By DARRIN STINEMAN  Salina Journal

If you're looking for a Salina City Commission candidate who supports a comprehensive water conservation plan, building a new swimming pool, enacting a more stringent nonsmoking ordinance and looking at ways to reduce redundancy between city and county government, it's going to be tough to go wrong at the polls on Tuesday.

Candidates generally agreed with one another's views at Wednesday night's League of Women Voters and Salina Area Chamber of Commerce candidate forum at the chamber office -- although there was some division when asked what the city's role should be in addressing spending and management issues at the Salina Housing Authority.

Jerry Hinrikus of Radio Central, part of a three-member media panel that posed questions to the six candidates, mentioned a recent series of Salina Journal stories regarding the housing authority and asked whether the city should have more oversight in the federally funded agency's operation.

The strongest response in opposition to city intervention came from Aaron Peck, who finished third in the primary election.

"I'm going to say it's not really up to the city commission to have a whole lot of oversight on the housing authority," Peck said. "It's a federal agency that receives funding from federal tax dollars and rent. I'm not sure it's the city commission's place to have any oversight in that area."

The three candidates who finished behind Peck in the primary and will need to move past him to earn one of the three open city commission seats said they would like to see the city take an active role in the situation.

"I do believe the city commission should be more involved in that," said Barb Shirley, who finished fifth in the primary election. "That is federal money that's being spent. Any use of taxpayers' money, I think, should be investigated and looked into, and action should be taken."

Diana Dierks, who finished fourth in the primary, said she would like to see the city examine the matter.

"It's something that should've been looked into sooner," she said. "I really feel as a city, when we're dealing with taxpayers' money, we have to be accountable for where it's going and that it's not being used unethically or without some kind of guidance. I would certainly be a proponent of looking into that situation as a city commissioner."

Luci Larson, who finished a close second in the primary to lone incumbent Abner Perney, said: "I think at first sight of a question or a challenge, I think people sometimes are a little bit intimidated, afraid to speak up and challenge it and ask questions. I think this will serve as a lesson for those that are currently on boards or future board members on any types of boards that receive our hard-working tax money. Whenever you have a suspicion or a question, you have to challenge it."

Mary Douglass, who finished sixth in the primary, said: "I think the city commission needs to take a very much more active oversight of the housing authority. When I look at the salary of the director of $90,000, I think how many houses could be renovated, upgraded for that money, and that use of taxpayer funds is coming out of my pocket and your pocket. I want to make sure we make the very best use of taxpayer money."

Perney, who was elected to the city commission in 2004, was director of the housing authority in the 1990s and worked for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for several years prior to that.

"I'm probably the most qualified person in this room, in this city, to talk about that, and I could easily talk about it for an hour or more, and it probably deserves an hour's discussion," Perney said. "We haven't had that opportunity yet on the city commission."

Perney said some cities -- Topeka and Wichita among them -- have departments that run housing authorities rather than having them as separate entities with city-appointed board members, which is the case in Salina.

"There is some evidence that our board members could have done some things and our executive director could've done some things differently," Perney said. "But in a word, no, it's not necessarily better for a housing authority to be a city agency directly."

Conservation of water

The candidates were practically of one voice on other issues.

They have been pelted with questions regarding Salina's water shortage numerous times since campaigns for the primary election began, and conservation remained the main theme when they addressed the matter on Wednesday.

Douglass called for xeriscaping -- the use of plants and grasses that require little water -- and low-flow appliances to become the norm.

"I think we need to rethink our conservation efforts and to educate people that buffalo grass is more beautiful than fescue," she said.

Peck said he would support raising water rates for those who use more than a specified amount.

"Water's not a cheap commodity," he said, "and I think we need to price it as such."

Shirley said: "I want to go into the schools and teach children to conserve water, and they in turn will teach their parents how to conserve water."

Regarding city-county consolidation -- another topic the candidates have been hit with numerous times -- the general consensus was that it's worth looking into, but full-blown consolidation probably isn't the answer.

"I don't ever see us having city-county consolidation 100 percent," Larson said. "I don't think it will work."

Perney pointed out that the city already has 44 agreements with the county that are designed to reduce redundancy.

Candidates also were in agreement that the city must do something soon to replace its dilapidated, 50-year-old swimming pool. The main difference was that Douglass called for building an indoor-outdoor facility with a retractable roof so it could be used year-round.

The candidates also showed unanimous support for expanded bike trails and enacting a clean-air ordinance that would go beyond the current one that forbids smoking in restaurants between certain hours.

"If secondhand smoke and other pollutants are bad for you from 5 in the morning to 9 at night, why are they suddenly good for you from 9 at night to 5 in the morning?" Douglass said. "I have often wondered why we don't have a 24-hour ban."

n Reporter Darrin Stineman can be reached at 822­-1416 or by e-mail at sjdstineman@saljournal.com.

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