Newton announces re-election bid

SANDPOINT — Councilwoman Helen Newton officially kicked off the city’s election season Monday when she announced her intention to run for reelection.

Newton is one of four council members up for election in November, but is the first to publicly declare her candidacy. Councilmen Michael Boge, John Reuter and John O’Hara have until Friday to declare their candidacy.

Newton, who spent 24 years as Sandpoint’s city clerk prior to earning a council seat in 2006, is running for a four-year term. In all, there are three four-year seats and one two-year seat up for grabs.

During her first two years on the council, Newton served on the Public Works Committee and, since January 2007 has served on and been chair of the Administrative Committee. 

If elected to a second term, Newton said her biggest challenges will be tackling the city’s upcoming zoning overhaul and finding solutions to a potential water crisis.

Water, and how the city uses it, has become a hot-button issue over the years. Water consumption has gone up, but availability has stayed the same, which Newton sees as a recipe for disaster. The city is looking to revamp its lake water treatment facility, which would enhance its water supply by several million gallons per day, but voters rejected a $20 million bond to pay for the project last May.

Newton wanted to bypass a citywide vote in favor of obtaining a judge’s approval for the bond, and she voted against the council’s recent decision to put the bond back on the ballot this November.

“Initially, I felt we should have gone to a judicial confirmation, as we did with wastewater treatment,” she said. “It is a necessary and ordinary expense. But then the decision was made to put it to a public vote. Granted, we didn’t get any kind of turnout, but I’m not one who’s in favor of sending things back again and again and again until you get what you want.”  

The council has had its share of controversial issues of late — sidewalks, deals with Panhandle State Bank, trading the Cedar Street Bridge — but Newton said she does not regret any of her votes.

She said the council’s biggest failures in recent years have been doing away with commercial parking requirements and the failed 2008 LID for sidewalk repair, neither of which she supported.

Anyone who wants to run for council needs to file a petition of candidacy with the city clerk by Friday.