Location, Location, Location

I was pleased to receive in the mail last week an endorsement and contribution from the Utah County Association of Realtors (UCAOR).

This came as a result of an interview I had with members of the board. Here's what I told them:

Location, location, location. As the city of American Fork, we are the location, and the best thing we can do to facilitate home sales is tend to the quality of life in the neighborhoods. Sidewalks, safe routes to school, and parks are issues on which UCAOR and I see eye-to-eye.

Impact fees. While impact fees are a necessary evil -- they enable a city to provide fire and ambulance, roads, sewer, and parks up front to a new development -- they are still a tax, and responsible government must do its part through pro-active planning to keep that tax to a minimum.

Zoning. Adherence to a good general plan is a central theme of my campaign. But it's important to be sure that zoning meets the needs of the City while responding to market forces. Otherwise, the City will see a surplus of unsaleable homes, which leads to blight. Also, it's important to remember that zoning is not the only tool available to a city seeking to offer upscale housing options. Additional tools are available in the form of covenants, codes, and restrictions.

Envision Utah. I endorse the work of Envision Utah in this area.

Question: Does UCAOR's endorsement make me beholden to realtors or developers?

Answer: No. This is not a bribe. It's important to note that all the information in this interview flowed one way -- from me. In other words, I explained my philosophy, and UCAOR decided its level of agreement. At no time did the board ask me to take any specific position on any given issue.

Question: Do I have the spine to stand up to outside interests when the City's interests are at stake?

Answer: Yes, I have a spine, and this doesn't change that. I also have red hair, which comes with the classic red-headed temperament, and that's not going to change, either.

At least, the temperament's not. I did, however, pull out my first gray hair last night.

I'm starting to think this campaign has gone on long enough.

Three Cheers for our Parks!

Our beautiful parks.

There's still much to be done. We still need picnic shelters, parking lots, walkways, and swingsets, and that's just the beginning.

But tonight was about the end -- the end of the upgrades provided out of the parks bond.

I wish you had been there tonight to see the report the parks steering committee made to the City Council. I'm reproducing my part of the report below.

You would have been proud of me: I got through it without crying.

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Mayor and Members of the Council:

The last of the bonded upgrades to 27 city parks are now complete. Though our residents have been enjoying their parks for some time already, it is our pleasure formally to present the completed improvements to you now.

When I am finished with my remarks, Jay Bollwinkel of MGB+A and Kenny Hoggan, chair of the parks task force, will quantify what we did and what remains to be done.

But first, on behalf of the task force, the steering committee, and the people of American Fork, please allow me to thank you for your support of these upgrades.

In particular, our thanks to Mayor Barratt, who made parks a goal for his second term.

Thanks to Carl Wanlass, former city administrator, who prepared the way for the bond, and to his successors, Melanie Marsh and Cathy Jensen, for their help with implementation.

And finally, our thanks to Council Member Juel Belmont for her service to the parks steering committee as its City Council representative.

I took the opportunity last weekend to visit Hunter Park, the last of our parks to be completed. What I saw there took my breath away. I hope you will take the occasion to visit that park soon. You will feel that you are standing in God’s Country, a phrase Council Member Belmont has often reminded us of.

Here in our parks, we arrogant humans have added something important to God’s Country. In building these parks, we have made creation more accessible to the children and families of American Fork.

Those children and their families are the important thing I want you to notice when you visit our parks. Notice how many families are in our parks at any given time.

That’s my point tonight. This project has been as much about people as about parks. It is the culmination of years of work by many people. I will name some of them now:

• The mothers of the Hunter Park neighborhood, who started this project when they came to the City Council and said our children need parks for their social and physical well-being.
• The members of the many different neighborhoods and the Neighbors in Action committee who went door-to-door taking surveys and rallying support.
• The parks task force, which united the interests of the neighborhoods, the beautification and recreation committees, and the parks department into one concrete proposal
• The voters, who passed the bond by a 3-to-1 margin
• Members of the city staff: the planning, public works, and engineering departments, and, in particular, Cal Houghton and the parks department, whose cooperation and insight borne of 25 years in the city parks led to good, solid decisions
• The people of MGB+A and Allstate Construction, who contributed their professionalism, integrity, skill and vision
• Finally, hundreds of volunteers throughout the city. I still can’t get over our experience at Kimberly Park, where we called for 100 volunteers to plant trees, and the neighborhood sent us 175.

