Dave Clark's Responses to the Candidate Profile Questionnaire

CANDIDATE PROFILE QUESTIONNAIRE
2011 CITY COUNCIL ELECTION CYCLE
PLEASE RETURN YOUR RESPONSES TO THE LOVELAND CHAMBER OF
COMMERCE OFFICE BEFORE 5:00 P.M. SEPTEMBER 6 (via Email/Fax/Mail).
(Any responses returned after this deadline will not be included in our educational and endorsement process.)
Office Sought: City Council Ward (If Applicable): Ward 4
Name: Dave Clark
Home Address: 2526 Tupelo Dr, Loveland, CO 80538
Daytime Phone: 970-515-2323 Evening Phone: 970-515-2323
Fax:
Email: DaveClark55@msn.com
Employment: Candlelight Dinner Playhouse
Length of Residence: In City: 48 years In Ward: 48 years
Please feel free to write/type your answers on another sheet; however, please be sure
to number your responses and add the question prior to your response.
Please note, your responses will be published for voters to review.
General Information (Submission of a resume is acceptable to address the general info
questions; however, please be certain the resume addresses all the general info questions.)
Education: BS – Civil Engineering – Brigham Young University
Current employment and responsibilities:
I am the Owner & General Manager of Candlelight Dinner Playhouse near Johnson‟s
Corner. I am responsible for the overall operation of the Business and Facilities. Our
business is pleased to be able to create jobs for talented actors, singers and staff from
around the state.
If elected, how will your employment plans change, if at all?
If elected, I will not have any change in employment.
Past and present employment/business experience:
I started working during my grade school years as a shovel-ready laborer for my father‟s
company, Clark Construction. During my Loveland High School days I put in 50 hour
weeks as a summer carpenter. After receiving my Civil Engineering degree, I was
assigned an entry level management role. During the next 14 years, I worked my way
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up to being company President and General Manager while maintaining an average
payroll of 70.
During my 16 year presidency, I became skilled at managing to win-win outcomes,
encouraging employee empowerment, meeting difficult schedules and balanced
budgets during up and down construction cycles.
Recently our 40 year old construction company has been shuttered due to the building
market collapse. I have learned firsthand how damaging the current economy has been
for my company and employees. My heart aches to see jobs lost and friends
unemployed. As a result, I want to do what I can to improve the local economy and
create jobs by bringing my experience and conservative values to City Council.
Past and present community service including offices held or positions with
City commissions/committees:
I have served in the following city capacities:
- 2002 to 2003 – 2 years on the Loveland Planning Commision
- 2004 to 2009 – 6 years on the Loveland City Council
- 2008 to 2009 – 2 years as Mayor Pro-Tem
- 2004 to 2009 – 6 years as Council Liason to Loveland Utilities Commission
- 2004 to 2009 – 6 years as Council Liason to Youth Advisory Commission
- 2004 to 2009 – 6 years as Council Liason to Citizens Finance Advisory
Commission
- 2004 to 2009 – 6 years as Council Liason to Human Services Commission
- 2004 to 2009 – 6 years as Council Alternate to Construction Advisory Board
- 2006 to 2010 – 5 years as member of Title 18 sub-committee
- 2006 to present – 6 years as member of Loveland Downtown Team
- 2010 to present – 2 years as board member of Downtown Loveland
Association
- 2006 to present – 6 years as board member of Loveland Chamber of
Commerce
- 2010 to present – almost 2 years as member of Citizens Finance Advisory
Commission (CFAC)
- 2004 to 2009 – 6 years as member of the National League of Cities (NLC)
Leadership Training Institute achieving the DIAMOND CERTIFICATE LEVEL
which is the highest level in the program requiring over 80 Achievement
Credits and Leadership involvement in NLC.
Specific qualifications for this office:
I believe that during our struggling economy and high unemployment that City Council
needs another business savvy and fiscally conservative voice. I have long experience
owning and running a local company with a 70 person payroll. I also believe requiring a
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alanced budget and having no new spending programs is in Loveland‟s current best
interest.
I know the engine behind local job growth and a healthy city government is growth of
our local businesses. As they grow, more jobs are produced which is what we all want.
Along with the new jobs, we get more retail sales. And, with more retail sales, we get
more sales tax revenue which is the primary funding source for our City Government.
Then, with more funds for the City, Loveland can provide more and higher quality
infrastructure, parks, trails and services to help produce a higher quality of life. Not
surprisingly, I feel strongly it is in everyone‟s best interest that Loveland‟s Council
supports its businesses.
