GRAND JUNCTION – There are two contested races in this year’s Grand Junction City Council election, which concludes April 7; ballots were mailed on March 16.

Running for a four-year term are Dennis J. Simpson, a certified public accountant who describes himself as “a fiscal conservative and lifetime Republican,” and Chris Kennedy, a telecommunications executive who secured the Democratic Party’s nomination for House District 55 in 2014.

Running for a two-year term are Rick Taggart, a business executive who has served as chief executive officer for Marmot Mountain Works, Swiss Army Brands and Pyramid Printing, and Kim A. Kerk, who describes herself as a “builder” who founded a sign company and who now works for Blue Star Industries, a construction company.

Both council seats that are contested are at-large positions. Running unopposed in District B is incumbent Barbara Traylor Smith, who was appointed to an at-large seat in 2013; in District C, incumbent Bennett Boeschenstein is unchallenged; and, in District E, Duncan McArthur, another two-year appointee, also has no opponent.

Simpson vs. KennedyKennedy has been endorsed by the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel, which has dubbed Simpson a “watchdog” keeping an eye on city and county government.

But regardless of the Sentinel’s endorsement, Simpson feels he needs to “work harder to get the word out to conservatives and Republicans.”

Simpson emphasizes the need for transparency, accountability and fiscal restraint at the municipal level.

“Our local economy is not keeping up with the rest of the state,” he said. “We need to come together to find innovative ways to turn things around.”

Kennedy emphasizes “quality of life” issues, citing the need for high-speed broadband Internet service, improved roads, parks and trails, and a recreation center. Kennedy’s pet project would be the renovation of historic Union Station, the still-used train station in central Grand Junction.

“I would like to work to have the downtown train station restored with Amtrak as the main tenant. I’m a big proponent of that. We’ve got to make Grand Junction an attractive location for anybody who’s thinking about relocating here,” Kennedy said. “I think we can do things inside the existing budget.”

Both Simpson and Kennedy favor Referendum 2A, which would exempt Grand Junction from a legislative prohibition against cities offering municipal assets to public or private broadband providers. Referendum 2A would not raise taxes and would allow the city to directly or indirectly participate in providing high-speed Internet services to Grand Junction residents and businesses.

“There’s nobody opposed to 2A in the whole city,” Simpson said. “It’s a no-brainer.”

But the candidates part ways on Referendum 2B, which would finance construction of a beltway on the west side of town.

Simpson says the city is too far in debt with voter-approved obligations and Certificates of Participation to take on more. Voters turned down a city request to approve financing for a new police station, but it was built anyway using Certificates of Participation, he said.

“They want to build this road that nobody in this community has asked for,” Simpson said.

Kennedy says that Grand Junction voters have supported improving the city’s system of elevated parkways, beltways and bypasses.

“It’s an investment in city infrastructure that citizens have voted for before,” Kennedy said. “Being able to help with infrastructure costs makes perfect sense and is something we should be doing. I’m running for city council because it’s really time to start thinking about the way our valley and the city as it looks, 10, 15, 25 years from now.”Simpson says 2B can’t be understood by simply reading it.

“You can’t get what it really means by reading it,” he said. “They’re going to have to acquire real estate.”

The city council voted to put 2B on the ballot with little public input, he said. It probably originated with city staff, he speculated.

“Council wouldn’t have been able to dream this up by themselves,” Simpson said.

Taggart vs. KerkTaggart, who is currently manager of special projects with Colorado Mesa University, has also been endorsed by the Daily Sentinel. In short, he advocates practical economic development efforts such as free trade zones, tax deferments, providing broadband services, and making road and transportation improvements.

Kerk says her intimate knowledge of the Grand Junction planning process would make her a city council member able to hit the ground running.

“I know how to get a project through the planning process,” she said.

Both candidates are Republicans, and they agree that diversifying Grand Junction’s economy to free the city from the boom and bust cycles of the oil and natural gas industry should be a top priority.

“I’m a bit frustrated that we’ve been susceptible to booms and busts,” said Taggart, a 30-year resident of Grand Junction who commuted to his nine-year CEO position with Swiss Army Brands because he didn’t want to move his family from western Colorado. He wracked up a lot of frequent flyer miles commuting to the U.S. headquarters in Connecticut and occasionally even Switzerland, and sometimes was able to return to Colorado only once every three months, but his heart never left Grand Junction and his family there.

“I’m now at the stage in my life that I have time to give back to the community that I love.”

Kerk emphasizes that she has built and grown businesses in Grand Junction. Her current employer, Blue Star, built a record 130 houses in the Grand Valley in 2014, and she sold her 15-year sign company for a profit.

“I’ve spent the last 40 years here in Grand Junction growing businesses,” she said. “I think Rick and I have similar values and morals and we’re both slightly conservative.”

The two candidates agree that Grand Junction needs free trade zones, enterprise zones, and tax deferments to provide incentives to companies looking to relocate.

Taggart served on the board of the Grand Junction Economic Partnership, which was responsible for the location of the companies Sunstrand, Reynolds Polymer and 3-D to the city, as well as the Business Incubator. He says statistics that will be available soon from a site selection team will help with business recruitment immensely.

Upstate New York has “introduced this new tax-free concept” offering ten years of deferred taxes to businesses that don’t compete with existing local businesses and coordinated through a local university, Taggart explains, advocating that “we get something like that to help western Colorado.”

Back when Grand Junction’s economy was booming in the early part of this century, “the city council put up significant restrictions and time delays for both business expansion and new development,” Taggart said. “The time you diversity is when you’re at full strength.”

“There are really smart ways to grow the businesses that we need,” agreed Kerk.

Easing the burdens of the planning process is a simple way to foster economic growth, she said.

“I’ve seen the city and county making great strides in the last few years,” Kerk said. Planning “has been streamlined immensely by the city and county.”

Neither candidate has prior political experience, but Kerk has been involved in the community through affiliations with the Mesa County Planning and Economic Development Board, the Grand Valley Drainage District Board and the Mesa County Foster Parent Program.

Both candidates support the ballot measures to relax restrictions on municipal development of broadband service and to build the Westside Beltway.

Ron Bain has joined The Colorado Statesman as West Slope correspondent.