On December 2, 2004, the American Fork Citizen ran this letter by Seth Wynn, one of our residents. He said this:

I am very pleased to see all the new parks being put up. As a kid it is important to have a place to play and have fun. I am very glad American Fork City has spent time on building new parks. Good job!

That says it all.

Deep, Dark, Dirty Dish

It has come to my attention that certain rumors are circulating about me.

According to my opposition, I am raising children at home, and I sometimes bring them to meetings.

Actually, this is true.

In particular, I have an eleven-year-old daughter, Meg. On occasion, when my husband can't cover for me at home, she babysits for me. She has an instinctive gift for children.

But when circumstances permit, I bring her with me to meetings. She loves this. She is at that darling age when a girl wants to grow up to be just like her mother. Imprinting, I think it's called.

It's plain that my politics are rubbing off on Meg. I can tell by what she did tonight. When I came home from the Meet the Candidates event at the Senior Center, she had a written report waiting for me.

It was a full listing and tally of every off-color word her brothers had used during the evening.

"Just wait patiently," I said. "Some day your brothers will grow up."

"I don't think so, " she said. "Look at Jeff," she said. Then she went straight to record. "He's had fifteen years to grow up, and he hasn't done a single thing about it."

Then there's the baby, Michael. He'll be one year in December. I thought about posting his picture on my Web site, but then I realized it just wouldn't be fair to my opponents.

He, too, has a history of city meetings. Unfortunately, the last meeting I took him to was too much. When he heard the latest insult the city had prepared for Downtown, Inc., he began raging inconsolably.

Much as I admire his ability to say what he thinks, I realized then that the time had come to leave him home with his siblings. We'll keep him home until he's learned more appropriate ways to express disagreement.

I estimate that I have four children all together. It's hard to get an accurate headcount, because they don't stand still.

However, I'm fairly certain I can reproduce their position on having a candidate for a mother.

The thing they wish is that city politics would take their mother away from them more often. So far, we haven't let up on the piano lessons, the piano practice, or the homework after school, or on 4-H, family dinner, or bedtime reading.

Since I've been balancing my children's needs against a heavy load of city meetings for four years now, I've learned to do it gracefully.

My plan for my children, four years hence, is for them to enjoy a safe, clean, friendly neighborhood; and for them to have their choice of arts and recreation programs, symphony and choir concerts, library services, and parks; and for them to enjoy a vibrant community with a healthy economic future.

I figure what's good for my kids is good for us all.

Breaking News!

Folks who attended tonight's Meet-the-Candidates event were fortunate for two reasons. They were treated to pizza, courtesy Papa John's and the Chamber of Commerce, and they got to hear the artful unveiling of my plan for economic development in American Fork.

"We need an economic development director, an economic development plan, and an economic development mindset," I said.

"The last strategic development plan this community laid was dated 1992," I said. "That was fourteen years ago."

"The only thing this city does for economic development is to vote Yea or Nay when a developer comes forward with a proposal.

"That's very reactive," I said. "I am very proactive."

Imagine my astonishment, therefore, when Debby Lauret (Executive Director for the Chamber of Commerce, and host for tonight's event) came up to me afterward with her breaking news: American Fork has just hired her as the city's economic development director.

Hallelujah!

The position will be part-time, which will allow Debby to continue her most excellent work with the Chamber. (This is also a part-time position, though you wouldn't know it from all the traditions Debby has established there: the Halloween Fun-Run, the Business Classic Golf Tournament, the Women in Business Wellness Conference, the monthly luncheon, and various workshops for chamber businesses. She pulls this off by unleashing her brilliant inner self and also by partnering strategically with Lehi.)

I still say we need a full-time director. Also a grant-writer. But this is a step in the right direction.

Now, for an economic development plan.

Call Out the Fire Department!

Imagine.

The fire truck runs up your street and down your neighbors'. The siren wails from the station. The message blares over the loudspeaker:

"Get ye to the library! Get ye to the library!"

