Candidates for Keizer mayor and city council said they want to keep the city safe, liveable and reduce traffic congestion during a debate this week, but differed on how to best achieve those aims. Keizertimes hosted a 90-minute debate Tuesday with all four candidates in contesting races for mayor and city council. The mayoral candidates included incumbent Mayor Cathy Clark and her challenger, former Mayor Lore Christopher. Clark served on the Keizer City Council for eight years before being elected mayor in 2014. Her predecessor, Christopher, served as mayor for 14 years until 2014 and seeks to return to her former post.  The two city council candidates are vying for city council position No. 1 which is currently occupied by Laura Reid.  Parsons served on the council for eight years prior, and Kunz is a neighborhood activist and the president of the Greater Northeast Keizer Neighborhood Association.  Cathy Clark, incumbent candidate for mayor  Cathy Clark, Keizer’s current mayor, said she is running to keep her position because there is a lot of work left to do. She said her experience as mayor and her leadership in challenging times is what qualifies her.  “I’ve also been able to serve the people of Keizer through a number of, shall we say, challenging times over the last especially four years, from the pandemic to ice storms, to fire, to a lot of transition in our city-staff leadership. And with my experience and my history, I’d like to continue that work,” Clark said. “Keizer-focused and Keizer-based.” Clark said three issues she’d hope to address as mayor if reelected include stabilizing the city’s finances, which includes using tax dollars well to benefit the community. She also listed housing and development, and addressing public safety. She hopes to push for further development in the core of Keizer to increase walkability and to increase livability.  “Housing and homelessness continues to play into that when it comes to addiction and other issues that are affecting our neighborhoods and our families,” Clark said.  Clark said public safety is the number one job and said making sure police are funded and equipped is one of her priorities.  She responded to criticism from Christopher about the city freezing hiring for police positions during her tenure as mayor. Clark said there are challenges in Keizer related to public safety and the city’s cash flow not being sufficient to pay salaries.  “Over time the costs have continued to go up for public safety. The equipment is more expensive, the salaries and benefits for our police have continued to rise. And rightly so. They deserve the pay they get every day,” Clark said. “Freezing positions is something that the city has always done. It has been what they’ve done to make sure they’ve got the money to pay for positions before they hire, because when we hire we don’t want to go, ‘Oh, whoops, we can’t sustain that position.’ It’s important to keep that position. When we hire, we want to commit long term.”  When it comes to attracting new businesses to Keizer, Clark said the city has made strides during her time as mayor. One tactic it has used is facilitating the process by changing zoning requirements. “When we make it easier for people to reimagine their land, we can do more of what we have close by and close in,” Clark said.  When it comes to traffic, a theme that came up multiple times during the debate, Clark said the city has already increased ridership on public transit. She said improvements on North Chemawa Road and North Dearborn Avenue have made it easier and safer to walk and use bicycles.  Clark said some key differences between Salem and Keizer aside from their sizes is that the Keizer community consistently gets involved.  “We show up. We get involved and we can make a difference right in our own neighborhoods. We have that opportunity every day. When you are dealing with a much bigger city there are more layers,” Clarks said. “We don’t have that here. We are about taking action and we can influence things in our own neighborhoods right now.”  Clark also said Keizer has done a better job addressing the city’s homelessness issue compared to Salem by keeping services minimal but effective, and building in city rules that prevent people from camping out on sidewalks.  “Now that the laws are changing for the state we are already ahead of the curve. But we wanted to treat people right and with dignity and human decency.”  Lore Christopher, candidate for mayor  Christopher said during the 14 years she served for mayor the city accomplished a lot.  “We accomplished many, many projects that everybody benefits from in this community and the reason I am running is, I would like to do that again,” Christopher said.  Three things she said she would tackle if she returns to her post as mayor include public safety, traffic congestion, and development.  On public safety, Christopher said Keizer doesn’t have an issue that can’t be addressed and she thinks there needs to be more police officers to keep Keizer’s 40,000 citizens safe. She said the city’s tactic of freezing police positions is not the best approach.  “We need every one of those positions filled and they need to stay filled. And we need to not balance our budget on frozen police officers,” Christopher said. “We are not going to balance the budget on the safety of the citizens of Keizer… that’s just not going to happen. And if we have to prolong or put off some projects or make some other way to balance that budget, we will do so, but it won’t be with our police officers.”  