Archive for the ‘Politics’ Category

Western played its part again in the battle for St. Joseph city mayor March 25 hosting the last of Assistant Professor Jon Euchner’s forums before the April 6 election.

Issues that surrounded the debate didn’t directly relate to Western students, but still affect the city that students live in.

One of the key issues was how to bring in more tourism to historic St. Joe. Candidate Dick Sipe, a self described “homegrown” candidate, expressed the importance of diversifying business in St. Joseph.

“The mayor is the point man for the city,” Sipe said, “and the mayor has to be out there promoting St. Joseph has the place to come. We have to be positive; we have to be the place people want to find out about.”

Assistant professor of government Dr. Jon Euchner moderates the mayoral candidate forum. Photo | Dave Hon

Opposing candidate Bill Faulkner, owner of Faulkner Plumbing, a local business, shared his experience as a city council member.

“We are also known as one of the hardest cities to do business in or get anything going in,” Faulkner said. “We have made some strides to correct that but we have a ways to go.”

Faulkner promised that he would remove obstacles facing the construction companies that wish to invest in St. Joseph.

“A lot of people want to come and invest in St. Joe,” Faulkner said. “And we have to make it possible for them.”

Both candidates also recognized a problem with city engineers forcing private contractors to change their plans days before beginning construction, causing confusion.

“We have to be part of the solution and not part of the problem,” Faulkner said.

Both candidates also support a new hotel/motel tax, raising the current 3 percent tax to 6 percent. To date, the revenue from this tax goes directly to the civic arena, but generating this revenue would allow the city to spend more on museums, festivals, and other tourist activities.

“It is, strictly, a tourism tax,” Sipe assured St. Joseph citizens.

During the beginning of the forum, Euchner raised an audience members concerns that that Sipe and Faulkner shared the very similar views and had very little differences between them.

Sipe responded by verifying that he and his opponent do think alike on several issues, but that he would not continue in the footsteps of current mayor Ken Shearin. Faulkner refuted any notion that he would either.

With only 13 percent of registered voters casting a ballot on the primary election, both candidates hope to see more voter turnout come April 6.

The election this spring is going to be uncontested, but SGA says that doesn’t mean the student body should fail to vote.

Western doesn’t have a history of uncontested elections for SGA. According to Administrative Coordinator Vice President of Student Affairs, Kathy Kelly, there has been only one uncontested election for SGA: the spring 2003 election with Sylvester Brandon and John Fabsits ran uncontested for the top office.

SGA election commissioner Josh Rieken thinks that marketing for the election is going to be more difficult than a contested election.

“If it [the election] was contested, then the candidates would have to make posters and talk to people to try to get votes,” Rieken said. “So, I think, the biggest thing we are missing out on this election is the marketing that would have been done by the candidates.”

“I think the most detrimental aspect of having an uncontested election is the fact that students don’t have a choice of who will be their next SGA President,” Rieken said. “An uncontested election basically takes democracy out of the process.”

Rieken thinks that too many students don’t appreciate how fun student government can be. “They just hear the word ‘government’ and assume it will be boring, but it’s not. It’s actually a lot of fun.”

SGA presidential candidate Dillon Harp feels that with the uncontested election, students miss out on a lot of the democratic process like the candidates debating. Harp also thinks that SGA suffers, with the lack of attention paid to the election, when it is uncontested.

Harp doesn’t think it’s a lack of student desire to participate.

“I just think SGA hasn’t really done anything to excite the students,” Harp said.

Harp doesn’t think the interest will be there until SGA changes students’ minds about student government. Until that change occurs Harp said, “I don’t think anyone is really going to run for anything.”

Jordan Carney, a sophomore double majoring in biology with a health-science concentration and biotechnology, is the uncontested candidate for the SGA vice president for the Residence Council.

Carney plans to take a more active role by working with the programming and planning committee to set up events that students will excite students and promote more involvement.

“It’s disappointing that not a lot of people are interested in being leaders,” Carney said. “It seems like the ones that want to be involved can’t devote the time to being in a leadership position.”

Carney also said that many of the resident assistants that would be interested don’t have the time with their current positions.

Besides voting on candidates, the previously reported SGA Technology and Recycling fee has gone on a weight loss program. SGA president Josh Todd said the fee was trimmed down to $4.50 per credit hour because the $3.00 discretionary fund was not well enough defined.

“We did not just want to throw it in some budget if we could not even strictly define its purpose,” Todd said.