Election 2011: Wise touts business expertise
Candidate Doug Wise is ready to bring
his business sense and positive attitude to city council.
Originally from Morehead City, N.C.,
Wise has a degree in business administration and 40 years of
experience as a senior executive. He’s worked with Merv Griffin
Entertainment — creator of TV game shows “Jeopardy!” and “Wheel of
Fortune” — and in marketing and sales with Southwestern in
Nashville, Tenn.
He first visited Whitefish in 1995
while on a Backroads bicycle tour through Glacier Park with his
wife. They looked at real estate in Whitefish while they were here
and bought the first house they walked into on Birch Point.
“It felt right,” Wise said about the
decision to move here. “Whitefish has the feel of a community, not
a resort. There’s a big difference.”
They moved here full time in 2006.
Wise is active with the Rotary Club and
serves as sergeant-at-arms, he was elected to the Whitefish Lake
Golf Association and is now the vice president, and he is active
with the WAG dog park board among other city and community
groups.
Wise aims to bring business planning
and strategy to city government, namely in how the TIF district is
managed. He wants to see a priority list of TIF projects set out in
writing, and a budget and timeline for how those goals will be
reached.
He thinks the top priority now should
be helping fund a new high school bond — not a city hall.
“I don’t know of anything more
important in this community than to have a new high school,” Wise
said. “The heart of our community is our children and their future
is determined by the direction we give them through the school
system.”
He says a revamped high school will
also help attract new businesses that are looking to hire people
who might have children. When they look at real estate, he says,
they also look at the schools.
Wise wants to see a formal plan for
funding a new city hall and to have it on a TIF priority list.
“We’ve got to have a business plan that
says this is how much it will cost, and this is how we are going to
pay for it,” he says. “That’s what a business person does.”
He likes the potential city hall site
north of the library because it’s still downtown, and would create
a “synergy” with the library, Depot Park and the O’Shaughnessy
Center. The site was originally suggested in the Downtown Master
Plan.
“Somebody spent a lot of time on the
Master Plan,” he said, “so why are we pushing it away?”
Wise says city regulations are hurting
new business growth opportunities.
“Control is important in any
situation,” Wise said, “but we’ve put in restrictions that have
reversed what we tried to accomplish. We wanted to slow growth — we
didn’t slow it up, we stopped it.
“I have not talked to a businessman
that wants to do business in Whitefish. The permit process is hard
to deal with, and we need to simplify that. We need to remove
barriers for businesses. The perception is that business is not
welcome here. That’s a perception, not a reality, but we’ve got to
change that.”
The county and city need to seek a
compromise in the doughnut planning area, he says, and the city
should avoid more litigation.
“I look at all of 59937 as my
neighbors,” Wise said. “They may live in the doughnut, but if I ask
where they live, they say Whitefish. The law prevents us from
letting them vote, but it doesn’t prevent us from listening to what
they have to say. Do we want common ground and compromise, or do we
want to sue?
“I’d like to see us work with the city
gateways toward a common cause.”
Wise challenges everyone to vote in the
off-year election.
“We are a community that can accomplish
so much,” he said. “We need to set a record for voter turnout.”