I have lived in Loveland 48 years, a Loveland HS graduate, a college graduate (BS Civil
Engineering), a family man with a wonderful wife and 6 children and a church leader. I
believe in Loveland and want to support and improve the special quality of life we are so
blessed to have.
How Would You Govern?
(1) Why are you running for office? What hesitations do you have in
running for office?
I am running for the office of City Council because I believe the council should
include individuals who have a strong business background which I do. I would
be able to help ensure that city policies and procedures are business friendly
because our businesses are the economic backbone of our community. I have
no hesitations in running for this office.
(2) What is your overall vision for Loveland?
My overall vision for Loveland is that the city continues and improves as a
business friendly city which will create jobs so that our quality of life in Loveland
will continue.
(3) What are the most important issues (up to three) the council needs to
address in the next year and/or up to five years? What solutions
would you recommend?
Most important issues
a. Support business and job growth.
b. Re-evaluate the city budget – particularly the expense side. We should look at
getting back to basics of what our city government should be doing for us as
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citizens. We should not approve any new spending programs until the
economy improves.
c. The city should continue to support downtown as the magnet for our
community by encouraging and supporting private development projects
including Public-Private Partnerships where feasible.
(4) What is the most important issue that you believe the current council
should have handled differently over the last few years? What actions
or outcome would you have preferred?
The ACE project was a tremendous victory for the city of Loveland. I do not
believe the city staff or council fully understood the process of bringing that
project forward from a development perspective. There probably should have
been more involvement and oversight from the city on the early process
including, if needed, seeking advice and counsel from outside objective expert
professionals in making sure the deal was effectively watching out for the city‟s
interests. I believe this could have helped to avoid the serious problem we now
face of trying to find and select another developer after the first one pulled out.
(5) If you could enact one ordinance or adopt one policy, what would it
be?
Over the years, because of the strong fiscal and conservative staff and council in
the city, our budget has always been balanced with our revenues exceeding or
being equal to our expenses. However, our city charter and resolutions do not
require the city to have a balanced budget. In light of the serious economic
downturn we have experienced, I believe that we should seriously look into
enacting a balanced budget policy in our city regulations.
(6) What is your understanding of Loveland‟s governance model?
The City of Loveland is formed on the basis of a Council – City Manager
governance model. The City Council is made up of 8 elected City Council
members and a Mayor. The Council members and the Mayor make up the 9
member City Council. Each of the 9 members of council have an equal vote. The
City Manager is hired by the City Council to manage the overall operation and
daily affairs of the city. The City Manager is responsible for making sure all the
departments of the city are operating correctly and efficiently.
(7) What do you think the proper relationship should be between the City
Council and the City Manager?
The City Council could be compared to a corporate Board of Directors and the
City Manager could be compared to the corporation President. The City Council
gives overall direction to the City Manager and the City Manager does what is
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needed to carry out that direction. It should be noted that no member of City
Council or the Mayor has the authority to individually give direction to any city
staff or department head. Also, the Mayor or any individual Council Member is
not the “liaison” between the City Council and the City Manager. The City
Manager is obligated to work with the entire City Council and all communication
should be directed to or from the entire Council.
(8) How would you facilitate better communication with the Loveland
Chamber of Commerce?
I believe the structure for communication between the Chamber of Commerce
and the City of Loveland is in place. We have a City Council member as an exofficio
member of the Chamber board who is and should be the liaison to the rest
of the council. The Chamber should actively make sure the Council liaison is
properly and fully informed of all Chamber issues that potentially could involve
the City. This is very critical especially at this time when the Chamber and the
City are working together regarding the Tourism and Visitor Center issues.
Economic Development
(9) What kind of development, if any, does Loveland need to
accommodate its growing population? Why? If you believe Loveland
needs development where and what would your plan be to manifest it?
If you believe population growth should be halted or slowed, how
would you go about it? Please include how you would fund your plan.
A healthy economic model must include some kind of growth. Without growth,
the economy will stagnate and eventually decline. Development is a necessary
part of growth. Therefore, we do need development in Loveland to help sustain
our economy and quality of life. The city currently has a Land Use Plan that
shows where and what types of development would be beneficial to Loveland‟s
long term growth. This plan should be used as a guide and not a rigid set of
rules. If another plan comes forth that makes good or better sense for a particular
area, the city should carefully consider modifying the plan to accommodate the
new idea.
