Incumbent council member and current P&Z commissioner vie for seat

Two active public servants will square off for Springfield City Council’s General Seat A, to be decided by voters on April 8.

Incumbent one-term Councilmember Heather Hardinger faces a challenger in Eric Pauley, a current member of the city’s Planning and Zoning Commission.

Hardinger is director of consumer experience for CoxHealth, where she’s worked since 2021. She was first hired as the health system’s first-ever diversity, equity and inclusion officer. Hardinger is also a board member for Restore SGF and the Sister Cities Association of Springfield Missouri and serves as equity committee chair on the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit Bread for the World board of directors.

Pauly worked in the information technology field for 37 years, including 27 years with O’Reilly Automotive Inc. He has been on the P&Z Commission for three years and is former six-year president of the Phelps Neighborhood Association.

The candidates answered a pair of questions from Springfield Business Journal, and they also participated in a recorded interview with the Informed Voter Coalition, of which SBJ is one of 13 member organizations.

SBJ: What are barriers to business leaders selecting Springfield for expansion/relocation, and how would you as a council member attempt to overcome these barriers?
Heather Hardinger: Springfield is a vibrant community with great potential, but I recognize there are key challenges that can deter businesses from expanding or relocating here. Lengthy permitting processes, workforce gaps and infrastructure concerns can create barriers that we need to address.

I believe we must improve customer service for businesses seeking permits or licenses. Businesses deserve clear communication, accessible resources and consistent guidance when navigating the permitting process.

To address workforce challenges, I support expanding partnerships between local schools, colleges and employers to align educational programs with industry needs. By investing in workforce development and strengthening training programs, we can ensure Springfield businesses have the talent they need to thrive.

I also support improved infrastructure investments to enhance roads, expand public transit and improve broadband connectivity to ensure Springfield remains competitive for business growth.

Eric Pauly: Keeping in mind the size and type of business looking to relocate or expand will drive how to address this. If a business requires a large footprint, the city of Springfield has limited opportunities. This is why we as a city need to work more closely with the surrounding communities to create an economic region with Springfield as its hub. The recent Amazon warehouse and proposed Walmart pharmaceutical distribution center did not and may not have room inside the limits of Springfield, while the surrounding communities do. Springfield benefits from those communities accessing medical, entertainment and retail.

This in turn can support the smaller businesses, which can utilize the existing locations in our downtown area and other unoccupied, existing structures to create a diverse and sustainable economic engine.

SBJ: The city has been criticized for red tape and delays in the development and permitting process. Would you attempt to address this, and if so, how?
Hardinger: Springfield has faced valid criticism regarding delays in the development and permitting process. Businesses can’t afford unnecessary delays when they’re ready to invest in our community.

I propose several solutions to improve efficiency and communication. I’d advocate for a streamlined permitting system with clear timelines and dedicated points of contact for developers. Establishing a dedicated liaison role to create more meaningful connections between the city and developers could improve communication and reduce confusion for businesses.

Expanding online services is also a priority for me. Creating a robust online platform where developers can submit applications, track progress and access resources could improve transparency and efficiency.

Additionally, I support a fast-track program for low-risk projects to reduce wait times for businesses seeking to invest in Springfield. By combining improved customer service, digital resources and a fast-track system, we can create a more business-friendly process while maintaining safety and accountability.

Pauly: The proposed revisions to our city code of a menu for development within each area of the city is a commonsense resolution. By having a list of what is preferred and acceptable within every location, a streamlined approach is attainable. This will lessen or remove the clashing between incoming development and long-term stakeholders.

By including the current stakeholders along with development at the beginning of the process allows for honest dialog, a higher rate of compromise and a more efficient process.

