Dalton: Five seek two seats on council

By RALPH BARTHOLDT

Staff Writer

A recall election last spring unseated three Dalton Gardens council members, including the mayor, leaving the body without a quorum and unable to do business.

Despite an appointment to the council by the governor, and the filling of the remaining seats last summer, a deep distrust of how the city was doing business has resulted in a large field of Dalton residents vying for the four council seats: two 2-year and two 4-year terms. The two leading vote getters in the two-year races, and the two leading voter getters in the four-year races, will be the winners.

Nine candidates will appear on the ballot for the four positions.

There is no contest for mayor. The current mayor, Jeff Fletcher, opted not to run again, and 49-year-old Dan Edwards is the only candidate on the ballot.

Issues affecting the city include a push for transparency at the city level, whether the city of 2,400 needs more policing, and how to safely deal with increasing traffic.

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Jamie Smith

In her four years on Dalton Gardens City Council, incumbent Jamie Smith says she has helped make the small town safer and more beautiful.

Smith, a 22-year Dalton resident and former stay at home mom, said her love of Dalton Gardens, and the reason she has lived in the small community pressed between Coeur d’Alene and Hayden, guides her decisions as a town council member.

“I have never forgotten who I represent, and have always been available to those who reach out to me,” Smith said.

Smith, who is running to retain her 4-year council seat, serves on the safety and transportation board as well as the parks and rec board. She organized a group to clean up and maintain the city’s horse riding arena, she has beautified the park and Dalton’s Fourth Street traffic circle with plantings, and voted to use a creative approach to pay for extra policing in the city. The plan pays off-duty Kootenai Sheriff’s deputies overtime wages to patrol Fourth Street — one of the town’s main residential thoroughfares — to ensure motorists follow the 25 mph speed limit. The city, which is policed by the sheriff’s office, budgeted $12,000 for the effort.

“It’s worked well,” Smith said, although a fell off in the number of deputies at the sheriff’s office recently resulted in fewer deputies taking advantage of the extra duty.

Smith said her plan to give free stickers to motorists who pledge to drive the speed limit in town — the stickers tell others of their pledge — has also made motorists more aware of the city’s reduced speed limits. She also voted for radar signs for Fourth Street — which sees as many as 6,000 cars and trucks daily — that tell motorists when they’re driving too fast.

A recall election early this year that left the council without a mayor, or a quorum, was a result in part of an electorate that felt disenfranchised with a City Hall that made decisions without voter approval.

Regaining voter trust, Smith said, is paramount.

“I will continue to encourage communication and community involvement,” Smith said.

Federal funding of the Fourth Street road project was among issues that divided voters who wanted the city to turn down the money, because they felt it came with too many requirements that would destroy the community’s rural fabric.

Smith stood with voters and elected to turn down the federal dollars. However, she said the street, as well as others in Dalton Gardens, still needs work and council members will have to decide funding options.

“That is something City Council needs to plan for,” she said.

Aaron O’Brien

If Aaron O’Brien is elected to one of the two Dalton Gardens four-year council seats Tuesday, the 35-year-old firefighter will be the youngest council member on the block.

O’Brien doesn’t want to let his age pigeonhole his candidacy. He was among applicants for a council seat last spring when a March recall election had depleted the five-member board.

“I appreciate the community that previous generations have built and I want to preserve that,” O’Brien said. “I don’t want to see it become something different.”

He decided to run for council, he said, instead of sitting on the sidelines and shaking his head at decisions the previous council made without the input of residents.

Restoring the trust of voters, he said, is an important step to forming a viable, community-oriented council which can be achieved through transparency and communication.

“Trust in government is built through transparency,” O’Brien said. “Our job as council members is to represent the citizens of our community... to provide all citizens a voice and offer multiple platforms for people to be heard.”

One way to gather input, he said, is to use citizen committees that make recommendations to the City Council.

“It’s important to encourage city members (to join) and for the council to use their input,” he said.

As a father of two who earned a teaching degree from Whitworth, spent years as a volunteer before being hired as a firefighter at Northern Lakes and being promoted to engineer and paramedic, O’Brien is committed to keeping Dalton a rural community.

Applying the city’s zoning rules to development, sticking by ordinances and city codes and following its comprehensive plan without being pressured by surrounding growth will help maintain the city’s rural aesthetics.

“Dalton’s rural nature is what makes it unique (and why) many of us chose to live here and raise our families here,” he said.

O’Brien said the city’s budget allows for flexibility to reallocate funds without raising taxes to increase policing. The same goes for maintenance of Fourth Street. Whether Fourth Street should be rebuilt was a contentious issue last spring. O’Brien said street maintenance is in the city’s budget and finding ways to pay for additional upgrades will require community input and discussion.

“I am committed to finding ways to make the necessary improvements without compromising our property rights or financially impacted our citizens,” he said.

Robert Wuest

When his dad was 67, Robert Wuest asked him to run for the mayoral seat in Dalton Gardens.

“People like you, and you’re honest,” Robert told his dad.

But his father chose to retire instead.

Wuest, now 67 himself, has lived in Dalton Gardens since 1971. He’s worked as the water master for the irrigation district and has served on the city’s traffic committee, including a two-year stint as chairman. He thinks it’s time that he run for city office.

