Nick Gosnell (00:00):
In studio with us this morning, Northwest district candidate for the city council here in Hutchinson. Jill Gumble. Good morning, Jill.
Jill Gumble (00:06):
Hi Nick. How are you?
Nick Gosnell (00:07):
I'm doing good so far. So everybody has an issue that is the reason they're running. Now, they may not be ready to say that it is specifically that one, I've found that to be the case over the course of the week. But usually, there's something that causes you to pay more attention to the city council then maybe you did before. Jill, what was that for you?
Jill Gumble (00:30):
Nick, I'm a 25 year resident here in Hutchinson and I have used most of my adult life investing my money and my time into Hutchinson. And one thing that I've seen consistently over the past 10 years or so is a decline in business, a decline in population I've seen the high taxes, the storm water utility fees, and some restrictive regulations really cause problems with our businesses. Businesses that have been established have left and it's preventing new growth and development. I've also seen a big adverse effect in the change in culture where people feel like they aren't being heard, nobody is listening to them. And that also is a problem. I do recognize that the city has a lot of potential and I do have a pretty good understanding of our shared values that we have in Hutch. So I just want to see Hutchinson come back and just not continue to just survive, but to really thrive.
Nick Gosnell (01:27):
So do you currently owe any obligations to any taxing entities for years prior to this one?
Jill Gumble (01:33):
Well, there's a hot subject, Nick. Yes. As a matter of fact, I do owe some back taxes. I would like to first briefly address this issue, because it has been brought up before, I am physically disabled. I haven't worked for six years. In 2015, I had a kidney and pancreas transplant. And then in early 2016, I developed Guillain-Barre, which left me paralyzed. It also came along with a lot of medical bills. I had one pill that costs me $13,000 a month. That was one of about 12. And so we got to a point with my husband and I, that we did get behind on property taxes. I'm not gonna lie. It costs a lot of money to be that sick and to get the care that I needed. And we had, we were at a point in our lives where we had to choose was I, were we going to pay for my medical expenses or were we going to pay my taxes?
Jill Gumble (02:29):
And we chose to take care of me first and we put the taxes on hold. In the last 12 months, we have paid back over $60,000 in back taxes and penalties. And the rest that we owe will be resolved in the very near future. Now, one thing I would like to say is a side note is we have never lost any of our properties to foreclosure. We haven't lost any vehicles to repossession and we did not file bankruptcy to avoid paying any of our debts. There was an article put out in the Hutchinson newspaper on October 22nd and they also have it on their Facebook page, which is a full article that pretty much describes what I just described in full what I did just briefly. And if anybody has any questions regarding this, feel free to call me, I have no problem explaining what has happened or giving you more of a detail. I think that this was brought up and, you know, I don't want to be painted as irresponsible or purposefully negligent because I'm really not. But if you do have any questions, please give me a call because I do want to take the time to answer any questions regarding that and to move on with my platform.
Nick Gosnell (03:46):
Sure, and if you've never been in that position where you have to decide medicine or food or medicine or another bill, there's not, there's not a good way to describe that feeling. I'll be candid. We were there briefly early in our marriage, my wife and I, when we lived in South Hutch, when I worked at the station across the hall when it was outside of town about 20 plus years ago. And, I still remember that feeling. That's just a tough deal.
Jill Gumble (04:17):
Oh, it definitely is. I mean, you just feel completely hopeless. My husband and I were self-employed, so we didn't have the benefits that you get when you are employed by somebody, you know, we had very unaffordable insurance and it didn't cover much. So, you get left with no other options, but making choices like that. And then, you know, you can appear to be, you know, negligent or irresponsible when that is definitely not your intention.
Nick Gosnell (04:45):
Did you vote in the last city council election?
Jill Gumble (04:47):
Yes, sir. I have a very strong voting history. Um, I did not vote in 15 or 17 due to serious medical complications that I was having, but I have voted in almost all of our local and primary and general elections, but yes, I did vote in 16, 19 and 2020
Nick Gosnell (05:05):
Jill, what can be done to reduce regulation on businesses coming to Hutchinson?
Jill Gumble (05:10):
Well, that's a really good question because we have had problems and issues with so much restrictive regulation that has caused a big factor in a lot of lost opportunity. I think that what we should be able to do is start implementing the use of special use permits, allowing variances to be made, because there are a lot of people, not just businesses that are having problems, trying to just put up fences and porches, anything kind of like an addition to their property. And they're just getting dismissed when we really do have other options. And I think we just need to work harder at bringing people in because let's face it. We need new business, we need new business to create new revenue and that would help our economy.
Nick Gosnell (05:55):
So what is the way you decide whether a given project should be bonded or whether the city should save for a project? That's a better question than the one I asked the earlier candidates about what a proper level of bonding is, because ultimately it comes down to when you're talking about an individual project, how do you decide whether it's something that you go into debt for because it needs done now, or whether it's something you save for?
