Make room for Marler
We support Shane Marler for the Ward 2 East seat on the Hillsboro City Council. Not because he's the most experienced candidate, or because he's the one who knows everything about the goings-on at city hall. Because he doesn't pretend to know it all, we support him.
We've been told it's a bad business decision for a local newspaper to support any candidate for city council. But we're ignoring that advice for the sake of the causes of representative government, community involvement, and just because.
Marler spent last week going door to door on the east side of town, asking what residents needed from him and from the city, should he be elected. He had a notebook with him, and a pen. He listened, and he wrote down your concerns. Because he knows he doesn't know it all.
These days the prevailing attitude about government at all levels seems to be "Let the know-it-alls do it, just don't raise my taxes, or put the sewer plant in my backyard. And fix the potholes! Just don't bother me with government things."
Increasingly it seems this is the way we look at every level of government, including the grassroots level. And that's a shame.
The city election Tuesday is to decide who will occupy the two open seats on the Hillsboro City Council. Emprise Bank president Bob Watson will be unopposed in his bid to occupy the Ward 1 West seat vacated by Len Coryea. We look forward to what he'll bring to the council.
There's only one real race to be decided Tuesday, the Ward 2 east race between Marler, a man with no experience in city government, and the incumbent, Matt Hiebert, seeking his third consecutive two-year term.
Hiebert has never been challenged for the seat he occupies on the city council. Nobody ever ran against him, until now.
Hiebert knows a lot about procedures, referendums, ordinances, and such. He has attended several seminars on these topics. But some say he shoots from the hip. That he spouts off when a more tactful person would keep their mouth shut. Of all the seminars Hiebert has attended, Dale Carnegie is not on the list.
Hiebert criticized the Hillsboro Recreation Commission, belittling its members for eating "coffee and donuts," but not getting much done.
Hiebert also belittled the Hillsboro Star-Journal at a council meeting a few weeks ago. He told an out-of-town consultant this paper reached "only about 250 households," which was his way of saying the Star-Journal doesn't count for much. We weren't happy about it, and we told him so, privately.
He apologized.
A person close to city government says Hiebert comes off as Hillsboro's version of Marion County Commissioner Dan Holub when he represents Hillsboro in meetings with other governments and agencies. He sometimes changes the tone from friendly to combative, unnecessarily. But maybe Hiebert just knows more than everybody else. Maybe we need him running things at Hillsboro City Hall.
You might think that Hiebert is doing an adequate job because nobody ever ran against him until Marler came along, ringing door bells, asking questions, listening, and writing things down.
You might think that if Marler has to go door-to-door to know what's happening, if he doesn't know it all already, then maybe there's no room for him on the Hillsboro City Council, after all.
We hope citizens on the east side will get out and vote for Marler on Tuesday, if only to prove us wrong.
— GRANT OVERSTAKE
