Personal information:

Name: Suzanne Lyons

Age: 68

Family: Husband, Bill Graham; daughter, Amanda.

Career/current job: Retired teacher, own small business in Lakeport, current Lakeport City Councilwoman

Length of residence in Lake County and your particular city: Lived in Lake County in the city of Lakeport for 23 years.

Web site or email address where community members can contact you: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

Questions:

1. Please outline your experience serving the local community. Include all community or volunteer service.

I have been on the Lakeport City Council for four years. I was a member of the Clear Lake Advisory Committee for six years, the Invasive Species Council for four years, the Parks and Recreation Commission for the city of Lakeport for four years, the Public Information and Outreach Workgroup for the Storm Water Commission for three years, the Local Area Formation Commission for three years and am next year’s vice chairwoman for that commission, and attended meetings of the Chamber of Commerce for another council member who could not make his meetings for one year.  I am a member of the Lakeport Main Street Association and a member of the promotion committee for the association.  

2. Why did you decide to run for public office?

Originally I ran for Lakeport City Council because of specific issues having to do with the Lakeport General Plan and an agreement with a developer to purchase the city’s water/sewer facility and some city-owned lakefront property for a subdivision.

I am running for a second term because I have a lot of information and an understanding of the issues that face the city of Lakeport in the future. One of the longtime council members is not running for reelection and the second longest-serving candidate may or may not win. I am the only other candidate with any history on the council.

Some of the policies, like the council policy to hire local vendors and contractors when possible, are policies that would not be known by new council members or by the members who are now sitting as these policies were set before the present members were elected.

3. What are the important qualities you would bring to public service?

One of the most important qualities I bring to the council is I do the work. Being a council member does not just consist of going to two monthly meetings and reading the staff reports. There are many committees and other meetings that council members are expected to work on and participate in.

At one point a couple of years ago I was attending eight different committees even though each council member was assigned to two to three committees. But since one of the council members had work commitments that precluded him from attending his committees someone had to take on the work.

I do wonder, since most of the candidates have attended zero to three council meetings in the past year, whether they realize the work expectations that they are committing to. Committee work is what keeps the council as a whole informed about what is happening with the lake, the roads, other jurisdictions within the county and trends in other areas that affect the city such as storm water issues, tourism and economic development, to name just a few.

I have a good imagination. Having worked as an artist for much of my life, I have learned to look at problems and programs from a different perspective, or many perspectives. This is not a quality that is necessarily one that is fostered in government service, and I believe it is a quality that government needs more of.

4. What are the primary functions of a city council member? What are the important skill sets a council member should possess?

The city council is responsible for setting policies that affect the citizens of the city and surrounding county. We need to be informed in order to make sound decisions and also in order to inform our citizens of the implications of how those decisions will affect them.  

It is the duty of the council to make sure that all of the important options are presented by staff and all of the important questions are answered.

A council member must be able to work with staff and other council members even if the members do not agree on specific details or even the final outcome on an issue.

5. What is your city’s single greatest challenge? How would you address it?

Right now economic issues are a big driver challenging most city governments. How do we move forward with less money to work with? We have unique features: one of the oldest lakes in the world and a county that has no easy access. We have wine (who doesn’t); we have high elevation wine (that’s different). We have the opportunity to make Lake County the kind of place we want it to be in the future, and the city of Lakeport can be a leader here.

We need to work within the entire county to make this a place where people come year round. Those of us who live here know that August isn’t our best time of year. We have beautiful weather year round.  We have amazing birds and one of the oldest most interesting Native American cultures in the United States.

We can do it right, using good planning to assure that we preserve the unique features that made us decide to live here in the first place. Or we can try (unsuccessfully) to be just like someplace else and loose our identity in the process.  

The city of Lakeport had a two-day workshop on economic development in 2011. We were given some very specific advice on how to approach our economic development. We are following some of that advice; some of it we are ignoring. We need to take a good look at the recommendations and re evaluate them.

One of those recommendations was to give the citizens of Lakeport a rallying point to bring us together. We started that at a citizens meeting to “brand Lakeport” earlier this month. Now we are taking about bringing in an outside consultant. We don’t need someone else to define us. When we do that we end up with someone trying to change us to “Konocti Hills.”

We have a lot of local talent. If we use more of that talent, we will be giving work to local citizens and at the same time preserving our unique identity.  