Jill Gumble (06:21):
Well, that's a good question. I think a lot of people out who are listening right now do not understand bond money, bond money is basically just borrowed money. It's similar to like when people want to buy a house, if they maybe saved $60,000 and they have that in their bank account, it would be so much wiser to just go ahead and get a loan. So bond money is just like loans. I think that they should be used for basically infrastructure and core services. Some of the non-essential items probably should be put on the back burner, because just like with people's credit, we have credit. For us it's called a bond rating and that's the town's credit score, similar to people's individual credit scores and the better your credit score, the better your bond rating, and you get lower interest rates based off of that. It's best to use bond money for infrastructure and core services and things that we actually need and things that are a bigger, larger project, more expensive projects.
Nick Gosnell (07:24):
All right. So what length should the city's street maintenance program be? Residential streets are at eight years. They're just trying to get through that for the first time. Do we even know yet?
Jill Gumble (07:34):
I don't really think that we've seen that. What we have seen is that we have not been properly funding our roads. If we wanted to maintain like a 70% efficiency rating with our roads, we need to fund around $3.5 million a year. This in-between maintenance that's going on is just simply by the fact that we did not properly fund to begin with. So I think what we need to do is make sure that we are fully funded at $3.5 million a year, and we can just go forward from there, but eight years seems to be working okay. But, obviously there's going to be some immediate attention that's needed here and there. On a positive note, we did have some projects going on this past summer to fill the potholes where people could go online to Hutchgov.com and they could report a really bad pothole or an issue with the road. And we had a crew specifically designed to go out and make those repairs. So I thought that was a really good step forward.
Nick Gosnell (08:35):
Are you for or against taking the money from the federal government to put roundabouts in at the Woodie Seat Freeway?
Jill Gumble (08:41):
Well, Nick, that's another good example of not funding properly. Underfunding creates crises, and we have seen that just with the Woodie Seat Freeway. We're seeing that also with storm water utility fees, but as far as the Woodie Seat, we basically are in a position where we need that grant money. If we do get the grant money, it will be $2 million out of our budget. If we don't, it's going to be about $9 million. So that's a huge amount of difference. But, with the Woody Seat Freeway comes an issue of the people, and it's going to show. The new Woodie Seat Freeway plans are how the traffic flows in from South Hutchinson into Hutchinson, and it's going to be coming to an abrupt end faced with basically two roundabouts. Another issue that I see is that there are a lot of people that walk and use Avenue B. Avenue B will be cut off. You'll no longer be able to walk under the bridge and get to the west side of town. So this is going to create some real big safety issues, especially when you're talking about kids walking to school and getting to school, because now they're not just going to be going under a bridge and staying on the road, they are going to be crossing over a highway.
Nick Gosnell (10:00):
The storm water utility fee is something that you've talked about in your ads. And you've spoken about, you've alluded to earlier in the interview, I want to let you take that, take that issue, head on. What do you think should be done and how? How should it be handled?
Jill Gumble (10:15):
Okay, well with the storm water utility fees, we need to understand that this fee should be spelled T-A-X. The reason why it was called a fee is because it can be passed without any voting. If the community was ever going to be implementing a new tax, you get to vote on that. And obviously with the amount that it went from $600,000 in 2015 to once it was implemented in 16, it went over to $2.2 million. So that's more than tripling the expense. And I know that taxpayers would never pass that kind of a vote. It is necessary. It is something we absolutely have to have. Our water drainage system is in need of repair, has been for quite some time, again, due to underfunding and not planning for the future. So, it is necessary. Yes. Do other towns have this? Yes, they do. But what we need to do is restructure the project so that it isn't hindering our growth and development, because right now it is creating businesses...it's preventing them from coming into our city. And it is discouraging business to come to Hutchinson. We almost lost the state fair over this because their estimated cost was $50,000 more a year. We do have the ARPA funds that are coming into the community, and I think this would be a really good use of that funding.
Nick Gosnell (11:41):
How would you build consensus with the other new members of the council, should you be elected?
Jill Gumble (11:46):
Well, you know, everybody has to work together. We have to be honest with each other and be willing to compromise. Compromise is key. We may not always agree...people don't, but you have to work together for the betterment of our community and each city council member. We do represent our own districts, then there's at large, that represents basically everyone, but we shouldn't be there just to benefit only our district. We have to strive to work together, to promote solidarity and do what's in the best interests of all of the Hutchinson residents.
Nick Gosnell (12:22):
Jill Gumble, running for the Northwest district seat on the Hutchinson city council. And later on today, probably late afternoon, you'll be able to find the transcripts of our interviews with Jill and with Jon Richardson. And you can go back through Hutch Post and find the interviews with the rest of the city council candidates as well. The election takes place on Tuesday, November 2nd.