MISSOULA — The Missoula County Commissioner for District 3 is up for election on November 5 featuring incumbent Josh Slotnick and challenger Kris Culdice.
“I am running for county commissioner because I believe the county needs somebody to take care of the budget properly when that comes to roads and bridges and not be spending our money frivolously on things like Marshall Mountain and other pet projects," Culdice said. "I also believe that I can institute a fixed property tax to where we can stabilize our property taxes to where older people on fixed incomes will not lose their homes to foreclosure. I am also, as a broker against the expansion of the flood plains, and knowing that the county commissioners are looking to expand them, I am firmly against that. I'm for property rights, so I believe that jumping in this is the best way to battle this."
Slotnick said that he wanted to finish solving the problems in another term
“I'm running again for county commissioner because we are deep in solving some problems, and we're not done yet, and I'm fully committed to getting these problems solved, at least making headway. That's probably a better way to say some of them are so big, like property tax,” Slotnick said.
Culdice explained some of the issues he's running on.
“I'd like to see Smurfit Stone taken care of properly. Low income housing; I'd like to see that also taken care of properly. When you're expanding the flood plains, you're actually taking certain homes off of the market. So we don't want to expand them. We want to keep the homes on the market, and we would like to expand upward, is what I would like to do, instead of outward,” Culdice said.
Slotnick also discussed the issues that he’s running on during the forum.
“I want to figure out how we can expand and secure more funding for public works, for our roads and bridges. We are continually falling behind each year — more money. Obviously, property taxes are the source of that money. But we need to...to solve that, not in a one-shot grand kind of way, but in a long-term, perpetual way," Slotnick noted. "I also want to address housing. We've been dealing with housing by looking at infrastructure and doing regulatory reforms. I'd like to step in on housing on the consumer side and figure out how we can get down payment assistance [for] first-time homebuyers in Missoula County who are like 200% of AMI [Area Median Income] ... That specific group is kind of being left behind.
Both candidates have a message to Missoula County voters as the November 5 election draws closer.
“I would hope that they know that I made myself an expert on the biggest issues of the day right here, that's property taxes and housing, and that expertise was a prerequisite for effort, of which I have put a mountain towards these issues that,” Slotnick said.
“Get out and vote. Know your candidate. Know what they stand for,” Culdice said.
