Evan Holmes Background
Evan Holmes was raised in Ohio and attended Heidelberg College. Beginning in 1979 Holmes was a National Park Service employee, where he met his wife, Nancy, at the Grand Canyon in 1980. In 1989 Nancy started her master’s degree at U of I, Holmes and Nancy loved Moscow so much they decided to stay for good.
Holmes is a contractor, his business includes carpentry, roofing, and painting. In addition to that, Holmes and his wife have created and expanded their business, Interpretive Media Production., which designs and evaluates media for a variety of applications.
What are your main campaign goals and what do you want to change in Moscow?
Holmes wants to focus on giving back to the community and says being a part of the city council is the right way to do that.
He says, “Give me your challenges, and I’ll find ways to get through them.”
Holmes explains the city council’s goals depend on the budget and is interested in creating a more user-friendly budgeting document. He believes this will encourage the public to come in and talk with the city council about spending and where money has to go.
Holmes says, the interest and enthusiasm between the public and city council only exist during election time, by the conduction of meetings, outreach, and a stronger social media presence, Holmes believes it will keep the enthusiastic bond between the public and city council all year long.
In what ways can the relationship between the University of Idaho and Moscow community be improved?
Holmes does necessarily think the relationship between the city and UI is bad but does touch on the topic of making incoming freshmen feel welcomed.
“We’re not bringing them into Moscow and realizing how important their role is.”
It’s important to know how safe, involved, and welcomed freshmen feel, especially once moving to a diverse community for the first time. Holmes also stressed that it’s important to make that diverse community feel welcomed as well.
Are there any problems or areas of improvement in Moscow you have identified?
“No because if I did it’s all because of two events, and that is Covid and then the unfortunate event on campus last year,” Holmes said these two events rattled everyone, but it’s all been forgiven, and we should start resolving other issues.
Why should people vote for you?
Holmes has been involved in city government for over 30 years while working for the National Parks Service. He says he has more time for the city council and is a problem solver. He has a wide connection to people in Moscow through the school district and neighborhoods. His daughter is a professor at the university who has great connections with students and his wife works for the office of research in economic development at UI, so she has connections with the faculty, especially newer faculty. Holmes has also started organizations here; he was on the board of the food co-op and chair of the board of adventure learning camps.
Additional Comments
Get involved. You get the big city experience without being in a big city.
Alyssa Johnson can be reached at [email protected]