Moscow’s 2021 local election sees three open city councilor positions with eight candidates in the running.
Hailey Lewis, Julia Parker, Kyrk Taylor, Jason Stooks, Steve Harmon and Gina Taruscio answered questions concerning their positions on topics. Candidates Melissa Cline and Shaun Dareshi are also in the running.
Candidates addressed issues of Moscow’s aquifer, climate change and city development. Individual choice and COVID-19 protocols were also discussed.
Hailey Lewis
Lewis is a government affairs specialist at Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories and a graduate of the University of Idaho. Lewis, who graduated in 2016, also believes she possesses a connection to Moscow’s younger demographics.
What made you run for Moscow City Council?
The average age of the town is something like mid-20s so, as a 20 something, I was excited to be able to provide a young person’s perspective who also didn’t always see myself being in Moscow forever, but I want Moscow to be that for other people.
Aquifer
There are conversations about pumping water up from the Snake River, there are some other conversations about better water retention. The difficult part is balancing what actually makes sense for a municipal government to take on. What a lot of it also comes down to is community engagement.
Carbon emissions
It’s been interesting hearing the side of the conversation that is about moving towards 100% renewables, which I’ve been a fan of as long as I understood it … The hard part’s going to be navigating what makes sense and what timeline makes sense that will not harm our reliable power.
COVID-19
The people closest to the problems are the best ones to give you a solution. When we had our community leaders at Moscow school districts, the University of Idaho, Gritman and a couple other community settings … coming to the city to say “we need your support and we need you to support a mask mandate,” I think the city responded appropriately.
Julia Parker
According to her campaign website, Parker’s professional career initially began in the field of natural sciences, where she conducted research on environmental justice and natural resource-dependent communities. Julia Parker has spent the last decade and a half in the field of nursing and is a board member of multiple local organizations including the Moscow United Soccer Club, the Moscow Food Co-op and the Moscow Civic Association.
What made you run for Moscow City Council?
Moscow has had this great reputation of being a welcoming place and I’m concerned that a vocal minority in town has put out the idea that has made Moscow seem like a less friendly place. I just wanted to reinforce that Moscow is a really welcoming, great place to live.
Aquifer
There have been great reports from the Palouse Basin Aquifer Committee, and they’ve selected four alternatives … to me, the most attractive ones are water from the Snake River or water from the Palouse River.
Development
I think that if we are going to approve developments, we really need to be looking at two important things- water and transportation. We can’t build these developments on the edges of town and then ignore how that’s going to impact roads and pathways to town.
Carbon emissions
We already have a really great multimodal transportation system in terms of great bike paths and it’s very walkable in many parts of Moscow. I think that we can continue to capitalize on those things and be a leader in reducing our carbon footprint.
COVID-19
I’m a nurse now and things changed really rapidly in terms of (how) to battle COVID. I think that the mask mandate was very appropriate. It helped us keep some of those businesses open as much as we could.
Kyrk Taylor
Taylor is a candidate with long-standing experience in the healthcare sector with a Masters of Health Policy and Administration from Washington State University. He currently serves as the Senior Human Resources Generalist at Pullman Regional Hospital. Prior to moving to his current position at Pullman Regional Hospital, Taylor worked in Spokane as a housekeeper for MultiCare Health System and for the outreach and operations department of Wilderness Medical Staffing.
What made you run for Moscow City Council?
I just want to be a voice for goodness, to help people with collaboration and reach a common consensus on some of these big issues instead of staying frozen.
Aquifer
As a member of city council, I would utilize the experts who have been researching this and working for the past while and talk with them about finding an appropriate solution that is sustainable … I would love to find a sustainable solution that we could work towards as a community, that we could hopefully pool our resources toward to find a long-term solution.
Development
I am pro-development. We need to build more affordable housing that working families can come and join our community and add to it.
Carbon emissions
I like that Avista is providing opportunities to have renewable, clean energy … and I know that a big part of our energy is coming from Avista, so we would need to talk with them and see what solutions they’ve been working on, what’s sustainable for them.
COVID-19
I do respect individuals’ right to make the decision for themselves, but I am pro-vaccination. I would definitely love to see us curb this pandemic so we can be done with it and so we can all continue to live healthy lives.
Jason Stooks
Stooks, originally from upstate New York, moved to Moscow after COVID-19 caused shutdowns. Since moving to Moscow, Stooks and his family have enjoyed living in a small town. Stooks is currently an events service business owner and sets up emergency medical training programs like CPR or First Aid certification. He’s currently attending the University of Idaho, completing a degree in criminology.
Why did you run for Moscow City Council?
Growth and opportunities are really big for me, making sure that if we have people living here, running small businesses, or even future residents, we all want to have that growth and opportunity for families. And rights and liberties often tie into that as well. In order to be successful… being told that we have to stay home, or close our business… that’s not how our community succeeds if you’re closing the businesses down.
COVID-19
(The pandemic) ended a lot of business growth and individual growth because of lockdowns and stuff and local mandates. Ideally, it’s not being good neighbors or citizens. You know, we must be listening to the people first, you know, and make sure that we’re clarifying if we have any concerns about what they’re asking.
