Van Zetten Sounds Off On Local Issues
Jason Van Zetten
Oskaloosa, Iowa- The City of Oskaloosa will be holding their municipal elections on November 8th of this year. The Mayor, 2nd ward City Council Member, 4th ward City Council Member, and one At-Large City Council Member positions will be listed on the ballot this year. Only one race is contested, that one being the race for the At-Large seat. The seat is open as incumbent Lori Smith is not seeking re-election.
Jason Van Zetten is running unopposed for the 4th Ward City Council Member position. Incumbent Pam Blomgren chose not to seek re-election. Van Zetten is a newcomer to Oskaloosa City politics. Van Zetten currently works at Oskaloosa Food Products and is the co-host of Oskaloosa Sports Pulse. Osky News sat down with Jason Van Zetten Wednesday afternoon.
Our first question to Van Zetten was why he chose to run for City Council. “As I talked with a lot of people, looking to get people excited, everybody was kind of busy. They didn’t really have a real good answer. As I started to talk with people, I just thought that you know what maybe it was time to step up, kind of take a look at what I can bring to the table,” Van Zetten said.
We also asked Van Zetten about the recent Franchise Fee and if he approved the passage of it. “No I don’t. I’m 100% against the franchise fee. When we look at America in general, this is a tax that targets manufacturing, and when I take a look at this, I’m actually probably not surprised that some of the businesses are probably going to form together like a class action lawsuit against this because it does in fact target manufacturing. We’re losing manufacturing jobs left and right left and right as it is and so it’s not really fair to target the people that use energy to create product,” Van Zetten said.
Next, we asked Van Zetten if he supported letters “F” and “G” being in the revenue purpose statement for the Franchise Fee agreement. “If the purpose of the franchise fee for them to go out was to raise money for the roads, as what they said, they need to stick to exactly what they’re trying to do. I don’t think, again I was against the franchise agreement in general. I think what we need to do is go out and start cutting taxes or looking at how we can cut. I mean, we’re overspending as a city period. If we’re overspending, we need to figure out how we can get our means back within the budget, so depending on what letter you’re looking at, it doesn’t really matter. We should be looking at is how can we cut taxes? How can we look as a city in big budget areas and start to shrink those areas,” Van Zetten said.
Van Zetten continued. “Right now, I’ve talked with a lot of people. Been door to door. Knocked over about 500 doors, and they’re concerned with the fact of how many people do we have on the roads? Is it cheaper to contract out? Are these some of the areas that we need to be looking at to maybe shrink that budget a little bit and start saving money rather than waiting for taxes to come up and looking for creative ways. This is something that should have been stopped at the state level period.”
With the recent business closings in Oskaloosa, we asked Van Zetten what Oskaloosa needs to do to attract new businesses into Oskaloosa. “We’re all sucking wind. It’s a tough economy and I think one of the things we need to look at is how can we remodel businesses in a small town? One of the ways to do that is make sure that we entice companies that come to town that are working at an international and global scale. It’s very tough to come in this economy right now and not have closing doors .It’s because people don’t have the money. We see it with some of the restaurants. We see it with what happens around here in Oskaloosa. What we can do as a community, and what we can do as a city council is basically open up the doors and make sure we put as many options on the table for businesses to come forward, and to take advantage of what we’re not doing,” Van Zetten said.
Continuing on that same topic, we asked Van Zetten whether he believes Oskaloosa should expand on the current businesses or try to entice new ones to come into Oskaloosa. ” Well you have to do both. We’ve got a lot of businesses here that have been here for a while and so you have to focus on how can we currently help those businesses?”
Van Zetten continued. ” We need to get with those guys and figure out how can we help promote business instead of waiting for the state to pass maybe a new franchise fee and then waiting for the Supreme Court to find out if it’s legal to go through with it. We need to look forward, and it’s just working with business on business, and there’s nothing, there’s no silver bullet, and it’s going to be different for each business and each company and each industry. We need to sit down and talk with them and find out what specifically they need from us to make them successful.”
With the recent passage of a policy regarding donations from the City of Oskaloosa to non-profit organizations, we asked Van Zetten if he believes we should donate to non-profit organizations. “I don’t support donating a non-profit agency. Right now, we’re raising taxes. We need to be cutting taxes .We need to not be giving away money that we don’t have period,” Van Zetten said.
Van Zetten continued. “I want to encourage business. I want to help these people or these organizations in a way they can be successful but I think there has to be other ways that we can come to the table through City Council or even through more private funds rather than giving away tax payer money.”
We also asked Van Zetten if he believed that the current location for the new Skateboard Park was a good location. “I understand there’s a lot of animosity around it. I’m not sure if its, I think it’s a bold move by the city. I think it’s one of those things where it will be a huge homerun or it will be a huge failure. When we look at it, you know it was sitting as a parking lot as it was. It had potholes. They’re just going to turn it into a half-pipe now so from my standpoint, I’m not even sure skateboarding is cool anymore. I kind of think it’s 20 years too late to the party, but I’m glad it’s here, and if there’s utilization for it, I’m all for it,” Van Zetten said.
Van Zetten continued. ” “If the most people that are going to take advantage of this happens to be right in the middle of the city, and right up there, I’m all for it.”
Finally, we gave Van Zetten an opportunity to say anything he wanted or to address any issue we may have not questioned him about. “I think it’s communication. The thing I want to push most is going to be my facebook. It’s Van Zetten for Iowa. I want people to go there because those are the places that I’m going to be putting up the details of really what’s happening. If you want to know a little bit more. If you want to see the picture. If you want an easy way that you can get one or two sentences on just a little more detail. Why we actually decided to go with the Skate Park in one place versus another. What was I purposely thinking on this?” Van Zetten said.
City Elections will be held on November 8th, 2011