Wuest is among five candidates vying for one of two four-year terms on City Council and his concerns include slowing down traffic in a town he refers to as a residential neighborhood, and being an ear that gathers the input of residents before making decisions at the city level.

As one member of the city’s 23-member traffic committee for several years, Wuest said the concerns of members were not heeded by the council. It eventually faced a recall in March.

The committee wanted the council to consider a variety of measures to slow down the flow of traffic through Dalton Gardens, which is used as a go-through route for cars and trucks heading north from I-90 to U.S. 95. The traffic runs up 15th Street and uses cross streets like deer haven to shoot west to meet the highway.

Wuest and his group conducted a traffic survey that was presented to City Council but was told his numbers didn’t matter, he said.

“We had 3,600 cars a day on Deer Haven,” Wuest said. “It’s a little bitty street (motorists) use as a shortcut.”

If he’s elected, he wants to hire an engineer to find ways to make Dalton Gardens safer by slowing vehicle traffic or encouraging motorists to use Government Way. That could mean employing traffic signs, lights, beacons or more police traffic patrols.

“We tried to get the council to recognize that,” he said. “We gave them four years.”

An increase in traffic — often faster moving traffic — is among the issues that have changed the face of Dalton Gardens from a slow-moving rural community where residents like Wuest once rode their horses in the streets, to a place where nonresident traffic races through neighborhoods.

“I want to allow people to talk and have Council listen,” he said. “I’m not doing this for myself. I’m doing it for Dalton.”

Drew Dittman

Drew Dittman is an engineer by trade and an observer by nature.

When the Dalton Gardens resident and father of two sees traffic racing through his small community, his solution-oriented mindset kicks in.

How best to calm traffic in the town of 2,400 where most of the community appreciates a slow-moving, rural lifestyle?

The answer is grounded in engineering.

“Traffic is like water,” Dittman said. “It follows the path of least resistance.”

Adding resistance will curtail traffic and slow it down.

The best way to do that is through an engineering study that considers street size, community design, flow models and traffic counts, he said.

Putting up a stop sign on a residential intersection could push traffic to another street where it causes more problems.

“A coordinated effort to manage vehicular speed and traffic volumes should be employed based on engineering design, enforcement and education,” Dittman said.

Adding traffic features to the main roads, primarily thoroughfares such as Fourth and 15th streets used by motorists wanting to bypass heavily used U.S. 95 and Government Way, will slow down traffic and likely deter the use of Dalton as a shortcut.

“Advisory and stop signs, solar powered, speed-activated signs and additional striping can be used to reduce speed and deter traffic,” Dittman said.

The options are cheap, and efficient, he said.

“They are very cost conscious and have a proven track record of working effectively,” he said.

As a city resident running for one of two four-year council seats, Dittman, who operates Lake City Engineering, said he has watched previous city councils struggle with transparency.

If he’s elected, Dittman said he will help tackle Dalton’s traffic issues and do it with community support and input. Last spring’s recall election was fueled in part by a lack of transparency, he said.

“We need to get information to the public,” he said. “It causes frustration if the public doesn’t know what is happening.”

As a council member, Dittman would ensure the city follows its comprehensive plan and that any growth — 40 vacant buildable lots remain in the city — follows ordinances and zoning.

“I’m not opposed to that, but we don’t have a lot of land left to do it,” he said.

Bottom line, Dittman said, he is a problem solver.

“I like to solve problems,” he said. “Sometimes you have to step back and look at ... what is the best solution to preserve the lifestyle of Dalton Gardens.”

Scott Jordan

Scott Jordan, a lifelong resident of Dalton Gardens and one of two incumbent council members running for a 4-year term on City Council, said his four years working in city government have been productive and rewarding.

Jordan weathered a recall election last spring that resulted in the replacement of two other candidates and the town’s mayor. Since then, Jordan cast a defining vote on a measure to turn down a $4.5 million grant to upgrade the town’s major north and south arterial because residents opposed the plan.

If he has learned one thing in the past four years on the council, Jordan said, it is that city government cannot work in a vacuum.

It needs the input of the community to function at its best.

”You can’t come to an agreement when you have a divided community,” Jordan said.

The best way to resolve differences, he said, is to listen to each other.

That’s what he’s done for four years on the council, and if he is re-elected, he will continue to follow the axiom.

“We need to work as a community as a whole,” he said.

The division that caused the recall election has been the biggest issue that Dalton Gardens faced, and continues to face, Jordan said.

“We need to get the community back together,” he said.

Jordan, an electrical contractor who operates his own business, stands with the rest of the candidates when he says traffic is the second greatest issue affecting the community with its narrow streets and rural atmosphere.

“Dalton is a walking town,” he said.

But many people defer from ambling the once-quiet streets because of speeding traffic.

Slowing city traffic in residential areas, including on Fourth Street, is among issues the City Council has addressed by erecting radar signs and encouraging policing by the sheriff’s office by paying deputies overtime wages to watch for speeders.

“It’s not the traffic that bothers people, it’s the speed of the traffic,” Jordan said.

He is in favor of an engineering study the result of which could recommend more traffic signs to deter speeders in the residential community.

In addition, Jordan said the community can effectively rebuild streets where refurbishing is warranted by saving and setting aside money, cutting costs where it’s warranted and slowly building savings.

“It just takes thinking outside the box,” he said.