Freedom of choice
In order to be successful, we need to have, kind of freedom of choice. And being able to not be labeled as non-essential and being told that we have to stay home or close on our business, because that’s not how our community succeeds if you’re closing the businesses down. The city doesn’t make money off any kind of taxes, and businesses don’t make money off of the citizens’ stuff.
Steve Harmon
Harmon graduated from Washington State University with a Bachelor’s in communications. Harmon has lived in Moscow for five years after moving from Portland. Harmon is a business owner that has been self-employed for 22 years and a member of the Christ Church congregation. This will be the second time that Harmon has run for a city council position.
Why did you run for city council?
I’m running for city council because we need a diverse voice… Apart from that, I would say a monolithic political perspective… We have a very, I would say, more leftist leaning city council and I don’t think that it accurately represents the town.
More aggressive, leftist ideologies started to become more dominant and intolerant in Portland, and probably around 2014-2015, it was just a lot more prominent than it had been before. And so that was one of the reasons why I left is because it really changed from being more of a live and let live type of town into a more monolithic political scene, and that really, you know, played its way into so into the social environments and things like that. And when I moved here, I kind of noticed some of those same things were happening in Moscow.
Aquifer
As far as I know, for over 25 years, this has been an issue, it’s not an issue that’s just come up recently… As far as actually being an expert in how an aquifer works, we’re going to have to rely upon expert analysis. I am 100%, behind any of those things, that’s one of those non-negotiables.
However, what I just don’t want to see is politicization based upon it. I think at times it’s there’s been kind of an anti-growth model that has been used when they talk about the aquifers. And that’s been kind of I feel like been used to kind of bolster limiting development and things like that
So as far as being an expert in water, we’re gonna have to rely upon experts, right? Like there’s nobody on the city council is going to be a qualified water and soil specialist.
Carbon emissions
It felt very much like that there were city workers that are kind of empowered to be coming up with solutions or even strategies for things that are not articulated.
I would want to have a feasibility study done first before we present things to people.
The problem of it, I would say is that when I went and did my mild research on the Sierra Club, the Ready For 100 plan, is that it’s very unspecific.
Mayoral candidate Olivia Moses’ ‘fight the cult’ and Christ Church
Moses’ platform has run with criticism of Christ Church, denouncing the group as a cult.
Probably the most insidious thing we can do in a democratic republic is to isolate any specific group. That can be a group that’s based upon sexual preference, it could be a group based upon somebody who’s of a different financial class or it could be toward a church group or whatever the case is. And this is really bad, especially when we have a good amount of people who are Christ Church.
If there’s somebody in Christ Church who is committing a crime, that should be prosecuted. It doesn’t matter which group you’re from.
Gina Taruscio
Taruscio is a current city councilor running for reelection after a four-year term and served as chamber director for the Moscow Chamber of Commerce before being elected. Taruscio is also the executive director of the Partnership for Economic Prosperity and serves as councilor in the Palouse Basin Aquifer Committee.
Why did you run for city council?
With running right now, I almost feel more compelled because of the division. You know, the issues aren’t really any different. We have a water problem. We have a housing problem. We have a transportation and infrastructure problem.
Development
The housing lack right now that we have is a result of not growing for the last 10 years, up to our normal 1%.
The organization (Partnership for Economic Prosperity) I work for did a housing study in 2019 and the consultant found that we are behind in the housing, building houses by 270 a year.
These developments are crucial to our well-being as a community, and without growth, we will die. Moscow will just wither away.
We also need to encourage growth in that it diversifies tax space. Without the ability to recruit more business in and get those dollars in circulation, Moscow again will not survive.
Division in Moscow
What I would like to see more than anything is understanding conversation… yeah, we’re all going to say stuff nobody agrees with, but we need to get it out and then try to find some common ground.
For me is a kind of a meanness. There is this divide on mask wearing and we’ve become angry and bothered by it enough that we’ve drawn almost battle lines.
COVID-19
Now after we’ve come through… months of it, I would say that it should be up to the individual whether or not they get the vaccine and it should be up to the individual whether or not they choose to wear masks.
I do believe on some level, however, that we do have responsibility to our co-citizens. I believe it’s to be our choice, but I believe at some point we need to make certain that we are not infecting everybody else at the same time.
If I had, if I had any kind of crystal ball at that point, to be able to figure out how long things are going to be locked down, I would have never burdened business the way that we did.
Business took and carried an unfair burden in the whole situation.
Mayoral candidate Olivia Moses’ ‘fight the cult’ and Christ Church
People fear what they don’t completely understand. I think that one person can poison a perception of a congregation really quickly and easily. I think that the acceptance and the inclusiveness of Moscow is part of what’s been really stressed and stretched and beaten up during this COVID pandemic
I want us to get back to the acceptance… Now we are using masks as kind of a scarlet letter to judge other people. And I really would like that to stop.
Candidates Melissa Cline and Shaun Dareshi could not be reached for comment.
Royce McCandless, Sierra Pesnell and Daniel Ramirez can be reached at [email protected]