(10) What specific ideas would you introduce to reduce City „red tape‟ as it
relates to business and doing business in Loveland?
For a long time, Loveland‟s Development Services departments (building,
planning, traffic, etc.) has had the reputation of being slow and cumbersome and
not friendly to businesses, developers, contractors, and owners. While a lot of
effort has been devoted to fixing this problem in the past, unfortunately, many of
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the „red tape‟ problems continue to persist. This process needs to be evaluated
again with the goal of continuing to improve and streamlining the process. One
possible suggestion that has been used in other cities is to have each project
assigned to one specific staff person who would oversee the project through the
development process from beginning to end through all the various city
departments.
(11) Describe your thoughts on Public-Private Partnerships? How have
these partnerships impacted Loveland? Please give specific
examples.
The City of Loveland has participated in several Public-Private Partnerships over
the years. These include the Centerra project, the Lincoln Place project, and
several smaller projects including some in the downtown area. Almost without
exception, these projects have been beneficial to the city by developing areas
that had been run-down or raw land and by increased sales and use tax
revenues to the city. I strongly believe these Public-Partner Partnerships should
be actively pursued by the city. However, each project should be evaluated in
great detail to ensure that there is a strong and adequate Return on Investment
(ROI) for the city.
(12) What do you think of capital expansion fees?
Capital Expansion Fees have existed in Loveland for several years and have
allowed many great projects to be funded in the city. However, I believe that the
current fee structure is too high to remain competitive. The permit fees and taxes
for a new building can amount to a significant percentage of the value of the
project which obviously increases the overall cost of the project to the owner. The
current fee structure is based on what has been done in the past with those fees.
During severe economic times as these, I believe the fee structure should be reevaluated
by going “back to the basics” of what those fees should be used for
which should result in a fee structure that is more affordable to the eventual
home owner and business owner.
(13) What would you propose to incentivize job creation in Loveland?
Job Creation and Wage Progression is a result of businesses being successful
and needing to hire workers or increase salaries. Businesses are able to grow if
they are able to obtain capital. In the current economy, it is extremely difficult for
businesses to obtain capital due to federal and national conditions. Unfortunately,
the City of Loveland does not have any control over those factors. However, one
thing that was recently proposed by the city was to create a temporary “loan
fund” using existing city Investment capital to make funds available for qualified
projects in Loveland that would meet established criteria. I believe this idea
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should be pursued to see if it would be a viable source to incentivize some local
business growth.
(14) Does the revenue the City derives from user fees outweigh the impact
on local businesses?
I am not sure if I completely understand this question?? - My understanding is
the city charges “user fees” to patrons that use a particular city owned facility
such as the golf course, the rec center, the library, etc. In some cases, these
user fees cover all the expenses of the facility (ex – golf) while in other cases, the
user fees only cover a partial amount of the expenses and the city fund covers
the rest. The potential impact on local businesses could be to a competing
business which would obviously put the local business at a disadvantage as it
cannot supplement it‟s revenue from other sources as the city can.
Regionalism
(15) What kind of collaborative partnerships should Loveland initiate with
surrounding communities?
Loveland should be one of the leaders in the region to continue to work at
collaborative partnerships with surrounding communities. These partnerships
should focus on services and programs that are regional in nature. This would
include transportation issues, economic development issues, etc. However,
each community should diligently work to maintain its own unique identity and
support its local businesses through local services and programs that specifically
benefit that community. These items would be such things as local street
maintenance, downtown improvements, local development projects, etc. The
obvious challenge is for all surrounding communities to come to a consensus on
what issues are truly regional and what issues are local. For regional issues,
there is the additional challenge of agreeing on the amount of funding to be
contributed by each community and which projects in which communities would
receive funding.
(16) What would the impact be from promoting Larimer and Weld Counties
as a Northern Colorado region?
I fully support some long range planning for a Northern Colorado region which
would include Larimer and Weld counties only for specific regional issues such
as transportation and economic development.
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(17) Describe the role you think Loveland should play in state and regional
issues.
Loveland should be actively participating in state and regional issues that affect
the Northern Colorado area. We should continue to support regional groups such
as the MPO, the NCEDC, and the NCLA which deal with regional transportation,
economic development, and legislative issues. In addition, the city should
continue its involvement in the Colorado Municipal League (CML) and the
National League of Cities (NLC). This will ensure that Loveland has a voice as
state and national issues are discussed that affect our area.
