closed early. We need to start monitoring the hours that our employees are on the job and ensure that these offices and departments are open to provide proper services to the citizens. One inexpensive start for this monitoring would be time clocks at all work locations.

Would you continue the city’s contract with the Pinnacle Group to help manage and market the Ocean Shores Convention Center, and what suggestions do you have for the facility in the long term?

I began to doubt this solution when Pinnacle from Virginia Beach, VA required a $20,000 commitment to grant us the privilege of giving us an estimate of what had to be done here and ignoring Seattle-based Columbia Hospitality. If a doctor told you that you needed brain surgery or you would die, wouldn’t you search for a second opinion before proceeding? I have read this assessment, and Pinnacle’s solution hinges largely on hiring more employees and appears to be mostly boiler plate. What we once again should do is have a separate city town hall meeting to present this situation to the citizens for their comments, and not rely on one hand-picked company selected by the Mayor to find an acceptable way of putting the Convention Center into a profitable mode. Remember the person the Mayor employed with wages and expenses for almost a year to get convention center referrals resulted in “0” new contracts being made. Her track record indicates she should not be a part of this new selection process.