By BECKY KISER
Hays Post
There are five people running for the three open positions on the Hays city commission in the Nov. 7 general election.
The candidates are Chris Dinkel, incumbent Sandy Jacobs, John Mayers, incumbent and current mayor Shaun Musil, and Dustin Roths.
The two people with the highest number of votes will be elected to four-year terms. The person with the third highest vote total will serve a two-year term. The mayor is selected by the commission members.
Hays Post has talked to each candidate, asking why they are running and what they consider to be the most important issues facing the city of Hays.
Dinkel, 32, is a political newcomer. He is the marketing coordinator for High Plains Mental Health Center, Hays, which serves 20 counties in northwest Kansas. Dinkel is also an adjunct professor of history at Fort Hays State University and teaches through the Virtual College.
He and his wife Ervis, who is from Albania, have an eight-month-old son, Liam.
Dinkel is a volunteer on the Hays USD 489 Vision Team which is promoting passage of a proposed $78.5 million bond for school facilities improvements. He co-chairs the ‘Our School is the Future’ campaign. The question is also on the Nov. 7 ballot.
“Hays is one of the most well-managed cities that I’ve seen,” Dinkel said in his interview. “The budget is lean. Things are running well.”
However, at times the city “lacks vision,” Dinkel believes. He would like the city to become “more aggressive about the problems of affordable housing and economic development.”
With a wife from Europe, Dinkel has driven traffic roundabouts there many times and finds them to be “timesavers.” A proposal to install three roundabouts on north Vine Street has Hays residents “polarized,” according to Dinkel.
In his interview Dinkel also discusses the R9 Ranch, a long-term water source for Hays and Russell, the desire by some residents for a convention center in Hays, and why “people my age are moving away.”
More information about Dinkel is available on his Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/votedinkel/.
Advance voting begins Mon., Oct. 23 in the Ellis County Administrative Center, 718 Main, Hays, through noon Mon., Nov. 6. Polls for the Tue., Nov. 7 general election are open 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. throughout Ellis County.