PETOSKEY — All three candidates vying for the 107th House seat were in Petoskey on Monday night to take part in a moderated forum.
The forum, which took place at North Central Michigan College, was organized by the Petoskey and Charlevoix chambers of commerce.
“Our chambers government relation committee look forward to hosting this event each and every election cycle because we know it gives our residents and our business owners an opportunity and a chance to hear directly from the candidates on the issues that we are facing every day in our communities,” said Nikki Devitt, president of the Petoskey Regional Chamber of Commerce.
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The event included a meet-and-greet and brief remarks from candidates running in the 1st Congressional District and in contested commission races in Emmet and Charlevoix counties.
The focus of the evening was a moderated forum for the three candidates in the 107th House race. The district includes all of Charlevoix and Emmet counties and portions of Cheboygan, Chippewa and Mackinac counties.
State Rep. Neil Friske, R-Charlevoix, is facing challenger Parker Fairbairn for the Republican nomination in the August primary, while Jodi Decker is running on the Democratic ticket.
The forum was moderated by Scott LaDeur, professor of political science at NCMC.
The News-Review has included two of the questions and responses provided at the forum. The full forum is available to watch on the Petoskey chamber’s Youtube channel.
It is clear that tourism is an important industry in our area and short-term rentals contribute to that economic engine. However, our year-round residents also value a sense of community, which can be hurt by the proliferation of short-term rentals. How do you think these two needs should be balanced and what policy or policies would you advocate for to achieve this balance?
Friske: My voting record proves that I am a smaller government, less regulation advocate. I do not believe that Lansing should be the person that makes the decisions when it comes to short-term rentals for Northern Michigan. What’s good for Petoskey might not be good for Charlevoix might not be good for Gaylord might not be good for Traverse City might not be good for Sault Ste. Marie. So I don’t want to be down there in Lansing and cast the vote telling everybody what they have to do with short-term rental for their community.
I think you’ll find if you look at my voting record you’ll see that across the board when I vote, I vote for individual rights, I vote for less government. Way too often people want to look to Lansing to solve their problems, whether it’s short-term rentals or it doesn’t matter what topic we talk about … I do believe that one thing the state could do is help by reducing some of the regulation that some of the agencies put on to throttle our developers and our people that want to do different things.
The short-term rental thing is not a simple fix and I do believe that if we allow the free market to take care of itself, ultimately, it will be resolved.
Fairbairn: The short-term rental issue is really unique up in our district. You look at it and it’s an issue on two hands. You’ve got one side that’s private property, ‘I should be able to do what I want with my property,’ whether it is short-term rental or not. The other side of that is local control. Our local governments know best what’s best for their communities. Sometimes that can be abused and I think there needs to be a balance there between private property and the local control so our local municipality is really governing the whole thing.
I don’t believe Lansing has the one-size-fits-all solution for this. I don’t believe that’s the answer to this, because Michigan is so unique. You go into the Upper Peninsula, you go down to Detroit there’s two totally different places. So I don’t think Lansing can solve that issue, but it’s crucial that we allow limited government to facilitate this crucial issue in our area.
Decker: I’m torn between people’s private rights of their property and what’s best for the economy and their rights to make money off of their property. I’m thinking maybe polling the communities, each community, and seeing if we should have a limit on how many AirBnbs are in each community. I think that should be back at local control, also actually, because I don’t think the state can take into account what happens in each individual district and each individual community. I’ve learned that Lansing is way out of touch with the U.P. in the last few years, so I think it should be left at local control.
A strong educational system in Michigan is essential to economic growth and attracting talent to our area. What would you advocate for in Lansing to ensure the strength of our local K-12 school districts and institutions of higher education?
Decker: Well as we all know, if we don’t have schools for our children we don’t have children to put in the schools, because nobody’s going to stick around. I know this last year and a half when (Gov. Gretchen) Whitmer raised the budgets for the schools and the free lunches, that needs to continue. We need to raise it more, we need to give our teachers raises and incentivize people to come here and be teachers for our kids. Pouring money into our education is pouring money into our future, I feel. Anything for children is going to help us in the long run and it will bring more children into our area. More families will want to raise their children here.
In fact I lived in the U.P. for my entire life, except for a short stint down in Ypsi. When I got pregnant I moved back up north to raise my kids because I didn’t want to be in a city. I wanted to be where I was from. I think most people do want to be back where they’re from, but they need jobs and child care and education for their kids to stay there.
Friske: On the education topic, I do believe that we need to continue to advocate for school choice. School funding is at a record and an all-time high, and unfortunately the results are not reflective of that. So just pouring more money into it is clearly not the answer, because that’s the trajectory we’ve been on for a while. I think we need to make sure that we make school choice a matter of an issue that’s in the forefront. I believe the money should follow our students, so that if you choose to send your children to a private school, a charter school, homeschool, whatever is best suited for your family and your child’s needs, I think that’s the important part.
Just pouring more money into the budget, we’ve got an almost $83 billion budget. We just can’t keep pouring money into everything because it’s not sustainable. Look what you’re paying for groceries. Look at what you pay for gas. Look at what houses cost because building materials are skyrocketed. We have to become more fiscally responsible. We have to demand more from our education system and hold them accountable and once we start doing that I do believe we can get a better result.
I am not against public schools, but I am against just continuing to funnel money into them if they’re not going to produce a better result.
Fairbairn: Education is a really important issue to me. Michigan ranks 43rd in terms of education across the nation, which is unacceptable. We’ve had a 25 percent increase in spending in our education in the last few years with a -5 percent decrease in test scores, so that’s a huge huge issue that I see. Spending’s increasing but the performance and the results aren’t increasing.
One big thing that I’ve been a proponent of the last year has been Beyond Basics. It’s a really good program that we have in a few schools in the Char-Em ISD. We have it in East Jordan, Harbor Springs, Alanson and Pellston. It’s a literacy program, and I mean the results really speak for themselves. This was the first year we implemented it and these kids, it was incredible. I was at the completion ceremony just a few weeks ago and these kids and their parents, frankly, crying both to my dad and I, we’ve been big proponents of this, saying ‘Our kids aren’t getting bullied anymore. Our kids can actually read now.’ And that is an incredible thing to spend money on, but we have a lot of wasteful spending that’s going on in terms of education and that’s something we need to really look at these incredible programs that really help push the needle forward.
— Contact Jillian Fellows at jfellows@petoskeynews.com.
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