On development, she said Keizer has a lot of land sitting undeveloped and she hopes to change that.  “That land is not on the tax rolls. That land that is city-owned is sitting there waiting for development. I think we need to focus on that. Put together a marketing plan. Hire someone to help us with that,” Christopher said. “Our city manager has said that is not his area of expertise, so let’s get someone that it is their area of expertise. Let’s get those properties sold. Let’s get that money back on the tax rolls so that we don’t have to increase taxes and fees, and let’s get thriving businesses in those locations.”  On traffic, Christopher said the main priority is reducing traffic on the city’s main road, North River Road. She said traffic is getting too congested and new apartment developments in the area are sure to bring even more traffic once they are complete.  On how Salem and Keizer differ Christopher brought up Salem’s failed payroll tax, and said Salem is failing to handle homelessness and addiction.  “Salem’s got a real problem with their transient population. We are very fortunate that we have a cracker jack police department that responds so quickly,” she said. “I would ask all of you, how lucky are we that we live in Keizer?  When you look around at the other cities in close proximity, Salem, Portland, here we are this little warm niche of a city. We’ve had fabulous leaders 44 years ago who broke away from Salem.” Marlene Parsons, candidate for city council position No. 1 Parsons said she does not believe Keizer is moving in the right direction and she hopes to win a seat on the council so she can help change that.  “I feel like there is a little bit of distrust and dysfunction and it is hard if you can’t work together as a team to get anything done. Keizer is a bedroom community. I like that about Keizer. That’s why I moved here,” Parsons said. “And I feel like we’ve reached out, way far out of our bounds and I’d like to bring that back and focus just on Keizer and the 40,000 citizens that we have here to get what we need to get done.”  Parsons said the fact that Keizer has low tax rates should be reason enough for businesses to move to town. She said the city simply needs to promote what it has to offer to attract economic investment.  “That means something to business. That cuts their cost and that makes us look desirable. So, I think we need to be screaming that from the rooftops,” Parsons said. “In addition to that I think we should look at potential incentives to the types of businesses that we’d like to see in those locations.” On homelessness Parsons said Keizer’s problem isn’t a major issue but it still must be addressed. She said in Keizer the local police usually know everyone who is part of the homeless community and are able to assist when needed.  “We need to work with our partners to the south (Salem) because they have the services that these folks need,” Parsons said. “We have to be able to direct them there so that they can get food and they can get clothing so they can sleep at night because obviously we don’t have a place here in Keizer. For men especially.”  She said she believes the majority of homeless people in Keizer feel it is safer to sleep in Keizer but are forced to travel to Salem for services.  Tammy Kunz, candidate for city council position No. 2  Kunz said there is some dysfunction in the city of Keizer currently and she hopes to get on the city council to work with her colleagues to bring the city together.  “Some of the things lately haven’t really flowed really well and I’d like to see that change. And be a part of that change,” Kunz said.  Some of Kunz’s priorities are pushing for more affordable housing developments and apartment buildings that take safety for children and livability more into account than current ones.   She hopes to keep Keizer small and to retain the city’s hometown feel. She also doesn’t believe the urban growth boundary should be expanded and said that those in rural areas do not want to sell their land or have housing placed on their property.  She also believes Keizer has a homelessness problem but that it is largely taken care of. She suggested using the building that formerly housed Shari’s Cafe and Pies at 4998 River Road N. as a navigation center. “Yes. Keizer has a homeless problem. And yes, it is under control. And we can combat that with creating a navigation center like we did in Salem,” she said. “Shari’s would make a great little navigation center for Keizer to provide the resources to provide the support, to help them navigate through the system.”  She advocated for working more in tune with partners in both Salem and Keizer to help address the area’s homelessness issues.  Contact reporter Joe Siess: [email protected] or 503-335-7790.A MOMENT MORE, PLEASE – If you found this story useful, consider subscribing to Salem Reporter if you don’t already. Work such as this, done by local professionals, depends on community support from subscribers. Please take a moment and sign up now – easy and secure: SUBSCRIBE. The post Keizer mayoral, city councilor candidates discuss priorities leading up to election  appeared first on Salem Reporter.