Three candidates, and one certified write-in candidate, have filed to run for four open seats on Bethel City Council this year.
Ahead of the Oct. 7 election, KYUK has been airing interviews with each of the candidates.
Greg Schiedler is currently the sole write-in candidate running for a seat on the council. Over nearly 17 years of living in Bethel, he said that he's seen both long-term improvements and new issues for the city he calls home.
Schiedler spoke with KYUK’s Evan Erickson about his candidacy.
The following transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.
KYUK (Evan Erickson): And could you just introduce yourself a little further there, Greg ... who you are and what occupies your time here in Bethel?
Greg Schiedler: I'm Greg Schiedler, and I'm the data center manager for [the Lower Kuskokwim School District], and my systems basically support the students, the educators, and the administration with all of their IT needs.
KYUK: How long have you been in Bethel?
Schiedler: I'm just like, 35 days shy of 17 years.
KYUK: What would you say is your favorite thing about Bethel? To start with a softball question.
Schiedler: Softball question, um, I like small towns. I was raised outside of a small town in Oregon, so I'm kind of a small town person, where you, you know, know everybody and do what you want to do, per se, to, you know, better the community.
KYUK: Why are you running for city council? Is there a particular issue you want to highlight in your campaign?
Schiedler: It was suggested that I apply to run for the vacancy back in February, and I wasn't successful at that, and that council member is moving on, and so I'm kind of completing the circle. And I'm now running as a full-fledged, not on the ballot unfortunately, I missed the timing on that, but I'm a certified write-in for the current election.
KYUK: And is there a certain issue that you're particularly passionate about?
Schiedler: I think our pressing issues right now is the public safety aspect of, I'd like to see our public safety officers become members of the community. I'm not really an advocate of these out of state persons coming in, doing the thing, it's a job, go home. I think it takes them to be part of the community, to know the community, versus a contractor, basically coming in, I'm doing the job, I've done the job, I'm going home.
KYUK: Does that apply to more than public safety?
Schiedler: It applies to public safety, it also, I can't count the number of fire chiefs and stuff we've had that, you know. Bethel is different. And if you're not a person that can handle a smaller community, if you come from a large metropolitan area, it is a rather abrupt change here. And if you're not willing to, you know, adapt to it, it could be too much to adapt to. I think we should potentially focus, I don't know how they're finding our candidates. I'm assuming we have a headhunter out there trying to find potential candidates. Maybe move our focus a little towards the region and the state versus the lower 48.
KYUK: What experience do you have with elected positions, whether it's previously on a city council or a municipal board or committee?
Schiedler: I'm currently also a member of the Bethel Family Clinic board of directors. And so it's kind of, one is community oriented, one is community health care oriented.
KYUK: What do you think is the biggest issue facing the city of Bethel in the coming years, the short term?
Schiedler: More short, short term? I don't see any major issues that I'm aware of that are really pressing. It's kind of a, I think the biggest thing that we are fighting is we have limited continuity in, you know, our public safety. We have limited continuity in our fire. We have limited continuity in the city hall. And all of that hinges on, there is something, you know, institutional knowledge, this is what we've done in the past. You know that we don't go okay, that nobody has any knowledge, we've tried that. That, per se, didn't work. Well, we tried this and it worked. Can we modify that? Because it's a living organism, per se.
KYUK: Any ideas on how the city could help address the issue with continuity?
Schiedler: I'm thinking that they potentially need to, you know, focus in closer to town. Try to find people that are homegrown. Try to find people in the [Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta]. Find people in the state versus trying to find, you know, here we pay good; come up here. I don't see that it's worked well. I mean, we've had very limited success with keeping, I can't remember how many fire chiefs we've had, how many police chiefs we had. It was one of the first persons I ever met was a former police chief on the airplane leaving Bethel for my first time, and it was, wanted to hire my wife, like, right there on the spot for a dispatcher. And it was like, wow, they really need a dispatcher.
KYUK: What do you think the city [and] the city council has been doing well in recent years?
