Vision for the Corn Palace, Lake Mitchell, council relations highlight key topics at early mayoral debate

Apr. 24—EDITOR'S NOTE — The order of response from each candidate in this story was determined by the order they spoke during the debate.

MITCHELL — The trio of candidates running for mayor squared off for the first time on Wednesday in a debate that revealed each of them have vastly different goals and outlooks on major issues facing Mitchell.

Mayor Bob Everson, Terry Sabers and Jordan Hanson participated in the moderated debate. Among the key questions the candidates fielded during the debate held at James Valley Community Center ranged from Lake Mitchell restoration, plans for the Corn Palace and what motivated each candidate to run for mayor.

As the June 4 citywide election nears, voters will also be deciding whether to authorize the city's $16.8 million loan application that would fund the proposed $25 million Lake Mitchell mechanical dredging project.

Heading into Wednesday's debate, there was mystery surrounding Sabers' stance on Lake Mitchell restoration plans. Sabers did not issue a stance for or against the proposed mechanical dredging project, but he said "not doing anything is not an option."

"The question on the ballot is do we agree with borrowing the money to do the current project, and at this point research has been done and it's up to the people to decide based on the information that's been presented to them. If it does pass, I will work very hard to push it as quickly as possible. We have to do something," Sabers said. "If it doesn't pass, we have to figure out why it did not pass and discover that as quickly as possible to look at all the avenues."

There was no mystery about Hanson and Everson's stances on Lake Mitchell restoration plans. Everson has spent a lot of time during his two terms as mayor pursuing a dredging project, which resulted in the proposed $25 million mechanical dredging project that's on the table.

Hanson has been a vocal critic of the proposed dredging project due to the costs and concerns of the impact it could have on the ecosystem. Taking a biological approach is what Hanson believes is a route that should be further explored to reduce the lake's algae woes.

"My personal opinion is to trust a lot of different biologists. The plan we have now — we have one firm that kind of gave us our option. I visited the U.S.'s largest lake restoration company with a huge history of restoring lakes, and I believe if we restore our ecosystem and the lake — restore doesn't mean drain the lake, destroy and cut down trees and kill everything. I've physically seen lakes that were fixed by this method," Hanson said, claiming it could save the city $30 million. "I'm not saying 100% this is what we need to do, but I'd love a platform to speak with every single person in the community fairly so we can all decide what makes the most sense."

Everson pointed to the multiple engineering firms that recommended mechanical dredging as the best method and most "cost effective" strategy to reducing the lake's harmful algae blooms as a key reason he supports the mechanical dredging project. He emphasized Fyra engineering, now known as Houston Engineering, and Barr Engineering both determined mechanical dredging as the best path forward.

Reducing the runoff that's contributing to the lake's algae problems is another vital step to restore the lake, which Everson said the city has been making solid progress on in recent years.

"I've been working on this for the past six years, and we haven't taken one engineering firm's opinion on this. My position is we dredge the lake, first by draining it and then mechanically dredging it. We initially looked at doing this hydraulically, but the engineers said it would be more cost effective for us to take the lake water down and use equipment to remove the sediment. That physically takes the phosphorus-laden sediment out of the lake," Everson said. "We will continue to work in the Firesteel watershed, and you will see a wetland begin this summer on the former Kelley property."

In addition to the lake topic, here are other notable discussions from the debate:

Each candidate provided an explanation in response to a question asking what led them to run for mayor.

As the former vice president of Muth Electric, Sabers said he learned how to manage massive budgets and hundreds of employees. Bringing his business experience to the city to help grow Mitchell is what Sabers said motivated him to run for mayor.

"I've been a resident of Mitchell for 50 years, and my theme is grow Mitchell. My involvement at Muth Electric was in finance and leadership for 45 years. We grew from 10 employees to 400 while I was there. I've managed a budget three times as large as the city of Mitchell's. I feel like running the city is like running a large business. We have a lake to work on, a Corn Palace to fix and secondary water source to implement. And we have a downtown to work with," Sabers said.

