Former planning commission chair Steven Toschi enters race for St. Helens mayor

The former chair of the St. Helens Planning Commission, who has battled the city on several issues, including the camping ordinance, says he will run to unseat Mayor Rick Scholl this November.

Attorney Steven Toschi will join Jennifer Massey in challenging Scholl at the general election, this fall.

After visiting the city over a span of 35 years, Toschi moved with his wife to St. Helens four and a half years ago. He previously lived in Pleasanton, California.

With a campaign slogan of “For a Brighter Future,” Toschi says his campaign is made up of four tenants: Smart slow growth, competent leadership, more freedom and stop what he calls "Portland creep."

“Those are kind of the four table legs of the campaign, and there are specific ideas behind each one,” he said.

On the topic of leadership in St. Helens, Toschi said, “I think it’s time for a change in the mayor. What I plan to do as mayor is to get more involvement of our citizen committees, and get more participation from the planning commission, the parks commission, and to bring out ideas of the other councilors.”

Toschi added, “I’m going to have a style that’s going to encourage people’s contributions and ideas, where they can take hold and move our city in the right direction. And that comes into the 'more freedom' part of my campaign, which is defending free speech.”

A couple of hot topics are tourism and the future of the St. Helens Police Department.

“I would like to see the tourism program revitalized,” he said. “Our businesses downtown right now are very much hurting. We have lost the Sand Castle competition. We have lost a lot of people coming into our town.”

Toschi commented on riverfront redevelopment as well as the police department.

“The project on the waterfront is part of the urban renewal program, which is very important for the future of St. Helens,” he said. “The investments that the city decided to make there … that’s going to create a tax base that will help the city pay its people, because right now we have a lot of shortfalls in our budget.”

On police issues, Toschi said he’s in favor of building a police station in the Houlton Business District, or perhaps rebuilding the current police station.

“Everyone has agreed this police station is dilapidated and it needs to be redone,” he said. “We’ve borrowed the money, the funds are there.”

Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 5.