City Commission District 6 candidates debate before March election

Editor's note: This is the last installment of a three part series of the City Commission debate. Part one is District 2 candidates. Part two covered District 4.

ALAMOGORDO – City Commission candidates for District 6 Mark Tapely and Dustin “Dusty” Wright went head to head on city issues at the Historic Sands Theater Tuesday.

The debate was hosted by the Republican Party of Otero County and all City Commission candidates answered questions from the community, including District 2 and District 4 candidates.

More:Alamogordo regular municipal election is March 6. What you need to know

The District 6 seat will only be held for two years to complete a four-year term previously held by former City Commissioner Erica Martin who resigned in December.

District 6 Questions

Q: Once elected, how will you continue to learn what issues are important to your constituents?

Tapely said he is constantly out in the public and is always speaking to people who live in his district.

“In my district, I see most of the people on a daily basis. I live in the golf course area, I walk the streets a lot. People stop at my business on a daily basis and ask me anything and everything,” Tapely said. “I don’t have all the answers in the world but typically I could ask the questions and find out the right answers. Everybody knows I’m a people person.”

More:City Commission District 2 candidates face off before election

Wright said he has already been out in the public multiple times through his campaign and would like to take their ideas to the commission once elected.

“I have been doing that already through my campaign, going out into the community and visiting with folks,” Wright said. “Also as a business man, I’m out in the field and I get ideas all the time from people. Hopefully I can go to the commission one day and research them.”

Q: How as a City Commissioner, will you work collaboratively with other community groups to help transform Alamogordo into a prosperous, thriving community?

Wright said Mayor Richard Boss is setting a good example of that by traveling to Washington, D.C. with MainGate to discuss Holloman Air Force Base obtaining the F-16 mission permanently.

“I believe our mayor is out there helping right now participating with MainGate,” Wright said. “He’s traveling to Washington, D.C. to speak with the Secretary of the Air Force to bed down the F-16 mission and speaking to other groups to see how they can get some funding.”

Tapely said by working together with groups in the community he’ll be able to get the right answers he needs to push the community forward.

Q: How will you educate yourself on the current issues?

Tapely said he learns everyday by just speaking to people. He said his goal is to really listen to the public.

“This whole City Commission deal kind of jumped at me. I have been educated on a daily basis. There’s a lot of stuff out there that happens in the city, if you don’t open your eyes and talk to people you’ll never understand it, so that’s what I’ve been trying to do,” Tapely said. “That’s my whole goal is to be able to listen.”

More:City Commission District 4 candidates debate the issues

Wright said he’s been attending City Commission meetings for about 10 months and has taken the time to look at the budget to understand the city’s finances.

“I’ve been attending City Commission meetings for the last 9 or 10 months,” Wright said. “I’ve been attending for the Family Fun Center, street maintenance and the city’s annual reports. I’ve looked over the budget and all the different aspects we’re going to be challenged so I’ll know once I’m elected.”

Q: The position of commissioner requires a great deal of time in meetings and around the community, this requires time away from work and family. Do you feel you can fill the duties as commissioner if it becomes a strain on your finances?

Tapely said he absolutely has time to fulfill his duties as City Commissioner and also has time to run his business.

“My family, my wife, our business is our business,” Tapely said. “I have the time, I have a lot of free time believe it or not, that’s why I chose to do this.”

More:RPOC hosts City Commission candidate debate

Wright said he has spoken with his family about juggling his life but he is up for the challenge and is already a great at multitasking.

“I thought about this for a while before I decided to throw my hat into the race,” Wright said. “My kids are in every sport, my wife has a full-time job. We’re pretty good at juggling, not as good as a circus, but I’m looking forward to the challenge of making my time more efficient being able to commit my time for my family, my life and the commission.”

Q: Based on surveys, the appearance of Alamogordo was number one on two of those surveys. How high is it a priority of yours and what fresh ideas do you have on how to deal with the issues?

Wright said he would like to see more volunteers in the White Sands Beautification program to expand the project.

“I know there’s been some issues with the White Sands Beautification project, I think there needs to be a volunteer committee to continue that process and expand it,” he said. “There’s several eye sores for sure, maybe the commission can fit something in the budget to expand it and to clean the city.”

Tapely said he does his job by taking the time to spray weeds because appearance is important, especially for tourists who visit Alamogordo.

“Appearance is everything. If your place of business doesn’t look good, people are going to think this isn’t the type of business I want to deal with,” Tapely said. “I’ve been spraying weeds, that’s what I do. I think getting people to do that would be great, you got to have pride.”

Q: What kind of improvements do you think you can make to help Animal Control?

Tapely said the most important thing people can do to help Animal Control is to spay and neuter pets.

“The best way to actually help Animal Control is to fix our pets, it’s a costly task but it needs to happen,” Tapely said. “Whether it’s through the city or not, we need push towards getting animals fixed, that’s number one.”

Wright said the first step would be to meet with Animal Control to identify their issues to work on a solution.

“The first step is visiting the Animal Control Department and seeing what the issues are to come up with a process to combat the issues. We could also reach out to schools for volunteer programs,” Wright said. “By doing this we can identify the problem and make a plan of attack.”

Q: List your qualifications for this job and what your priorities are as a commissioner for District 6

Tapely said he threw his hat in the race because of his extensive background and providing jobs to residents in the community.

“I threw my hat in the race because of my extensive background and I’ve provided jobs for citizens in the community,” Tapely said. “I have insight in law enforcement because of my wife and I have different aspects I can bring knowledge to. I have refreshing ideas to represent the people of the community.”

More:City Commissioner Erica Martin resigns

Wright said his qualifications is his honesty and integrity.

“I bring honesty and integrity to the table and my 21 years experience in business,” Wright said. “I’ve been through ups and downs of business, I have common sense.”

Q: What do you perceive as issues facing the city that the commission could help resolve or correct?

Wright said having better outreach and transparency are a few ways to help resolve issues in the City Commission.

“We get a lot of outsiders asking for more transparency like what happened with the amphitheatre on Washington, we need to let the community know what’s going on, be transparent as possible,” Wright said. “We need to have better outreach so they can understand budgetary issues and understand why the city does certain things.”

Tapely said he also believes there should be more transparency in government.

“Transparency is always a big issue. We need to get the message out there where people can read it, that would help a lot of the issues we have,” he said.

City Municipal Election

The Alamogordo regular municipal election is March 6.

The election will choose a Mayor-At-Large, three City Commissioners and a Municipal Judge.

To learn more about each of the candidates, read their profiles at www.alamogordonews.com  

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