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‘Meet the Candidates’: 6 vie for 3 North Logan City Council seats

October 19th, 2015 Posted in Opinion

By Breana Bonner

NORTH LOGAN – City Council candidates gathered to discuss the city’s future, economic development and budget last week at “Meet the Candidates” night, hosted by North Logan City Youth Council, a group of teens getting involved with local government.

Meet the Candidates — From left: Kristen Godfrey Anderson, Damon Cann, Roger T. Anderson, Bradley Crookston, Bruce Lee, Gordon L. Younker. (Breana Bonner photo)

Meet the Candidates — From left, Kristen Godfrey Anderson, Damon Cann, Roger T. Anderson, Bradley Crookston, Bruce Lee, Gordon L. Younker. (Breana Bonner photo)

Preparing for the Nov. 3 elections, incumbent Council members Kristen Godfrey Anderson, Roger T. Anderson and Damon Cann, and newcomers Bradley Crookston, Bruce Lee and Gordon L. Younker answered questions submitted by North Logan citizens.

All six candidates said their goals for the next two years center around economic issues and the city’s expected population growth.

“We have an opportunity for economic development that can bless our community,” Kristen Anderson said. “We can add parks and trails and add some great people. We have a great opportunity to look ahead and plan for our future.”

Cann suggested that, with the population expected to double in the next 30 years, the city needs to stay united and not become separated by east and west. To do so, Cann thinks economic development is key.

Younker echoed this sentiment by encouraging the city to “foster businesses” while keeping North Logan’s “rural feel.”

“The growth is coming whether we want it or not,” Crookston said. “We need to accommodate it by managing the resources we have and finding the roads to do it.”

Screen Shot 2015-10-19 at 11.43.01 AMRoger Anderson agreed. He suggested using the taxpayers’ dollars “prudently” to create roads, but stressed that economic development was needed to help fund them.

Lee focused on the possible change in demographics an increase in population could bring. To accommodate, the city needs to

think about managing high-density housing and bringing in more businesses to support the costs.

The topic of budget and economic development was high on the list of concerns for the city and the candidates.

“You can ask my wife: I’m stingy,” Crookston said. “My family has been living in North Logan for five generations, and when we first moved here there was nothing. That sounds nice — I’d love to have an acre of land, but land is very valuable here. Right now we have a lot of great businesses that keep the taxes down.”

Lee pointed out that resources available for the city to use are scarce, and businesses are needed to allocate these in order for the budget to cover what the city needs.

“We live here for a reason, we come home here for a reason and we want to keep it that way,” Lee said. He concluded he is comfortable with development as long as it is done responsibly to maintain North Logan’s “rural” roots.

Kristen Anderson believes that what the city has done on such tight budget constraints is “incredible.” From building a new police station to a new water well in Green Canyon, her goal is to remain “prudent” with taxpayer money.

Being able to work within the budget is a task that Younker has grappled with before, he said. Currently, all development is concentrated in a confined space, he said.

But this is going to change, and it may compromise the city”s open spaces, he said, vowing to support plans to preserve North Logan’s agriculture by making gardens and parks available to citizens.

Cann hopes to “get the word out” about what North Logan has to offer for businesses. In the past, he said the city has turned down businesses that requested rezoning to accommodate their size. Cann strongly believes there will be more businesses operating in town soon – the city just needs to find a good match. To do so, Cann suggests a real-estate agent. Since agents are paid from commission, the cost to the city is low and well within the budget.

“If we didn’t have the one big-box store in North Logan, many of the services we rely on would not be funded,” Roger Anderson said. “If hard decisions had to be made, we would raise taxes to accommodate. There are services that cost and consequences that come with that. We do what we have to.”

See the North Logan City election website for more information on the candidates.

TP

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