"Meet the candidates, 7:00 tonight! Meet the candidates, 7:00 tonight!"

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And why not?

This was the brainchild of Annette Anderson, a concerned voter I met when I went knocking on doors last Saturday.

She attended the PTA's meet-the-candidate event the night before, and its 75 attendees didn't seem like nearly enough to her. So far, she has persuaded at least one volunteer firefighter -- her husband, who is also the fifth-generation Anderson of Anderson and Sons' Mortuary.

American Fork needs a few thousand more Annette Andersons. She knows her stake in the community. She has a list of concerns and a clear sense of priorities -- arts are important, she says, but not at the expense of the fire department -- but she can't be sure how to vote until she has met the candidates and judged their proposals.

Above all, she trusts the public. She knows the public will make the right decision -- if only it will make the effort to get informed.

Bring on the fire department!

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Annette is by no means the first to be concerned about informing the voters. But she's the first individual I've met with a plan to address the problem.

More commonly, the task is taken up by organizations. So far, I've responded to invitations to meet with the Utah Valley Home Builders Association, the Utah County Association of Realtors, the American Fork Council PTA, the Chamber of Commerce, Downtown American Fork, Inc., the American Fork Symphony, and employees of the American Fork Hospital.

Some call them special-interest groups. But the voter in me is grateful for every opportunity they organize. They perform a truly valuable political service.

See, at heart, these groups are no different from Annette Anderson. They have a stake in the community (and don't we all); they have a list of concerns; they have a set of priorities.

Instead of calling out the fire department, they set up forums. Some ask candidates to address their membership directly; others interview the candidates and publish their findings in their newsletters.

At heart, it's no different from what Annette does: They meet the candidates, judge their proposals, and make their findings known.

Annette's neighbors may agree or disagree with her judgment. It's the same with these special interest groups. Their memberships are free to accept or reject any implied endorsement, based on their own personal judgment.

So whether you call out the fire department or rally your colleagues, the outcome is the same. More voters have more information.

An informed electorate has true freedom of choice.

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Isn't this better than the point-and-poke method?

I've talked to a number of people who confessed, somewhat sheepishly, that during the last election they took their ballots and poked holes at random. They're glad to meet me, they say, because now they'll know a name to punch.

It shouldn't be that easy to get a vote.

Hemming and Hahhing at the Hospital

A question posed at the hospital's meet-the-candidates event yesterday caught me off guard.

What can be done, they asked, to get a signal light at 1100 East and 50 South, where there's now a four-way stop?

You know the place. When I use that intersection, I always pack a lunch, because I know I'm going to be there for a long time.

When I was on the AF Junior High PTSA, we were able to talk the City Council into giving us a four-way stop for the intersection of 1120 North and 150 West. It was an achievement, but it wasn't ALL that difficult. We did some traffic counting, made our case, listened to the mayor speechify, did some more traffic counting, and voila -- we got our stop signs.

But this intersection is tricky because it straddles three jurisdictions: American Fork, Pleasant Grove, and Utah County.

So I didn't know how to answer yesterday, and it rankled me.

This morning, I did some research.

I went to UDOT's Web site and read about their criteria for locating traffic signals. I learned the price tag for a typical installation: $150,000. (Cheap!) But I couldn't find the answer to my question: Who has jurisdiction over that intersection?

In other words, do we have to go through UDOT to get a traffic signal here, or can we do it ourselves?

So I picked up the phone and called UDOT. The very nice person on the other end of the line didn't know the answer, either.

She's going to have some one call me.

In the meantime, I am browsing the World Wide Web and have learned an intensely interesting bit of history.

I learned how the new Pleasant Grove freeway exit came to be.

I had thought it was the result of long-term study and planning on the part of UDOT. I was wrong.

That interchange was initiated by Pleasant Grove's economic development director. He forged a partnership between Pleasant Grove, Lindon, and a large land-owner. They hired an engineering firm to analyze the cost -- $11 million -- then raised half that money before proposing it to UDOT and asking for the other half.

This is intensely interesting to me because economic development is the most important principle underlying the intersection at 1100 East.

Sure, I gripe when I'm stuck there. But the hospital, as we learned yesterday, has a bigger problem. It's concerned about losing business -- specifically, Lehi's business -- to IHC's new facility in north Salt Lake County.

