Candidates for the six open seats on the Independence City Council spoke at a public forum about their backgrounds and the issues affecting the city this week.
Hosted by the Independence Business Association at the Independence Senior Center on Tuesday, this was the second forum the association had hosted for the candidates this cycle. The first took place in September.
Some key topics emerged throughout the conversation: city growth, taxes and other financial policy and the importance of the city’s parks.
All but one of the candidates, challenger Chris Barbour, attended the forum. There are six incumbents: Greg Waite, Chris Vogelpohl, Carol Franzen, Dave Shafer, Tom Brinker and Greg Steffen. Matt Fehler and Bryan Roemer, on the other hand, are challengers.
Much of the forum focused on the city’s growth, both in terms of residential development and in terms of business attraction and economic expansion. Most candidates agreed that Independence’s small-town charm was worth preserving, even in the face of new development.
“It’s essential that we grow in a way that respects the character of the city and aligns with what the people of Independence want,” Fehler said.
“Growth is inevitable for one thing,” Waite said, “but it’s how you maintain that growth. We have to do it in a smart way.”
To that end, there was talk about what constituted good versus bad growth, and most agreed that attracting businesses would go a long way in building out both the city’s tax base and encouraging job creation.
Several candidates, including Roemer, Waite, Fehler and Steffen, pointed to a large, yet-to-be-occupied industrial development near KY-536, aptly titled Park 536. The future of the site is unclear, but its size could eventually spell robust economic growth for the city.
“I think the best scenario is to go after some type of dense industrial base on the right side of town,” Brinker said.
“As long as we continue to do that in a responsible way, we don’t overload one section of the city or another, there’s a lot of opportunity to bring new business here with that addition with how easy it will be to access Independence from the south side of the city,” Roemer said.
“If Independence remains a great place to live and raise a family, the businesses will come,” Vogelpohl said. “It is important to diversify where our tax base is coming from. The 536 project is a great example.”
“Part of attracting businesses is keeping Independence a good family town, so that helps attract businesses,” Waite said.
Franzen, who’s been on the council 22 years, added some caveats, however, noting that in some cases, the council doesn’t have much say in what goes where.
“Growth has a lot to do with zoning in the city,” Franzen said.
Depending on how a land parcel is zoned, businesses can set up there without council approval, although many developers will often reach out to the city beforehand to get information or work with the city about what could go on the land.
“It’s a very complicated issue that it has a lot to do with zoning and what the council can and cannot do,” Franzen said.
Steffen was the lone voice among the candidates who explicitly came out against more residential development, although he was in favor of more commercial development.
“When I moved back here after being gone for 19 years, I didn’t like the way the city had grown, and that’s why I decided to run for council again,” Steffen said, adding that he would continue to campaign against the “relentless growth that has afflicted us here.”
The moderator, Independence Business Association Vice President Rob Jent, asked the candidates about the possibility of maintaining or lowering taxes in the future.
Independence has maintained its property tax rate for years, even in the face of climbing property values. Thus, for some Independence residents, their tax bills have increased with their property values, even if the rate itself hasn’t changed.
The candidates were aware of this phenomenon, but the possibility of lowering taxes was up in the air.
“I’m not sure how you really go about lowering it with the growth of the city that’s going on,” Shafer said. “It takes a little bit of effort, both from the city and all the personnel it takes to maintain the city, to keep it going.”
He listed off essential services that tax dollars paid for to illustrate his point.
“I think it’s the maintaining infrastructure, take care of the police, and we got excellent first responders,” Shafer said. “I don’t know how we really go about lowering the taxes much more than they are.”
Brinker agreed with Shafer, but Steffen and others believed that it could be possible to lower the rates just enough that people’s tax bills wouldn’t increase in the face of rising property values.
“I would like to work toward a lowering of the tax rate,” Steffen said. “That doesn’t mean your [tax bills] are necessarily going to go down. My goal is to lower the tax rate enough that your taxes don’t go up.”
“If we can get a grasp of what the values are going up and adjust that down to where we lower the tax rate where you’re not paying anymore, that might be something to really look at,” Waite said.
Vogelpohl said that looking at lowering the rate would be good, but “nobody’s going to want to sacrifice the services we have. We have wonderful services. We have wonderful parks. The public works firm does a fantastic job, and we need to keep that high standard of living that we all enjoy because I think that’s why people come to Independence.”
The incumbents commended what they described as the city’s tight budgetary control, but the two challengers said that it may be worth reexamining the budget to determine if anything needed to be changed or more managed better.
“We’d love the opportunity to fine tooth comb the budget,” Roemer said. “Performance based budgeting to help streamline some of that.”
“I would say that the best operation would be identify areas where we can operate more efficiently,” Fehler said.
Finally, the candidates discussed the importance of the city’s parks.
“The parks are to me an integral part of the overall feel of our community,” Vogelpohl said, adding that at some point, he’d like to possibly explore growing the parks’ budget.
Steffen and Franzen both discussed plans to build a splash pad at Memorial Park, something for which the city has already set aside money.
Franzen called Memorial Park the “crown jewel” of the city, but advised against adding more parks. Rather, it would be better to focus on improving the existing parks.
“We need to concentrate and focus on the ones that we have, to keep them nice, to add new equipment, to add better equipment,” Franzen said.
Roemer recommended adding a dog park in the future (this idea has not been discussed at length in the council chambers) or creating some extracurricular, recreational sports leagues.
“I think the parks are a really important part of the city for one reason: green spaces,” Brinker said. “It disappears through different developments throughout the city, residential, commercial, industrial. It’s important that we do have some green space that we can maintain for the future.”
Read more about the candidates at LINK nky’s candidate introduction page.
You can watch the full forum, including all of the candidates’ statements, at the link below: