BELLE FOURCHE—A special election is being held Tuesday, April 7 at the Belle Fourche Community Hall. There are City Council seats open in Ward 1, Ward 2 and Ward 3.
The Butte County Republicans along with the Belle Fourche Chamber of Commerce hosted a Belle Fourche City Council Candidate Forum. It was an evening that introduced all of the candidates to the voters and provided an opportunity to ask them questions in a relaxed setting. The event was held at Grap’s Burgers and Brews on the evening of Thursday, March 19.
The Candidate Forum was moderated by Tom Brunner, County Commissioner and Butte GOP Chairman. He asked questions and gave the audience a chance to ask questions as well. All candidates were given the opportunity to answer each question, and were allowed three minutes for their answers.
The evening began with the opportunity for the candidates to take the microphone and introduce themselves, in their own words, to everyone listening. The event was live-streamed on the Facebook pages of the Belle Fourche Chamber, the Butte County Republican Committee and was carried on Dirt Road Radio, 103.1 FM KYDT and 1450 AM KBFS.
After Brunner welcomed everyone to the event and explained how the evening would run, the introductions began.
Ward 1 candidates are John Fyffe and Wilma Goehring.
Fyffe began by introducing himself, “My name is John, I call Belle Fourche my home. I do work in Rapid City, so I travel back and forth.” He went on to say he works in construction as an estimator and project manager for a large commercial glazing firm. He has been married for 25 years and has five children. He also has four dogs and no cats.
Goehring then introduced herself, “… I have ears to hear, a heart to care, and proof that I can create some action.” She went on to tell the audience that she was instrumental in helping to get a dog park in Belle Fourche. “One summer, I sat out—I went to flea markets, I sat right on our corners, made a nuisance of myself and people stopped in and asked me, ‘What’s going on?’” She presented over 100 surveys to the City and now there is a dog park in Belle. Goehring is a graduate of Partners in Policy Making and serves on the PAIMI Disability Advisory Council as well as the Behavioral Health Advisory Council for DSS. “It’s a Governor appointed position, and I’ve been in it now for a term and a half,” she said.
Ward 2 has four candidates vying for one open seat. They are Falina Selchert, Aydalou Cazer, Faith Melanson and Geno Pesicka.
Selchert introduced herself, “I’m Falina Selchert, many of you already know me—I’m very active in our community. Currently, I’m a wife—we just celebrated 20 years together. I’m a mom of three boys, and they range in age from 14, 11 all the way down to six. And my passion for serving the community came because I was the kid that got forgotten about.” She went on to explain how she went down a bad path and ended up moving away from Belle Fourche. Her journey brought her right back home. “I thought the grass was greener on the other side, until I visited some of these other states and some of these other communities, and then I realized the grass is greener where you water it. And so I came back home to water our grass here,” she said.
Keeping very busy, Selchert serves on four boards and two different committees. “I’ve talked to my family about it, they’re totally fine with the sacrifices that we’re making, because they know that it’s for the betterment of our future and it’s creating a better Belle Fourche for them and to raise their kids here,” she explained.
As a real estate agent, Selchert says she talks to people moving in and out of Belle Fourche all of the time. “I get to share my passion for Belle Fourche with the people who are moving into our community, to really let them know whether Belle Fourche is going to be a good fit for them—because it’s not for everybody—we are not Rapid City, we are not Spearfish—we are uniquely Belle Fourche, and I want to preserve that as much as possible as we move forward into the future,” she shared.
The next candidate to speak was Ayda Cazer. “I have lived in Belle Fourche all my life, but I have worked in different areas. I’ve been a forklift driver, I’ve been a haul truck driver in the mines, and now I plan on staying here after I retire,” she said. “I do a lot of volunteer work. I just want to be able to help the community. And just what I see, and things that people talk to me about that they would like—I like to listen to them, and, of course, I like to talk a lot!”
She said that everyone knows who she is and you can find her all over Belle talking to people. “I want to help the community…because it is a great community. I want it to stay that way. I want to be a part of it—so that’s why I’m running,” said Cazer. She explained that she decided to get involved because during the last City Council elections, nobody was running for the open seats, so she wanted to get involved—now there are four people running for Ward 2 seat. “I hope that I can do some good for this community,” she said. “…I’ve got a family of six kids, and I’ve got 13 grandkids and 13 great grandkids, so I’m pretty busy with them going to all kinds of sports and everything else in the community. And I love Belle!”
The third person running for Ward 2 was up next to speak. Faith Melanson is married with one child. Her baby is three months old. “I’ve grown up in this community a long time. I’ve grown up in 4-H and that kind of helped me with my leadership stuff and beyond that, I haven’t done a whole lot—I’m only 22, most of you probably realize I’m not the oldest looking person here, and so, I mean, I don’t have a track record of what all I can do and stuff like that, and I’m pretty young and just kind of starting out. I do love this community,” she said.
Melanson says she has a house here and she plans to raise her daughter in Belle Fourche. “I just want what’s best for this community, and make sure that we’re here a long time and sustainable.”
The last candidate for Ward 2 to introduce himself was Gene Pesicka. “Most of you know me as Gino—I like long walks on the beach. I’m an Aquarius—I moved to Belle Fourche 16 years ago. I’ve been kind of involved with a little bit of everything ever since—soccer, baseball, cross country, events at the high school, but most of you probably recognize me from being on stage in some sort of production,” he explained.
Pesicka and his wife owned the Leaky Pot Cafe for six years. He currently works as a technician at Carl’s Trailer. “I have believed in this community from the moment I set foot in here. There’s been many times I’ve thought about—it’s time to try something else, but something always keeps pulling me back. I don’t think enough people in this town realize how fortunate we are to live where we live—we’re kind of secluded from all the chaos in the rest of the country, the rest of the world,” he said. “We have a great way of life here, and I want to see it be better.”
Ward 3 has one candidate with one open seat. Vern Hintz is running unopposed.
Vern took the opportunity to let the community know about his background. “I just spent 10 years on the council in Mobridge, about 200 miles east of here. Did a lot of things that a lot of people didn’t like, but they needed to be done, and you got to have somebody like that on there. I’m not the best with the English language—so I use French a lot—I learned that in school,” he said.
Hintz worked for McGas for 12 years and in the propane industry for 25 years. He said that he thinks transparency is important. “I’m into transparency, that has been lacking here a lot through the years that I’ve been on there—they all preach it—if you gotta tell somebody, ‘I’m honest,’ keep your hands in your pockets, because somebody’s going to get in there and steal everything you got,” said Hintz.
After introductions were finished, Brunner began asking a variety of questions that the candidates had to answer to the best of their ability. All of their answers can be found on a rewatch of the livestreams on Facebook. Please take the opportunity to watch the answers to the following questions: 1) What is your position record regarding removing people from Council? Should the council be able to do that, or should it be solely in the hands of the voters?; 2) What do you think is Belle’s number one asset? When you travel outside of Belle, what do you brag about to others?; 3) On the other hand, what about Belle Fourche don’t you like? What’s the number one detriment in Belle Fourche? What would you change and what do you think needs work and attention?; 4) If you could choose your committees, what committees would you like to serve on?; 5) I’d like to hear from each candidate what their definition is of a conflict of interest for them in their position as City Council; 6) What could be done to beautify downtown?; 7) In terms of transparency and communication, how do you feel like you effectively represent the interests of your people and communicate what’s going on without conflicting your NDA?; 8) Would you encourage and take part in revisiting policies and ordinances and are there any current policies and ordinances that you would like to see updated or improved?
Mayor Randy Schmidt was in the audience supporting all of the candidates. “I’d like to thank all the candidates for choosing to run and putting yourself out there. We all know that’s not an easy thing to do, but thank you and we will be glad to have a full Council when this is all over, again,” he said. “I appreciate Tom for narrating this for us and the Chamber for putting this on. So thank you guys!”
Read the full issue of the Belle Fourche Beacon by clicking here.
