Friday, March 12, 2010

Candidate Interviews: Tim Hackleman, Sidney City Council

This past Monday, Sidney City Council Candidate Tim Hackleman sat down with me over lunch to discuss his candidacy and a host of positions and issues he feels are important to him and the people of Sidney. What follows is a frank discussion regarding issues he is passionate about and gives some insight as to the kind of councilman he would be, if elected.

Hackleman is a Senior Art Director at Cabela's. His responsibilities include creative effective presentations of products the outdoor retailer sells, driving sales and creating profit for the company. In building these presentations, he needs to effectively communicate sometimes difficult information to a variety of people to achieve their buy-in for his ideas. Occasionally, through the creative process, changes are deemed necessary and Tim sometimes finds that his designs need to change to reflect a variety of conditions that come up.

Hackleman feels like his skills at communicating in his day job would be useful as a member of the City Council. "The communication level needs to increase," he says of the current council's interaction with the public: "There's very little explanation behind anything that is ever done."

According to his way of thinking, the silence during the discussion portion of agenda items fails to give the public the kind of insight into what the respective councilmen are thinking. When asked whether the problem is isolated to a few councilmen or the council in general, he says that it has been his perception that the problem affects all councilmen at times.

The perception of the current council is a primary reason Hackleman is running. One of the biggest issues he has taken a stand on thus far is the notion that council members should not bid on city work, due to the perception that favoritism could be occurring. He is careful to point out that he doesn't believe it is the intent of any council member to take something from the public, but feels a certain separation should prevent members from bidding on city work. He has said that he would work toward the creation of an ordinance to prevent elected or appointed officials from being able to bid on city business.

Another thing that is important to Hackleman is a strong sense of community. It is another central theme of his campaign. His blog contains several definitions for the term and he sees projects such as the Deadwood Trail extension as being vitally important to building the kind of community residents can and should be proud of.

Controversy has affected the walking trail project for several years, with original plans to build it on the north side of town replaced with several versions on the south end being brought forward. Ultimately, city council voted to continue the project on its present course, which takes it from the soccer fields near WNCC all the way up to Jennifer Lane. Cabela's has chipped in and agreed to pay up to 200,000 to extend the trail to the interstate corridor. Hackleman understands the need to complete the project or risk losing the half-million dollar grant, but still has problems with the project.

He feels that the original location should have been adhered to, due to the nature of how the path would connect all three parts of the town. "As I look at out community," he says, "it is divided into three regions ... the interstate corridor, the historic downtown, which includes neighborhoods around the park and the north side." He feels that it would have been a better effort to put the trail on the north side, even if it could not have been connected due to issues with the railroad that forced the trail design change to begin with.

The idea of extending the project to the north side is an important one for Tim who added, "I would hope ... am hopeful in the near term that we could expand it up to the north as well. I would like to see something that unites all three of those regions. A symbol of that would be a path for the entire community."

As important an issue as binding the community together is to Hackleman, he understands that the priorities must be balanced with a number of commitments. "I wouldn't want to cut jobs in order to fund the path," he says. Funding projects such as a north side expansion to the trail or performing additional work on the north side park would need to be prioritized.

The economy has been tough and Sidney has seen its share of layoffs and reductions in revenues from economic downturns and sales tax refunds from economic development programs. Hackleman gives credit to City Manager Gary Person, of whom he is a strong proponent, for managing the city budgets and providing feedback to council members and department heads. Sidney has been managing the budget very closely, but Hackleman understands that a great many things would have to be considered at budget time.

Job cutting is probably the last thing the City Manager, city council or any department head would want to consider and Hackleman lends his support on that matter. "We never want to see anyone go without work." He believes that the economic picture is improving and doesn't believe that job cuts would ever seriously be considered.

Hackleman said that the city departments should focus on finding ways to forestall adding new jobs, particularly in the tough economy right now. "Can you cross train people, what resources are available too and use what is available to you in order to order to manage expenditures?"

Depending on the refund level and the need for other capital projects, holding the line on new employees might be a necessary pill to swallow. According to Hackleman, "If that means we need to look at a hiring freeze for 2011, we should do that." He adds that the balancing act between needs, wants and nice to haves forces you to ask yourself if you can get by without them for a period of time.

Tim expressed some concerns with some of the past decisions the city has made. There was some controversy surrounding the type of police car that the city has adopted and Hackleman has wondered why the Dodge Charger was chosen over other types of cars in surrounding communities.

"In a town four to five miles end to end in any direction, do you need vehicles of that caliber for city patrols," he said. The Dodge Charger is a fairly new police cruiser and is used with increasing frequency. Communities such as Sterling, Colo. do not use them, but instead rely on the Chevrolet Malibu for in-town patrols. He also understands that eventually police cruisers need replacement based on the type of service and the mileage they accumulate. The power and capability of the cruiser in a town the size of Sidney is of concern to him as well.

"As tight as our community is, physically," he says, "I would hate to see one of those guys [police] hauling down the street, trying to pull somebody over in a pursuit with that kind of energy."

