Michelle Schraudner
Life Editor
Election Day is Nov. 5 and the race for Pocatello mayor is heating up. The four candidates have participated in a televised forum and an NAACP debate but the question remains: why should people at Idaho State University vote for one candidate over the others?
Building strong ties between the city of Pocatello and ISU, garnering increased school spirit locally and creating better job opportunities in the community were some of the issues candidates focused on.
Cooperation between the city and the university is important to current mayor Brian Blad and is something he said has not been present in the past.
Involving ISU in economic development and establishing CommUniversity, which aims to link the university and the local community, have been important to Blad during his first term as mayor.
“There was always kind of an invisible wall. I think we’ve torn that wall down,” said Blad, explaining that in the past, Pocatello residents and ISU students typically did not intermingle.
“We were a railroad town, we’ve always been a railroad town,” he said. “I think that we’re not a railroad town, we’re a university town.”
Former mayor Roger Chase wants to bring increased economic opportunities to the area and to ISU graduates. He’d like to build a job base around ISU with an emphasis on research, “so people who graduate from ISU, who want to stay here, can stay here.”
Chase said subsidized public transit and low fees for public services, such as police and fire, are some ways the city supports the university that he would continue.
“I would be an advocate statewide for ISU,” said Chase. “I think any town in the state would love to have ISU.”
Chase attended ISU for three years as a student.
A third candidate for mayor is Paul Shepard, a 23-year city employee. Asked why people at ISU should vote for him, Shepard said, “Because I’m going to use common sense. I’m not going to promise anything unless I can guarantee it. That’s how politicians should be.”
Focusing on the needs of Pocatello citizens, rather than interest groups or political parties, is what Shepard hopes to accomplish if elected mayor.
Shepard said his current job as purchasing agent/warehouseman has given him the needed experience to work with the city’s budget. When possible, he tries to purchase locally.
Leading by example is another focus of Shepard’s, who said during the summer floods in Pocatello, he helped pump out an underpass and fill sandbags, unlike Blad, who Shepard said remained at the command station. A willingness to get his hands dirty is something Shepard said is a necessary quality in a leader.
While the other candidates’ interest in the mayoral race focused on economic issues, Sierra “Idaho Lorax” Carta is primarily concerned with environmental cleanup.
Idaho Lorax, as he prefers to be called, said cancer-causing contaminants have been present in Pocatello for decades. He said cover-up has prevented most citizens from learning about this but that newly-available testing and allegedly high rates of rare cancers locally are proof of the radiation’s existence.
Lorax plans to use the city’s resources to file class-action lawsuits against groups responsible for the contamination and cover-up, which he said will fund years worth of local contaminant removal. This would spur the local economy and research, he said, providing a boon for ISU scientists and drawing people to the area.
The three candidates hoping to win Blad’s seat as mayor said they would have handled the LGBT anti-discrimination ordinance issue from earlier this year differently than Blad.
When the ordinance was first an issue in city council meetings, it came to Blad to pass the deciding vote. He voted “no” initially, saying the ordinance at the time was too divisive, and he wanted to amend its language.
Chase, Shepard and Lorax said they would have voted “yes” on the ordinance. All three criticized Blad’s handling of the situation, saying he should have supported the anti-discrimination measure from the beginning.
A revised version of the ordinance passed city council in June, and will be on the ballot for Pocatello voters in May.
