Incumbent Montesano Councilman Dave Skaramuca and businesswoman Brooke Chapman-Hoiness are facing of on the November General Election ballot for the Montesano City Council Position 4 seat. Both candidates sat down separately recently with The Vidette and answered questions about their visions for the city.

Brooke Chapman-Hoiness

Why should people vote for you? I think I would be one of the best candidates just because, the business aspect, I own a business in town. And I feel like we need more of that on the City Council, more influence for business owners. And I think that I could build a better relationship between the business and the City Council. There’s so many cars that pass our town and I think it would help out with like getting more people in town, keeping taxes down for like the homeowners and the business owners. And if we have more people here, it’s generating more money for the city so the taxes are not rising.

What are the biggest issues facing Montesano? I don’t necessarily think that we have a lot of issues. We’re pretty well ran, overall, I would say. I just think we just need to generate more money somehow. And I think that the roadwork and all the repairs and sidewalks, I would like to see like more street lights down Beacon. I think the school zoning needs to be pushed out more. The city works close with the school to do that stuff.

One of my main goals is, I would love to be on the Parks and Rec board just because I think the field usage has been an issue between the city and the sports groups. I would like to see clearer guidelines on the contracts and how that works because there’s been issues with the city. And Nelson is in horrible condition. And the baseball parents have always put in time and work, and the city’s always mowed it but the city wants to charge them a certain amount of money to mow. So I’d like to see better guidelines on those contracts.

Dave Skaramuca

Why should people vote for you? I feel I have four years experience. Everyone on the council, we all have our little attributes we add to the council and mine is public works.

I went through a mill closure, I worked for a big company for 18 years, then I went back to college and I was 48 years old. I got a two year degree in civil engineering design. At the time I graduated, it was 2008 and really just beginning of the downturn in economic development. It was a big crash for land development. At that time, I teamed up with a guy that’s a homebuilder and I’ve been working for him for the last 10 years. That’s my occupation, is homebuilder. I grew up in Montesano, lived here most of my life. Now I’m more invested in Montesano than I ever have been.

I want our parks to thrive and survive.

I think, the most important thing is that, after four years, I kind of think that we’re on a roll. We’ve kind of figured it out. We’ve done a lot of changes, especially in Public Works.

What are the biggest issues facing Montesano? My goal in the next term is to try to keep the ball rolling. We have some real challenges. That’s why the next four years could be more challenging than the previous four years. Because we rely on the forest enterprise fund. This year, the forest cost us money.

This next year, we have a shortfall in our funds that’s transferred to water. So now we’re going to be in a pinch. So we’re not really sustainable in our funds. I get concerned about all Public Works. With Public Works, you never know what you’re going to get. Are we going to raise our rates to keep our funds at a more manageable level? Or are we going to stop improving? Since I’ve been on council, and long before that, the No. 1 complaint to the city is streets and sidewalks. We just don’t have any money in streets. And when we come in and do a street, we can use the stormwater fund, the water fund and the sewer fund to replace the utilities. Then we pillage (from other funds) a bit for the street that’s above them. Because we destroy the street.