Carlson, Schilling square off in mayor's race

Tom Carlson and Mike Schilling square off April 5 in the race for Springfield mayor. Springfield Business Journal reporters Jeremy Elwood and Jill Henry asked the candidates questions collected from representatives of Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce, Southwest Area Manufacturers Association, Greater Springfield Board of Realtors, Home Builders Association of Greater Springfield, Springfield Contractors Association.
Springfield Business Journal: What role do you see education playing in work force development?
Tom Carlson: In the 21st century economy the only way we’re going to be able to compete is with a well-educated work force. The average high school graduate will earn about $1.2 million in his lifetime and the average college graduate will earn about $800,000 more than that, so it’s also crucial to employees that want to have a high quality of life. I think we need to have a very long-term view on the issues of work force development and realize what an important part early childhood education plays and how it affects it. There are studies out now by Nobel laureates that indicate there’s a very close link between the degree of education for early childhood development and the long-term success of an individual as a worker.
Mike Schilling: The City Council can play a role in encouraging a top-notch educational program, by consulting with district officials and also through tax policy. And by making sure the resources are there for good schooling. In other words, we should be careful of how much we’re taking out of the revenue stream in the form of tax subsidies for development. That’s a concern of mine; I think we need to study how much revenue we’re slicing away from public schools in terms of property tax abatements. Are we getting a return on investment? That’s where the city can do its best to make sure that there’s funding for education.

SBJ: What is your position on increasing taxes to business owners inside the city limits, in the face of tight budgets?
Carlson: My first approach is to try to bring more business into the community so we’re generating sufficient income. I’m afraid that if we raise taxes higher than our competing cities, all we do is drive business out of the community and make the problem worse.
Schilling: I think we need fair taxation – everybody needs to share. I don’t know if there’s any plan to put extra taxes on business owners, but I think a taxation system should be fair to people – businesses, residential taxpayers and industrial taxpayers. When you don’t have fairness and you have too many abatements and incentives that reward a certain group, then you shift the burden to others like the individual citizens. If you’re giving too much break on industrial or commercial property, then somebody’s got to make up the difference.

SBJ: What are the best ways to keep housing affordable in Springfield?
Carlson: We just have to make sure we’re not imposing undue regulation, that we’ve got ordinances in place that encourage people to come in and rehab older properties. … If our building codes are unduly restrictive, then all you do is encourage people to move into places like Christian County where there are no building codes, so you have to strike the right balance between affordability and public safety.
Schilling: We need better family-supporting jobs. You have to have the income to afford the stuff. The marketplace doesn’t really have much control over the materials, but assuming that profit-taking (by home builders) is reasonable and in line with rising costs, how do people afford homes? Well, the community needs to create better supporting jobs. I don’t know that these enterprise zones would do that. What we should do is become a pioneer in the field of energy and encourage people to come in through some methods. Let’s have Springfield be on the cutting edge of energy technology and be a leader in the whole nation. That ought to be a goal. And then that would create an environment that would offer more affordable housing. Is it idealistic? Yes. But I don’t want to hear no. And there’s too many people out there saying no to a lot of things.

SBJ: How do you feel about combining the building services divisions of Springfield and Greene County?
Carlson: (Interested parties are) bringing it up more. I’ve met with the home builders and the contractors and told them that if it’s something that they want to look at, I’m willing to look into it. That would require a committee of all the people that would be affected. We’re just in the beginning stages of seeing how much interest there really is in the idea.
Schilling: There seems to be some discussion about doing this, making a one-stop shop and streamlining building
services. I’m told that the permit requirements are the same, so it seems sensible and prudent to combine those both into one place so that there’s some uniformity and maybe some economy of scale.

SBJ: What is your position on a new City Utilities coal-fired power plant?
Carlson: I believe that one of the primary reasons we’ve enjoyed a high quality of life here in the Springfield area is because of the low cost of utilities. We have to develop a strategy for providing for low cost utilities in the future, otherwise we always run the risk of having a California situation. I’ve appointed a committee to study these issues with a requirement that they address four issues – that their solutions be environmentally responsible, that it be affordable, that it be reliable and finally, one that the voters will support. Our economic research tells us that with utilities as low as they are … conservation alone will not solve this issue. We’ve had, for example, energy audits available to the public for the last 10 years and we’ve had maybe 300 people out of 90,000 customers take advantage of it. Typical reason that nobody wants to do that is that it takes so many years, through replacing light fixtures and stuff, that they can’t recover their investment soon enough. What might work in a high-cost-of-utilities city hasn’t worked well here where the utilities are very low. … We’re still the lowest or second- lowest of 300 utilities in the state of Missouri, even with all that. Everybody’s utilities are going up.
Schilling: I can sum it up by saying I couldn’t support a new coal-fired power plant until there’s a commitment to energy savings and working renewables into the system. That has to happen first. … That’s the number one issue – electric energy – that needs to be discussed and dealt with. Fossil fuel is getting more expensive, and it’s getting scarcer, so one of the ways that we can mitigate the push for ever greater consumption is to conserve, and we’re not doing that in this town. Before anything else, adopt a comprehensive and meaningful conservation program.
And that’s where you have to spend money to save money. Give incentives to people or rebates … to make changes in their energy systems, whether it be free energy audits, rebates for home improvements, rebates for energy efficient appliances and air conditioners. In other cities, this is being done. This is not brand new. It’s just that people have to be educated that this keeps money in their pockets and mitigates the rising costs of energy. By human nature, you’re not going to automatically turn down the thermostat. You have to have an incentive.
(Southwest Missouri State University) – their energy conservation plan is amazing. In 1997, after an audit of the energy systems here, they started changing motors, lighting systems, thermostats, heating and air conditioning systems to more efficient technologies. … They saved more than $1 million the first year through these changes. Since that time the university has saved more than $7.4 million.
And they did it not because of some crisis but because of the realization through the public affairs mission that the university … had a civic responsibility to be wise and frugal with their resources. This could be done on a bigger scale in the whole community.
In addition to the savings, the utility has a moral imperative of conservation in this age we’re in to adopt renewable technologies and clean energy sources – wind, solar, hydrogen, etc. And not just one major source, but a mix of things into the supply system. And then, maybe we won’t need a big coal plant after we do all this.
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