Transportation
(18) How would mass transit between Loveland and its surrounding
communities (e.g., Ft. Collins, Berthoud, Johnstown, Greeley, etc…)
impact Loveland?
In my opinion, the Northern Colorado region does not have the population
density to justify major mass transit systems. An example is our COLT bus
system in Loveland. The revenue generated by the actual riders (users) of the
system accounts for only about 6%-10% of the cost of the system. The rest of the
funding comes from our local city budget, some from state funds, and some from
federal funds. Obviously the majority of people in Loveland prefer to use their
personal vehicles rather than the city provided transit system.
(19) What is the most important transportation issue(s) (up to three)
affecting Loveland? What solutions do you recommend and how
would you fund these solutions?
The most important transportation issue is the increase in traffic on our major
roadways. Several of these roadways are regional highways that need joint
planning and cooperation from our neighboring communities. I believe we should
re-analyze the Regional Transportation initiative that was done a few years ago
that eventually failed because the three major cities and two counties could not
agree on funding sources and dispersion of those funds. Regional cooperation is
a key to solving our long range regional transportation issues.
(20) What improvements would you make to the Ft. Collins-Loveland
Airport? How would you fund those improvements?
The Fort Collins-Loveland Airport recently completed much needed major repairs
to its main runway. Funding for these repairs was from federal sources.
Currently, the cities of Loveland and Fort Collins contribute a minor amount of
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funding towards the operation of the airport. I believe the goal should be that the
airport operates as its own self-sustaining entity. Additional improvements that
may be needed in the future should also be done using the airports own
resources along with federal funds as available.
City Management
(21) If the City of Loveland were facing significant decline in revenues and
the only way to balance the budget were to cut expenditures, what
areas would you specifically cut? Why?
I believe the City of Loveland should re-evaluate its services based on going
“back to the basics” which includes public safety and streets and highways. All
other services should be rated on a priority basis and funding provided
accordingly. With the current state of the economy, we simply cannot go on with
the “business as usual” mentality. We need to be serious about maintaining high
priority services and be willing to cut less priority services (at least for now). I do
not have any specific suggestions on what to cut at this time without first going
through a prioritization process.
(22) What is your position on the city‟s Comprehensive Master Plan? What
would you change?
The Comprehensive Master Plan was built using input from many citizens and
groups in Loveland. I was fortunate to be a part of that and know first hand the
many hours and effort that went into developing that plan. I would suggest that
additional improvements could be made to the plan by reviewing each aspect of
the plan and generating more specific items with their own budgets and time
frames. Then all of these items could be combined and analyzed to determine a
more complete master plan that could be used more effectively as a guide for the
future.
(23) What is your position on the city‟s Capital Improvement Plan? What
would you change?
The city‟s Capital Improvement Plan includes projects that have been anticipated
and planned for a long time as well as some that have more recently been
added. During these current economic conditions, I would suggest that all
projects be seriously reviewed again and where possible be put on hold until the
economy improves enough to justify the expenditure.
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Resources
(24) What are the issues regarding long-term water usage? What solutions
do you propose for any water concerns Loveland may be facing?
Loveland currently has plans for long-term water usage for the next several years
up to a population of about 120,000 people. However, water projects take many
years to completion so we need to continue our efforts to plan for water usage
beyond our current limits. The city needs to continue its involvement with the
Chimney Hollow reservoir project. In addition, it should continue its efforts in
analyzing future water storage reservoir sites which it has actively been doing for
the past few years.
(25) What is the impact of the Platte River Power Authority (PRPA) on
Loveland? What would your plans for the PRPA be in the future?
The PRPA obviously has a huge impact on the city of Loveland. It is in our best
interest to support the PRPA in its efforts to provide the most efficient and
economical electric service for Loveland and other municipalities. This includes
its continuing efforts to provide power from various sources including clean coal
and other alternative energy sources. I do not see a need to significantly change
any direction at this time.
(26) What is your position on open space and funding it?
Open space is an amenity that we should pursue if it is affordable and within our
budget. However, any open space that is purchased should be accessible to our
citizens for them to enjoy. Open space purchased by the city should not be
locked away so there is no access.
(27) Are you open to participating in a Candidate Forum? YES
(28) Are you open to participating in a panel interview the Chamber‟s Local
Legislative Affairs Committee? YES
David J Clark Sept 6, 2011
Signature
Date
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