WILSON — Three candidates for Wilson mayor, along with three for Wilson City Council and two for the Central Plains USD 112 board of education, answered a variety of questions Sunday afternoon in the Wilson School commons during the second of two local candidate forums this election season.

The first candidate forum, for candidates seeking seats on the Ellsworth City Council, was Thursday evening at the Ellsworth Golf Course.

Both forums were sponsored by the Ellsworth County Independent-Reporter, Wilson Communications and Ellsworth County Economic Development. Brian Boisvert, manager of Wilson Communications, Inc., was the moderator at the Wilson forum.

The afternoon began with three candidates for Wilson mayor — incumbent Larry Ptacek, Michael Peschka and write-in candidate Jessica Loveland. Ron Bouska, another candidate for mayor, did not attend the forum.

Here is a sample of the questioning:

• What are the top two issues facing Wilson?

Ptacek — “One of the things that comes to mind is kind of a sore spot with everyone in the community,” Ptacek said, adding there are areas in town that have things going on that shouldn’t be, and this is making the town less safe.

“Now that we have the help of our new police chief, we’re currently working on addressing those issues,” he said.

Second, Ptacek said it is important to try to increase the number of families coming to Wilson.

Loveland — “The number one issue with the city, in my opinion, is the curb appeal,” Loveland said.“We have not only vacant buildings, we have vacant houses. I think we need to come up with some more ideas.”

She suggested hitting owners of dilapidated properties where it hurts — in the pocket book.

Loveland said the council also needs to work on getting young families to move to Wilson.

“We have a great community, but we need to focus on letting everybody know that we do have a small teacher to student ratio, we do have a great school,” she said. “Let these young families come here and see what a great community we have.”

Peschka — “The number one issue for our city right now is maintaining our schools,” Peschka said.

He said the city needs to get fully engaged and do whatever it can to help the school district, and try to maintain at least some type of school in Wilson.

He also said if Wilson wants to maintain its school, have businesses, and maintain a tax base, it needs to have population.

“You need people living here,” he said.“You need people wanting to move here.”

Wilson City Council

Three candidates for Wilson City Council, incumbent Gary Everett, write-in Melinda Merrill, and David Criswell, each answered a series of questions. Here’s a sample:

• What are the top two issues facing Wilson?

Criswell — “We absolutely have to keep our school open.” Criswell said.“If our school closes, there is no other thing that the Chamber of Commerce, City of Wilson, Wilson Economic Development can do to replace what we lose.”

He said Wilson also needs to work on housing.

“We need not only more housing, but more of a variety of housing,” he said.

Merrill — “I agree the school does need to stay open,” Merrill said.“But it is so tied to other issues in town. I think you are not going to get people to move here if there is not the moderate housing, which we almost missed out on. But it’s also the curb appeal and the way the downtown looks.”

She said bringing more people into Wilson will provide more sales tax to the city coffers and help keep businesses such as Wilson Foods alive.

Everett — “Our biggest issue is funding,” Everett said. “Prior city governments have done a great job keeping taxes down, but our reserves have been depleted.”

He said the city is spending a lot of money on loan payments instead of fixing up the town.

“My hope is to get those reserves up,” he said. “Part of that is saying no to some of these things we’d like to get done.”

Second, he encouraged residents to fill out surveys when they get them in the mail so the city can apply for grants and loans from the Kansas Department of Commerce.

Candidates Anne Piper, Steve Claussen, Ryan Stoppel, Jerry Forian and write in Aubrey Ptacek were unable to attend.

USD 112 school board

Two candidates, incumbent Michelle Brokes of Wilson, and Melissa Hubbard of Claflin, answered several questions. Here is a sample:

• How do you feel about the district’s budget going forward?

Brokes — “I actually feel really good about the budget,” Brokes said.“There were some really big changes that happened this past year. Obviously, closing Central Plains Middle School in Bushton was a big one.”

She said the closing was much more than a facility issue in terms of the budget. By reassigning seventh and eighth grade students to Claflin and Holyrood, that enabled USD 112 to streamline staff.

“Almost all of that happened through attrition, through teachers moving on or retiring,” she said.“It terms of the staff it wasn’t a big hit.”

Brokes said she doesn’t disagree with those who say USD 112 has been wasting money.

“Those changes should have been made before this point,” she said.“The board tried to keep the cuts away from the communities and away from the kids as long as possible. But there came a point where we couldn’t do it anymore.”

Hubbard — “I agree with Michelle,” Hubbard said. “As tough as it was over the last year, it gets to a point where you have to shut off the emotional side of things and look at nothing but numbers.”

Hubbard said the board has to work on short term fixes in order to achieve its long term goals.

“This is an ongoing process that is constantly being reviewed,” she said. “As long as everyone understands that, I think everything will be okay.”