Candidates address student issues
Nov. 5 will prove to be more important to USU students than they realize. Logan city will elect a new mayor, and both candidates have a significant interest in student issues.
Both candidates realize they need to reach out to students and recognize the problems associated with the city and USU.
“I’ve spent six or seven hours over on campus with a table campaigning and talking to students,” said mayoral candidate Craig Petersen. “We made an effort to try to register students and had a great experience… we talked to dozens and dozens of students.”
Petersen served on the Logan Municipal Council for the past four terms. He retired as a professor at USU where he also served as vice provost, interim provost and chief of staff to the president.
“My experience is that I worked at Utah State,” Petersen said. “I’ve been on campus most of my life. I’ve got a good feel of the campus.”
Mayor Randy Watts has been Logan’s mayor since 2006.
“Basically (we’re) just trying to interact with students and the long time residents of Logan,” Watts said. “We’ve always been very appreciative of the university, but it comes with its challenges.”
The two challenges both candidates are addressing with students are housing and parking.
Watts said the difficulty with housing is finding a balance between the students who live off campus and rent homes and the long-time residents of Logan.
“We’re trying to improve housing,” Watts said. “It’s a double-edged sword. Students need to realize when they come in and go to school, they need to learn to be good citizens.”
The problem comes with the number of students who rent houses off campus.
“Single family homes are being converted to apartments – that’s our biggest problem,” Watts said.
He said he supports big apartment complexes like Blue Square. Not only does it give students a place to live, but it addresses the parking issue by giving students a legal place to park year round.
“We’re very supportive of the big complexes that come in,” Watts said. “I like what Blue Square has done. They’ve given students a better option than living in a basement apartment, if their budget can afford it.”
Petersen sees a more detailed problem with housing.
“One of the things that’s happened in the past is the students will complain and the landlord ignores them,” Petersen said. “I think we need to have a mechanism in the city where students can have a voice.”
His solution entails giving students a voice – a way to communicate directly with the city officials.
Watts also stresses the importance of giving students a way to voice their concerns.
“I think that the other part of it is that more and more we need to hear from the students – the things they like, the things they don’t like,” Watts said. “I’ve talked to the student senate and the student body president over the years. We’ve got to do a better job communicating back and forth, whether it’s police issues, housing issues or parking and street issues.”
The second problem both candidates want to address is parking. Watts knows parking on the street is a problem for students because they use the option often until the winter months. Once it snows, the city closes parking on the streets during certain times to allow plowing.
This creates tension for students who have previously relied on the parking spots, and they get booted or they get a ticket.
“Booting is unfortunately a reality and it’s not going to go away. I think we recognize that,” Petersen said. “I think we can make the booting process more humane. If you get booted, you have to have cash on hand to get your car. Students don’t always carry the $80 it takes to get the boot off. Maybe we can look at some mechanisms to make sure it’s done fairly.”
A third problem Petersen wants to change is the availability of internships with Logan city. He said he heard from many students about the desire for an internship, but knows there aren’t many currently available.
“Right now, to my knowledge, Logan city doesn’t provide any internship opportunities for students,” Petersen said. “This doesn’t make sense to me. Logan city should have a substantial and exciting internship for students. Students who have expertise can make a real contribution.”
“I think there’s a whole host of opportunities to be involved with the city,” he added. “I’d like to see that significantly expanded.”
There will be a mayoral debate at 11:30 a.m. during Common Hour on Oct. 30 in the Eccles Conference Center. The event is sponsored by Phi Sigma Alpha, the political science honor society and co-sponsored by the Government Relations Council, the USU College of Republicans and the USU College Democrats.
Twitter: @daniellekmanley