We next talked about the comprehensive plan survey now circulating around town. Tim believes that the survey will solicit a lot of response from the people who live here. "I think it's great. I think that it included just about everything they could include to gauge the community's interest level in a wide variety of things." One of the items on the list was the north side park.

"It's not kept up very well," he says of the neighborhood park. Citing tree planting and landscaping efforts at the bigger park, he wondered why we weren't planting trees and doing landscaping up there as well. Hackleman thinks that better playground equipment and other amenities should be done for the park so the residents can, "be proud of where they live." Even though most of the city's population lives south of the Santa Fe tracks, Hackleman says, "that doesn't give us the right to neglect what's happening up on the north side."

Some of the item on the survey included putting lights up at the soccer fields. Hackleman, who is involved with the soccer program said that adding lights would have a positive impact and could be done relatively cheaply. "We bring people into Sidney for the games," he says. "If we have nice facilities, more teams would want to come in and play."

Hackleman says that the city is aggressively seeking feedback from the residents and he encourages everyone to fill out and return the survey by the 15th.

It isn't just beautification efforts for the north side that occupies Tim's time. Economic development issues are equally important.

"There are a range of commercial buildings on the north side," he says. Adding a convenience store or a small grocery store up there would have significant impact for residents who perhaps don't have cars or who normally have to walk to Safeway or other convenience stores presently. "We need to explore new ways, instead of just doing the status quo."

Traffic between the north section of town and the rest of Sidney is also a problem. Increasing traffic up north would present challenges since there are really two primary ways to get to the north side of town.

A lot of controversy has been generated surrounding the nature of the City Manager/Economic Development Director role. Hackleman is an ardent supporter of the current position holder, Gary Person and doesn't believe it is necessarily the job of the City Council to direct Person's efforts at economic development, as long as he [Person] understands that,"we want the entire community developed."

In Hackleman's view, the city manager would be doing an effective job if the whole community is included in the development plans, and as long as that is happening, "The city council just needs to let him do his job." Longer term satisfaction with the results needs to be continuously evaluated. "If he is not economically developing Sidney, then that's the time we need to look at changes," he added.

Recently the Mayor gave a justification for separating the two positions based on a perceived lack of transparency between the two jobs and that some of the so-called horsetrading wasn't made public earlier in the negotiations. Although Hackleman believes the economic development director should be free to do his job, he also feels that it is important to maintain communications with the City Council members. "I think it's his [Person's] responsibility to keep the Mayor and council apprised of what he is doing. I don't think he should be given a license to do whatever he wants," he said.

It is unique because he has the best of both worlds. If he is going after a project on economic development, he'll immediately know the impacts it will have on city personnel.

Taxes are an issue. Increases in water fees, sewer fees associated with the Waste Water Treatment Plant, the school bond and other issues have increased the total cost of living for city residents who own homes significantly, for more than ten years. The only exception to this was in 2003 where there was a slight decline. City revenues are determined primarily on three venues, Property taxes, sales and use taxes and utility fees. The cost of living in Sidney has seen people leave the confines of the city into the county or even out of state to avoid the relatively higher cost of living here. It isn't just the city, whose fiscal discipline has helped ease the impact recently. They are not the only taxing authority.

Hackleman realizes that it is a fine line to walk. He acknowledges that a small population base works against us. He believes that growth that creates jobs and also development that will bring non-residents to Sidney to shop will be beneficial. "There needs to be an increase in sales tax receipts," he said.

"Gary's focus in targeting companies is essentially correct and he needs to be commended for his efforts."

Are there other areas? "We need to be able to look at Sidney a little bit differently than we have in the past," he says "We're in a very unique position, close to the interstate. We are in an area that is in a prime location for wind energy." He believes that the energy legislation in Lincoln now working its way through the unicameral will have significantly positive impacts on economic development.

New energy sources will have an opportunity to great jobs, and land valuations will increase as well based on the deployment of wind towers on farm land. The additional income from the leases for these systems will create additional investment and jobs locally as well, according to Hackleman.

The last item we discussed was the distribution of funds the city council provides to the Cheyenne County Community Center and the controversy over the council request to open the books. Hackleman feels that if the Center receives funds from the city, it should be required to submit to an audit of those funds by an independent auditor for the protection of the public interest. Because the Community Center is run by a private foundation, they are not required to open their books to anyone. There shouldn't be any secrecy, he says. "People see the money going in, but they don't see the increase in equipment or facilities, or services ... that they feel balances that contribution."

Hackleman says that he recognizes the Center is a private foundation and he doesn't advocate them having to open their entire ledger. He believes that if public funds are disbursed to any organization, the public interest is served if they understand where the money goes and that the value obtained is matches the investment.

Publisher's note: The last paragraph for this piece was removed as it was editorial in nature.
When the interview ended, I felt that Hackleman is a strong proponent of the sense of community he talks about on his website. He repeatedly talked about his strong desire to tie all areas of the community together and he feels that his honesty and willingness to communicate openly will be key components in his bid to survive the primary challenge in May. His answers to the direct questions posed to him during the interview and also from respondents on his blog indicate that he isn't afraid to tackle any question from anyone. In the end, he believes what he believes and he is seeking others who share his vision for changing the way the City Council operates.

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