Candidates face off

Pubic safety, financial solvency and economic development were at the tip of every City Council candidate’s tongue during the first forum of election season Wednesday (Sept. 3). The gist: Chico needs more police officers, better control of its budget and a red carpet for businesses.

The candidates—newbies Lupe Arim-Law, Reanette Fillmer and Forough Molina; incumbents Scott Gruendl and Mark Sorensen; and second-time hopefuls Andrew Coolidge and Rodney Willis—each addressed the audience in the CARD Community Center with opening and closing statements and answered questions in between. The forum was hosted by the Chamber of Commerce and the Downtown Chico Business Association.

“I know Chico is a great place to be and a great place to live—but I also know that Chico can be better than it is today,” said Fillmer, who is banking on her background in human resources and contract negotiating to gain one of three open council seats.

The other candidates echoed that sentiment in their own ways, all of them pointing to public safety and a need for more police officers as their primary concern.

“When it comes to crime issues, what we need is more money to hire more cops,” said Coolidge, who ran unsuccessfully in 2012. “We all know what happened yesterday. Someone was killed over at the 7-Eleven downtown. Is this where our city is going?”

The state of downtown was on everybody’s mind. Willis said he doesn’t feel safe bringing his family downtown, and Mayor Gruendl and others pointed to programs like Clean & Safe Chico and the Downtown Ambassadors as being helpful but needing more support.

“I, for one, am certainly disgusted to see what’s happened to my little downtown,” said Vice Mayor Sorensen, who suggested that more stringent laws would help the police control the problem. “Most of what we’re talking about isn’t the ‘homeless’ … it’s vagrants and transients. We’re on the map. We’re a draw to these folks and we tolerate it.”

One of the questions posed to the panel was what the community’s role should be in policing itself. Most of the candidates took the opportunity to again discuss the need for more cops, but others, including Willis and Molina, said they encouraged the idea of personal responsibility.

“We are all citizens and we have to take care of this place. That means looking out for each other,” said Molina, whose stated reason for running is her family and their safety.

“When we see something happening, we need to stand up and say, ‘Not in my neighborhood,’” added Willis, whose bid for council 10 years ago was unsuccessful.

Aside from safety, the other major issue on each candidate’s agenda was the city’s financial situation. The candidates disagreed when asked by an audience member about the sustainability of staff salaries and benefits. Coolidge, Molina, Sorensen and Willis said no, they are not sustainable, while the rest couldn’t settle on a hard answer.

“There is no yes or no answer because the system is controlled by a higher level of government,” Gruendl said, referring to CalPERS.

As a solution to the city’s financial problems, many of the candidates pointed to attracting businesses to town.

“What we need here is businesses to come in,” said Arim-Law, whose own arrival in Chico was on a red carpet with her employer, solar manufacturer Fafco, 14 years ago. “I know why we came here, and that’s what I’m going to be focusing on.”

Another question from the moderators related to the Chico Municipal Airport’s impending loss of commercial flights. The candidates agreed that the loss would affect businesses and the ability of Chico to attract new ones, but some, including Coolidge and Sorensen, suggested that it was a lack of passengers—i.e., demand—that forced SkyWest to discontinue service.

“You have to have passengers to have a successful airline,” Coolidge said. “It’s a lot easier to keep an airline than it is to find a new one. So this conversation is unfortunately too late.”