-
1 of 10
-
2 of 10
-
3 of 10
-
4 of 10
-
5 of 10
-
6 of 10
-
7 of 10
-
8 of 10
-
9 of 10
-
10 of 10
Candidate urges change for Boise politics
Archive
Comments
Story
Convinced the current system of city politics needs renovation, Jason Shaw, 24, has filed for election to the Boise City Council seat being vacated by Sara Baker.
Shaw works as a legal assistant at Huntley, Park, Thomas, Burkett, Olsen & Williams and has made efforts toward obtaining his Master’s degree in Public Administration. Shaw also attended summer courses at Northwest Nazarene University in Nampa, training for paralegal certification.
His local introduction to political leadership was as campus coordinator for the Green Party during Ralph Nader’s campaign. He was only a part-time student, since graduating from Syracuse University with a bachelor’s degree in Communication.
Working with the Green Party to initiate youth into political action gave him the opportunity to develop his interest in changing city politics.
“Ultimately we did not have a candidate, so Thomas, my campaign manager, had tossed around the idea of getting a young candidate, maybe even someone who is 18 or 19, which would attempt to reach out to people who don’t usually vote,” he said.
This strategy, according to Shaw, “would be a good way to get a lot of people involved and excited, because usually politics consists of 50-year-old candidates.”
Shaw said he was running because he would like to improve public transportation, recycling, and renters’ rights, and to introduce ordinances heightening benefits for city employees, and employees of city subcontractors.
“There is no way anyone in Boise will be raising those issues, making them a central campaign issue and a priority,” he said.
Inadvertently, these are issues targeting college students, but Shaw feels the majority of his campaign platform will benefit the community as well as the younger populations.
“Certainly students will benefit from better public transportation,” Shaw said. “It is expensive enough to go to college as it is, and not everyone owns transportation.”
To increase efficiency of the current public transportation system, Shaw envisions more routes running more often.
He has met with employees from the bus drivers’ union, who mentioned “some of the routes the city has now are poorly drawn and ridiculous, and because the buses have to drive through individual neighborhoods, the buses are able to run the routes once every hour,” Shaw said.
Suggestions for improvement include one bus running up and down State Street providing citizens with easy access to downtown and back.
Shaw would also be proposing the buses run later into the evening, especially those nights when Boise’s night scene is livelier.
“A lot of people drink and then drive. Of course, the drunk driving laws are not much of a deterrent to anyone who is not in a sound state of mind, so why can’t the city provide them with a way to get home safely?” Shaw said.
Consistent with his safety concerns, Shaw is on the bandwagon for increasing Greenbelt security.
“Jeremy Maxand and I set up a committee to pressure the city council to fund lighting for the Greenbelt,” Shaw said. “The budget does not have to pass until the end of the month, so the city still has a chance to act on it.”
When the city was composing the budget for the year. Shaw said, 10 capital projects were on the docket for funding, with other potential propositions prioritized depending on financial resources.
“Number 12 on the list was lighting for the Greenbelt,” he said.
He said the city had considered lighting just Julia Davis Park this year, which would cost about $185,000, but they voted that down, leaving the proposal at the lowest priority.
Boise City Councilman Mike Wetherell pressured the committee, forcing the position of the proposal up a notch to No. 11.
Shaw noted the Greenbelt is not solely used for recreation or exercise, but also as a transportation corridor for students to get back and forth from class to either their car or downtown.
He also said that the parks close at dusk, and “when it gets dark at 6 o’clock, and classes get out at 8 p.m., why should people be criminalized for using the park after dark, and why can’t it be open with lighting so people can feel safer?”
“I am not saying the lights are the end of violence on the Greenbelt. What I am saying, is if there is someone like me in City Council, those issues would be fought for, rather than getting ignored and tossed aside.
“The police department recommended lighting, as did the parks department, and the city still did not follow through. Although they have $600,000 to spend this and next year to pay back developers for the work they did putting in sewers outside the city limits for all the annexed areas.
“A lot of tax dollars are getting spent on development outside the city, like the $1.2 million to be spent on the developer payback over the next two years.”
Shaw said he had problems with this, and to govern differently, he would prioritize existing neighborhoods above urban sprawl.
Shaw said some mechanism is needed to keep neighborhoods stable.
“Renters’ rights are something else I want to look into, and that’s part of the reason why I am running. Here we have six city council seats available, and those who currently occupy them do not rent. They are landowners, they are landlords, and what kind of citizen’s democracy is that, when there are thousands and thousands of people below 30 years old in the city who have these concerns?”
For instance, the city charges to haul recycled materials from renters’ units, yet gives a rebate to homeowners.
For Shaw, “recycling is a pretty big issue, because there is just not a whole heck of a lot of it going on, and I think recycling should be required by law.
“My argument against that is if we don’t start reducing the amount of trash going into the landfill, in another eight years, we are going to have to pass a multi-million dollar levy to purchase more landfill space. So if we can reduce the amount of trash going into the landfill by a percentage, we get a lot longer life out of our existing landfill.”
Another concern for Shaw is the lack of a processing facility in Boise for recyclable materials such as glass.
“What we need to have here is a recycling facility which of course will create jobs. And if it contracts through the city, which it will, those jobs will be under the policy of living wage.”
The living wage policy is one Shaw is proposing to provide an extra bonus to those employees contracted and employed by the city.
He said cities such as Baltimore, Los Angeles and Oakland have policies similar to his proposal, which would raise minimum salaries to $8 to $10 per hour respectively for full- and part-time employees.
“I recognize a lot of employers keep people at 37 hours a week so they do not have to pay benefits,” Shaw said.
Setting minimum pay for part-time employees above the wage for full-timers is Shaw’s plan to compensate for the lack of a benefit package.
“This is different from a minimum wage. The city is not allowed by state laws to influence minimum wage, and the living wage does not cover jobs other than those directly involving the city.”
Summarizing his platform, and his position as a younger candidate working for the younger working class, he said, “Someone like me is much more approachable, has a lot more time and energy to be available to people, especially students. We need to get them involved somehow, because they just get tossed away, and their concerns get pushed aside, like the Greenbelt safety issue.”
Laura Wylde