With two mayoral terms under his belt, Everson highlighted the progress Mitchell has made since taking office. Everson said he sought re-election to advance the progress being made.

"The reason I'm interested in remaining your mayor is that we have made some progress with moving Mitchell forward. I think we've made strides, and we want to continue moving Mitchell forward in a positive manner," Everson said.

Hanson is convinced that Mitchell has not been making progress over the past two decades, and he's hoping to implement ideas that he believes will create progress. Providing more activities and entertainment for Mitchell residents are key plans Hanson has to spur progress.

"In the last 15 years or so, I haven't seen a lot of progress. Most of that is easily shown in the numbers and things we have closing or moving away. My number one goal is to make sure we have a lot of things and activities for families to do to come here, stay here, live here and work here. Once that happens, that will make businesses want to move here and invest here. We need to focus on the people," Hanson said.

While the mayor serves as the city's top-elected official, the Mitchell City Council ultimately decides a majority of proposed plans and budget items.

Candidates were asked how they plan to work with the council to move projects forward. As Everson put it, an "adversarial relationship with the council is very detrimental to the city."

"I do this all the time. One of the things I do as mayor is I bring in the council president and vice president the week before every meeting to go over the agenda and discuss what's on it so they are aware and can take that information back to the rest of the council. You have to work with the council. The mayor does not does not have the power in this situation. The council sets the ordinances and resolutions, and the mayor enforces those. The mayor has no spending authority. I submit a budget to them, and it's up to them to approve it and modify it," Everson said. "An adversarial relationship with the council is very detrimental to the city."

Hanson touted his past sales experience for helping learn how to get things done with others as something that would help him get things done with the council.

"One of the biggest things with sales is if you want to get something done, you have to transfer your emotions to someone else. If you ask people nicely, treat people real good and have a good plan, people will listen. If you're truly bought into a plan and have passion for the plan, it's going to be easy to convey that to the council," Hanson said.

Sabers opened by saying an "idea is just a dream unless you have a plan with a team to work on it."

"Working with the council, as well as the county and other groups is very important to get anything accomplished. That doesn't mean coming to them at a council meeting and saying, 'OK guys, here is what I want to do.' When you got a secondary water source that I think is very important to Mitchell that could be a $60 million project, the council needs to be involved from the very beginning," Sabers said.

The list of repairs the city is in the process of addressing at Mitchell's biggest tourist attraction came up during the debate.

Candidates were asked whether they support short-term or long-term repairs for the Corn Palace.

Everson opened by dubbing the Corn Palace as a "gem for the city" that brings roughly 300,000 people to Mitchell's Main Street each year. He said it's important for the city to maintain the tourist attraction and expand the venue to attract more events.

"It's important to the city whether you believe it or not. We need to take care of it and improve it to the extent we can. We have looked at concepts to renovate it to bring in more events, and that comes with a hefty price tag we have to figure out how to fund," Everson said, noting he's supported Corn Palace improvements. "We need to take care of it and make it more usable for the city of Mitchell."

As a real estate developer and businessman, Hanson said he would start with reducing the Corn Palace's annual deficit that's been hovering around $400,000 to $450,000 in recent years.

"Right now, the Corn Palace is losing in excess of $500,000 a year. I think step one is to stop losing money. The way you can stop losing money is great management. If we can figure out how to fill the Corn Palace up with events and figure out how to make money — and break even, I think it would be alot easier to convince everyone we need to make an investment into the Corn Palace," Hanson said, noting the city needs to talk to people who can turn the venue into a profitable venture. "The first thing you do before you scale a business is to at least get yourself to be break even or making money."

Sabers echoed his support for maintaining the Corn Palace and maximizing the facility.

"The big question is do we invest $10 million or $50 million? That's the big question we need to solve, and we need to get the opinions of people like you as we look at those options on what needs to be done. Once again, the mayor and council need to be in lockstep in looking at that, along with advisers in the community," Sabers said. "It's the basketball mecca. We need to take advantage of it."