IVC: Several controversial zoning issues have emerged over the past few years, including the proposed Sunshine and National development and a coffee drive-thru at Sunshine and Jefferson. What are your thoughts on developing a comprehensive corridor plan for the city?
Hardinger: I think developing a comprehensive corridor plan for this area is really smart. This is a very high-traffic area; it is primarily commercial, but it’s also residential, and so in each of the developments that you mentioned, I have had lots of conversations with the developers and lots of conversations with neighbors and folks that are impacted by these zoning decisions, and so there aren’t any easy answers, but we do want to do what’s best, not just for the new businesses that are coming in but also for the people that live around the neighborhood. I think that a corridor plan makes a lot of sense. Again, it’s a high-traffic area, and I want to make sure that we’re considering the safety of folks who live there now and also consider the future infrastructure needs for that area.
Pauly: I think it’s really important, and we have requested this several times through my neighborhood association, to go ahead and to do a corridor study along Sunshine and National as well. That hasn’t completely come to fruition yet, but we do continue to ask for it. As a Planning and Zoning commissioner, I have had the opportunity when both of those particular issues did come forward to us to be able to listen to the developers, listen to the neighbors and make my vote on both of those issues. As you know, all three times for the two different issues that you mentioned right there, that when they came through the Planning & Zoning Commission, they were denied, and the reason that they were denied was severalfold, and I’m not going to give you the line about I want to make sure that we’re developing any type of commercial and trying to balance the whole idea with neighborhoods; I think that rings rather hollow. I think that what you really need to do is get in there and get your hands dirty to find out what it is that’s going to work and looking at these two different proposals that came before us at that time, I didn’t see where that was something that was going to be an improvement for the neighborhoods and particularly the city of Springfield. I saw those being very detrimental. So, my vote on those all three times was a no vote; it was a decline vote.

IVC: What stands out as one of the most urgent red flags from the Community Focus Report that needs to be addressed?
Hardinger: Something that continually gets brought up is our poverty rate, and it continues to be too high. I think that the best ticket out of poverty is a good job – a good job that pays livable wages. Springfield’s not always been known for having the high wages that a lot of folks are looking for, but if we want to continue to support our existing residents that live here, if we want our young people to stay in this community, I think we need to continue investing in current businesses and helping them expand and grow, and then also new economic development coming in, ensuring that when we do welcome new companies that they do offer wages that support working families in this community. So, I would say poverty is one of the biggest red flags that we see, but again that’s also an issue that we are making progress on, but we have a lot more work to do there, too. Working with those in our community who are unhoused, that’s another big red flag for our community. We’ve got a really great continuum of care that works to provide services to those folks, but we don’t really have the adequate infrastructure to make sure that everybody has the care that they need. So, continuing to focus on mental health efforts, continuing to work on just developing different housing initiatives to meet those needs I think is really important.
Pauly: A lot of that I think is going to come down to where we want to be as a city itself and this area of southwest Missouri. I think we have an opportunity to really become much more of a larger economic area, much like northwest Arkansas has done. I think that we do have the building blocks in place in order to make that happen. It’s just a matter of how are we going to put those together? Are we going to put them together the right way, so not only do we support everything that we have going on today, but are we putting ourselves in the right position for the future? It’s my hope that at the end of my term on City Council that my grandkids can look at the work that happened and say, you know, Opa had it right. He did a good job, and he set us up in a position where we can go ahead and grow from that point.

IVC: If Springfield received a $10 million grant to use in any way the council wanted, what would you do with it and why?
Hardinger: $10 million – that would be a dream. We did have that opportunity with the (American Rescue Plan Act) dollars that came through the city, about $40 million, and we had about $40 million to spend, and I think the amount of the requests we got in was like over $200 million. And so I think if we had $10 million to spend, I’d take a look at some of those projects that folks were interested in funding, and we’ve got quite a bit of data on what the citizens would like for us to spend tax dollars on, so I think that we could spend $10 million in a lot of really positive ways. Some of the funds from the ARPA allocations included a teen center, which is something that Springfield doesn’t have, and so that’s also going to provide housing for those kids aging out of foster care, so thinking of cool new innovative ways to meet community needs would be how I would spend those dollars.
Pauly: I would look at housing as being probably priority No. 1. At this point, there are some opportunities, and I’ll use this as an example, that with Jarrett Junior High School, we know that at some point in probably the not-too-distant future that that particular piece of property is no longer going to be used as a school, and with that particular piece of property, the way that it’s structured right now, if we were to go ahead and allow that to become some type of rental or owner occupied where we had a variety of different people that were able to rent in there – you could do student housing as part of it; you could do low-income housing as part of it; you could do high-rental places as part of it. The thing is, you do not want to segregate people once they get into a development like that. You want people mixed together. Studies have shown over and over again that when you have people that understand financial markets and how those things work and they’re able to become neighbors and work and know their neighbors that may not understand the financial markets quite as well, it raises those boats up so everybody does so much better that way.