Why, when you're ten centimeters dilated, should you sit in gridlock in American Fork when you can zoom right off the freeway in Riverton?

Now a light clicks on in my mind. Here is the point we missed yesterday at the hospital.

This is not just a matter for the city engineers. This intersection should be the red flag item, the hot-button issue, the number one entry on the to-do list of our city's economic development director.

The only problem is --

OUR CITY DOESN'T HAVE AN ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR.

Economic development is just one of the duties of one of our staffers.

Did I not say something, elsewhere, about our city's need for proactive economic development?

I rest my case.

Oops! Correction!

In my last post, I listed the location of Friday's Meet-the-Candidate night incorrectly.

The PTA-sponsored event will be held at American Fork Junior High School, and NOT at the public library.

I fixed that last post, so it appears correctly now.

Candidate Sightings

It has been nearly a week since my last post, and you have been wondering what happened to your favorite candidate. Why the long radio silence? Where can you get your next Heidi-fix?

Responding to these questions in order:

With the primary behind us, we have taken a week to regroup. We have been furiously strategizing -- composing ads, ordering signs, mapping locations for them, printing door-hangers, calendaring, etc., etc., etc.

I am truly fortunate to have such a willing and able staff to help. Now here's a true but under-appreciated fact about delegation: The pay-off comes in the long term. In the initial phases, however -- when you're setting policy, establishing procedures, training, communicating, creating confidence, etc. -- successful delegation always takes longer than doing it yourself.

But the pay-off does come. In this case, we now have a fully empowered organization of volunteers, each of whom can act and speak more powerfully for me than I can for myself.

That's why I've been too busy to blog.

Now, here's where to spot myself and all the other nice candidates these next two weeks:

Thursday, October 13, 12:00 noon, American Fork Hospital

Friday, October 14, 7:00 p.m., American Fork Junior High (sponsored by the PTA)

Wednesday, October 19, 7:00 p.m., American Fork Library (sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce)

Thursday, October 20, 7:00 p.m., Senior Center (organized by Keith Richan)

I hope to see you there!

Primary Election Results

Yes, my friends, we're still in!

In the primary, the successful candidates needed to finish in the top four.

I was third, sandwiched rather tightly between Jimmie Cates (second) and Juel Belmont (fourth).

See detailed results at my husband's blog, here.

Encouraging, to think that I'm no longer campaigning on my vision alone. I'm campaigning on a vision shared by at least 781 other people.

Must not let them down.

Ode to a Fine Candidate on an Equally Fine Fall Day

by Leslie Dalton

Because our children need safe routes to school,
And our fair city needs to grow and thrive,
We need a candidate who's not just cool,
But who will work with commitment and drive.

She'll patronize the arts and help us know
The quality of life we dream about.
She wants professionalism to grow
In order to have community clout.

We'll still have all that's best about our town,
Including vital links to A.F.'s past,
But when the neighbor's weeds are all cut down,
The good parts of life here can really last.

If you don't choose her, you have missed the boat,
'Cause Heidi Rodeback deserves your vote.
_______________________________

Don't forget to vote in the primary tomorrow!

Just remember, when you go, that no other candidate has inspired a sonnet.

Negative Campaigning

I was disappointed to open my mailbox Friday afternoon and find a piece of negative campaign literature from mayoral candidate Shirl LeBaron. I expected better of him.

The mailer, with its unflattering mug shot of the Harrington School and its distorted spin on the RDA vote, suggests to me that LeBaron feels no concern for the blight in our city's core, and thinks nothing of dragging our city's foremost historic treasure through another mud fight.

The voters might or might not count these as negatives against him. That remains to be seen.

But the clear negative is the attack itself.

Negative campaigning is a bad idea in any race. It cheapens the political process, and it usually backfires.

Negative campaigning is a particularly bad idea in a small town. No matter what happens in the mayoral race, all three candidates will continue to work together on the various issues that dog American Fork. LeBaron has just sacrificed his ability, after the election, to forge a positive relationship with two key American Fork players.

Does LeBaron doubt his ability to promote a positive agenda?

If I know Heber, he won't dignify this with a response.