Schiedler: Well, we've seen this stabilized, getting, like, water and sewer delivered on time, at least out here in the hauled services land, and it's a big issue. I mean, I had a couple of years ago, missed deliveries, over deliveries, under deliveries. I ran out and it was like, okay, they were here Friday. How can I be out on Sunday? So that's come a long way. They've come a long way. I think it was scheduling, and I've seen new trucks. I knew they had some equipment problems. I think those have been mitigated. I've seen, you know, newer equipment. So I'm assuming it hinged on trucks being, you know, older and in need of replacement.
KYUK: What do you think the city council itself needs to improve on?
Schiedler: I don't know anything really that the city council itself needs to improve on. I don't have any really pressing issues there. I would like to see, potentially one of the big things that Bethel faces in my thing, in the public safety aspect of it, we have the same limited number of individuals that seem to require services, and it's a revolving door, merry-go-round, per se. I'd like to see potentially, the city council, [the Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corporation], you know, even Bethel Family Clinic, any other organization, that we can get these individuals help and try to get them off of the merry-go-round and stabilize their life, whatever their particular needs are, that. Can we do that even if it involves, you know, the courts and [the Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corporation] and all, everybody working together on the same page. Let's try to get these people, you know, from going in the door and back out the door. I mean, they seem to be, if you read any of the police logs and the calls, there's just seems to be the same thing over and over and over again. And it's not good for the community. It's not good for the individuals. I think we can do better.
KYUK: What accomplishments or progress on projects would make it make you feel like you'd succeeded in your position, if you try to imagine?
Schiedler: I think I mean, one thing I would like to see, and I don't know why it didn't happen the last winter, is that the city have better monitoring on some of their services. The freeze-up to me, I may be very naive in this, is preventable. The water started getting colder, and people shut their faucets off because they're on city. They're not supposed to. It's supposed to be a heated loop. The heat wasn't there. Nobody knew the heat [wasn't] there. Nobody told anybody on these loops that, please run your faucets, would be better to you know, waste 100,000 gallons of water than go through two weeks of, thousands of dollars in extra overtime trying to thaw it out. It's a huge health and safety issue for a lot of people. Why isn't that loop monitored? Why didn't, when it started nose diving, someone you know, I work for the school district. We have a whole bunch of DDC: direct digital controls. We know the monitoring of this. I can, from my desk, see the temperatures in the crawl space in schools 100 miles away. Why [doesn't] the city have some sort of thing? They now have the kind of a backbone around the city that they're they're running wireless to here and there, and they should be have the ability to, okay, we need a sensor out on that pump station or this lift station, and somebody should be going, 'Whoa. What's going on? This is getting to a critical temperature.' Whether or not they didn't respond to it, they didn't know, or it could have been mitigated by saying, 'Hey, we need everybody, this block to please, you know, run your water, would be much better than having it freeze solid and then trying to thaw it out for two and a half weeks.
KYUK: So that's something you would emphasize during your time?
Schiedler: It's something, it's a need. I mean, I've seen other things, that is between that and the revolving door of services supplied to some people, and the revolving door potentially in the police and fire chiefs. We need to, we're trying to mitigate some of that. You know, we're building some housing for some of the city employees. You know, housing is a huge deal in Bethel, but I think, you know, focusing in on individuals that are more in tune with potentially joining our community as a member versus joining our community as a paycheck.
KYUK: Is there anything else we should know about you and your run for election to city council?
Schiedler: Well, the only other kind of thing that I generally say is part of why I've thought about this. I think I can bring something to the council. I was born on, actually raised outside of a small community on a farm with a quarter of a million chickens. So as a small kid, I've done anything and everything, from the agricultural farming to waste management, to collection, to distribution, to trucks and that. And then I got a degree in computer systems engineering, and then I went into business phone systems. And then, for some crazy reason, I started a limousine company, and then bought a car rental company and an RV rental company. And so I have a really wide background, and I know a lot of different trades. I mean, I can wire, I can plumb, I can think. So a city council, you're gonna look at proposals to do this and proposals to do that, and specifications on a piece of equipment. At least I I've wrenched on a loader. I have wrenched on a D8 [Caterpillar]. You know, I've been in grease and sparks flying on the other thing, trying to wire something, and maybe it's a jack of all trades and master of none, but it gives you a knowledge base that is really tough to duplicate.
KYUK: Thank you for sitting down in your home here in Kasayalie to speak with KYUK and me about your run for Bethel City Council.
Schiedler: I'm running. Write me in.
