One of the commitments I made when I asked for your vote to serve as Mayor was to help create a more open and transparent City Hall. That commitment matters most when the issues are complicated, emotions are running high, and reasonable people may disagree.
Over the past several weeks, there has been a great deal of discussion about Sacajawea Park, housing, City-owned property near Sacajawea Park, NeighborWorks Pocatello, and my previous role with the organization. This is on top of other contentious issues such as data centers, a city hall relocation study, Flock cameras and more.
I welcome these conversations. Citizens should ask questions of their government. They should question proposals, attend meetings, speak during public hearings, attend open houses, request records, and hold elected officials accountable.
But I also believe we have a responsibility to make sure those conversations begin with accurate information. Honesty and integrity are core values for me. When I hear something that concerns me, I want to be able to check it out for myself. As Mayor, I want to make it easier for every citizen to do the same.
I spent many years leading NeighborWorks Pocatello before becoming Mayor, and I am proud of the work we did helping families, seniors, and neighborhoods. NeighborWorks now has different leadership, and my responsibility today is to the citizens of Pocatello.
Questions about that history are fair. Questions about conflicts of interest are fair. Disagreement with a particular housing proposal is fair. Wanting to preserve and improve a city park is fair.
But allegations of wrongdoing are serious, and they deserve something more substantial than repetition on social media. When misinformation – intentional or not – becomes part of the conversation, complicated questions about housing, growth, parks, infrastructure, economic development, and our future can quickly get flattened into one-sided virtue-signaling contests. That doesn’t help us make better decisions. It makes it harder for neighbors to understand one another and harder to find workable solutions.
If anyone genuinely believes that corruption has occurred, there is an independent process outside municipal government for addressing that concern.
The Idaho Attorney General’s Office accepts public-corruption complaints involving allegations of criminal conduct by city, county and state elected officials acting in their official capacity. The
Attorney General’s Office determines whether a complaint meets the requirements for investigation. That means those allegations can be examined outside our local government and on the facts. The Attorney General also makes clear that this process does not cover civil matters such as open-meeting or public record disputes. Information and the complaint process are available via the Attorney General’s website at https//www.ag.idaho.gov.
If someone sincerely believes that corruption has occurred and the legal standard to have something investigated has been met, I encourage you to use this process. Personally, I would much rather have a serious allegation of wrongdoing examined by the appropriate independent body versus being decided through rumor, speculation, or social media comments. This latter method doesn’t bring us together. Instead, it causes distrust and pulverization of the community.
At the same time, I want to thank the people of Pocatello who have spoken up – whether you support a proposal, oppose it, or are still trying to understand it. Please keep speaking up. Please keep asking questions. Please keep showing up. Those conversations are how we make this community better.
When I ran against our former mayor, there were plenty of things we disagreed about. That’s one of the primary reasons I ran against him. But I could still identify things he had done or positions he held that I agreed with. I think being able to recognize common ground -even with someone you usually disagree with – is one of the marks of a reasonable decision-maker.
We don’t have to choose between caring about parks and caring about seniors who need affordable housing. We don’t have to agree on every development proposal to agree that Pocatello needs thoughtful growth. And we shouldn’t have to belong to the same political camp to acknowledge when someone makes a good point.
There is an old saying worth remembering: “If you won’t admit the broken clock is right twice a day, you probably just hate clocks.”
Let’s keep asking hard questions. Let’s keep checking the facts. And let’s keep looking for common ground that allows neighbors to solve problems together.
That’s the type of community conversation we all want to have.