Q&A: Moses Lake City Council candidates

Victor Lombardi and Jeremy Nolan are both running for Position 6 on the Moses Lake City Council.

The Columbia Basin Herald asked each candidate the questions below with matching word count restrictions and a deadline to submit responses. The newspaper encourages voters to contact the candidates if they want to discuss issues in more depth.

Responses are in alphabetical order according to the candidates’ last names.

Election Day is Nov. 7; ballots will be mailed to voters around Oct. 18. Early voting opens Oct. 20.

What prompted you to run for city council?

Lombardi: I am the only candidate, over the last 12 months, who has been consistently involved in city council meetings, providing solutions, exposing fraud and encouraging other citizens to engage. With this resume, many citizens were encouraging me to run for council and after deep thought I embraced Thomas Jefferson’s statement, “I did not only have an obligation but a duty.”

I have a well-diversified skill set developed over the last 30 years in finance, technology, real estate, farming and assisting city councils. By sharing these skills, I can make a profound difference in helping our city back to the right path.

Our magnificent city needs leaders who are not afraid to speak up and lead. Leadership begins with relentless hard work.

However, with repeated scandals involving city managers, we also need to raise expectations of our elected officials. We need to ensure that the morals and ethics of our citizenry are matched by our elected officials.

We've had retailers decimated by crime and ‘non-essential’ status, and parents and children’s safety at risk because of poor decisions. We can't let that happen ever again. These are the reasons that fuel my duty to run for City Council member.

Nolan: I have been working on projects with the city of Moses Lake for nearly three years. It has been a tremendous struggle. As I looked around, there were many people also struggling with their interactions with the city. The city needs to operate in a much better fashion for both efficiency and customer service. I could either complain about the issues with the city or do something about it. I choose to work at making improvements because my skills and experience in both the public and private sectors are well suited for the city council position.

What are the biggest challenges you believe the city faces?

Lombardi:

• Reevaluating the comprehensive plan, developed by entities from Portland, Seattle and Olympia, which did not include citizens' needs and wants. Citizens had little input.
• Restoring the government to its correct status per RCWs and bylaws (the city council, after consultation with citizens, creates policy and directives and the city manager performs general administrative duties.)
• Development of a water management plan that involves all the stakeholders and incorporates future growth, 20-50 years out, not short-term fixes that often exacerbate the problem.
• The homeless challenge: city management clashed with the citizens’ objection to a permanent campus. The citizens want evaluation and treatment first. Commingled with this is the crime, vandalism and public drug use that has terrorized retailers, while at the same time affecting the citizens’ safety and quality of life.
• Housing: A disconnect between salaries, housing/rentals and supply. This can only be resolved with local real estate industry design and more efficient local government permitting/zoning/planning.
• Outdated, deferred maintenance, poor past management and lack of longer-term planning have burdened the city’s infrastructure. A redesigned comprehensive plan will limit constant changing of plans and quick fixes that often increase costs and future delays.

Nolan:

• Safety — the city needs to invest in appropriate law enforcement resources to deal with drugs, gangs and general crime issues along with increasing fire department resources to match the growth of the community.
• Infrastructure investment to support the city as it continues to grow, including solving water issues of both short-term capacity constraints and long-term supply availability.
• City operational efficiency improvement to take advantage of the opportunity of economic development and growth being presented to the city, because the city needs to get a lot of work done for the community to feel the benefit of this great opportunity.

What are the primary goals you hope to achieve if elected?

Lombardi:

• Streamline city management operations with evaluation tools to be more efficient, providing better product and service.
• Implement immediately my designed website schematic platforms, both for retailers to report crimes and for citizens to voice concerns, in a super fast format providing feedback and market data.
• Approve new ordinances protecting our children and parents that are enforceable by MLPD.
• Providing the 80% of homeless with mental illness and drug and alcohol abuse treatment first, ending the myth that affordable housing is the cause.
• Ensure the new city manager and elected officials match the morals, ethics and values of its citizens.
• Protect and support our retailers; they are valuable members of our city.
• Implement my task force design to improve affordable housing options.
• Update the comprehensive plan to promote research and development of technologies that match existing local industries, creating future job growth for our children.
• Create an infrastructure design that involves local stakeholders addressing water, roads, zoning and future growth.
• Create a training program for new city council members so that from day one they understand the RCWs and responsibilities.
• Encourage increased citizen involvement via technology and citizen committees, because it is their city and their paid taxes that severely lack representation.

Nolan:

• Improved city operational stability and performance because I will be pushing to adopt long-term strategic objectives that will provide consistency while guiding city management and staff decision processes.
• Create a safe environment to raise our children in.
• Enable a bright and prosperous future for the Moses Lake community.

How can the public contact you?

Lombardi: The best way to reach me is at my website votevictor.org and clicking on the contact prompt, and my email specifically dedicated for citizens; votevictormoseslake@gmail.com.

Nolan: Email: Jeremy_nolan@yahoo.com

Mobile: 509-989-8338

www.facebook.com/ElectJeremyNolan