6. If you are elected, what will your top issue be? What other issues are of particular interest to you?

I have spent the last four years concentrating on water issues. While those will always be first in my heart, I believe that in order to preserve our watershed and our lake we need to concentrate more on how we will pay for that preservation. Therefore, I would like to spend the next four years working on ways to develop a healthier local economy.

One of the recommendations that came out of the economic development workshop was to connect our lakefront with our downtown. Last month with the Lakeport Main Street Association I put on a pirate event in downtown Lakeport. We learned a lot through this event and I could see this becoming a major draw to this town in the next few years. Our town is blessed with a viable waterfront. We have the ability to put on water cannon battles with pirate ships and sell amazing “booty.” People who were mildly interested have already volunteered to help with this event next year. This event could be one of those “rallying points” for local citizens.

We may lose some downtown commerce if the courthouse moves. But we have a new college opening this winter out on Parallel Drive. The manager of the transit company was telling me at a recent meeting that so many people are riding bicycles to the bus that there are more bikes than the buses can carry. He reported that in other cities shared bike programs are providing bikes at destinations for bus riders.

If we started a pilot program in Lakeport that partnered the transit company with Mendocino College and the city of Lakeport in getting a shared bicycle program at the college we could connect the college, which is located on the edge of the city limits, with the downtown and recoup some of that custom that might be lost to the city if the courthouse moves.

I like working on projects like this; it’s what I would like to concentrate on in the next four years.

7. Is there a matter that you’ve seen the council handle that you believe should have been approached differently? If so, how would you have handled it?

I believe that the Main Street Redevelopment Project could have been handled differently. The project was originally one that did rally the local citizenry. Fifty people attended the first meeting and were interested in a “hands on” approach.

Local engineering firms bid for the design work and were confidant they could bring us a project that could be delivered for the amount we were able to pay. But the city council was swayed by assertions from an out-of-county design firm that we needed to have a fancier project than we could afford. As a result, we got a set of fancy plans to put on our “shelf,” a paved parking lot and alley and no trees downtown to cool us off in a July heat wave.

The city council has to be able to stand up for our policies, and one of those policies says that we will try, whenever possible, to hire local talent.

8. What ways, if any, would you encourage public and media interaction with you and the city council should you be elected? How would you approach public interaction, especially on controversial issues?

I have advocated for transparency in government ever since I was elected. I was on the radio for three-plus years weekly, speaking with Steve and Katherine Elias about government issues.

I believe for citizens to be actively involved in their government they need to feel they have a voice. They also need to be informed or else that voice just becomes ranting. I advocated for the PEG channel because I believe they have been successful in getting both the city of Clearlake and the county of Lake Board of Supervisors’ information out to the community. Joyce Overton, Clearlake City Council member, assured us that televising the council meetings would provide us with much more public input.

I think it’s important for citizens to know what jurisdiction they live in and who represents them in that jurisdiction. Public television and radio can provide that information. Web streaming is another venue, however many people complain that they don’t want to watch meetings on their computers, they don’t have computers and they would like to record and watch meetings at their own convenience. However it works best, we need to have an informed citizenry.

9. When you think of your city in 20 years, what do you hope it will look like? When considering that future vision of your city, what would you want your legacy to be in improving your community?

Picture this … a charming town with beautiful street trees, shady walkways in the summer heat open to the sky for natural light in the winter. The natural lakefront would continue from Willow Point, with its convention center set back from the lake but capturing those magnificent lake and mountain views, to Dutch Harbor with its tiny boutique hotel serving cocktails to us as we sit on the terrace watching the moon come up over Mount Konocti.

We could rent a sailboat, kayak or wind surfboard or take a solar water taxi over to Ceago Vine Garden.  We could order delicious specialty foods from the kiosk in Library Park using our cell phones and getting delivery from one of the Main Street restaurants or catering establishments. If we wanted to entertain guests in Library Park we could dial 262-park and have a sun structure, drinks cooler, table and chairs, food and inner tubes or a sunfish sailboat or fishing poles for the kids.

It’s all possible; and much of what is described here could be available next year not 20 years from now.

So, let’s get started. My legacy could be clean public restrooms with showers, so we could go straight from the lake to the dance at the convention center or dinner at the hotel without having to go home and change.

Financial information: See Form 470 and Form 470 Supplement below.

Lakeport City Council Candidates - Suzanne Lyons - Form 470Lakeport City Council Candidates - Suzanne Lyons - Form 470 Supplement