About Lindsay Baxter

My name is Lindsay Baxter and I am running for Mayor of Chewelah WA. I love this community and all it has to offer from the warm and inclusive residents and all the recreational opportunities. The natural beauty really sets this community apart and makes this a very special place.

I've lived in and worked in places around the country and around the world. I've seen the destruction of beautiful places with overly aggressive poorly planned growth. I've been a part of a small municipality incorporating and developing into a small city where growth was very carefully crafted to maintain the small town feel while protecting the economic vitality of the community. I chose the later as well as efficient city government with very little waste, saving tax payer revenue for enhancements to our way of life.

First and foremost, I'd like to build on the legacy of our former mayor, most specifically programs for our youth. I'd like to see more recreational and vocational opportunities for our youth to play, develop and contribute to our culture for many years to come. Many of the opportunities will come about as a result of our communities continued interest and support in our youth, mentoring, volunteering and engaging. In some cases, reaching into our schools to create a conduit to our town, businesses and groups.

Secondly we've seen too many businesses struggle to survive and too many vacant store fronts. I'd like to see a very close proactive and cohesive relationship with our current and future businesses offering consultative resources and potentially access to economic resources. We have a wealth of experienced folks in the area and I think we should tap into that knowledge base more frequently. I'd like to see continued growth of the city's relationship with the Chamber of Commerce as well as innovative ways we can improve the sustainability of our business culture. In addition to growth in our retail sector I will work on other business sector growth to create more jobs for our residents and provide better career opportunities for our growing youth with the hope of keeping them in the area vs. having to commute to Colville or Spokane for meaningful work.

I'm pro sensible growth. I was characterized once many years ago, while working on the early planning and zoning committee in a small town in Tx, as wanting to "shut the door on growth now that I was here". To a degree they were right. I come from the philosophy that "if you don't manage growth it will manage you". In my experience ignoring this reality will not prevent growth but will encourage sprawl.

To round out my top 3 focuses, I'm a strategic long term thinker. I initiated a program at the Chewelah golf course while serving on the board I called "Headwinds". This initiative charter was to think about those long term (3 to 5yrs out) items that get little to no attention because they weren't pressing. A good example was the golf courses aging irrigation system. We were in "patching" mode only and not preparing for the catastrophic likelihood of complete system failure. I'm happy to report early stage planning is underway to remedy this potential issue. Likewise in the city we may have avoided the water system issues, and related high costs, if a headwinds program was in place to start to look at and plan for the inevitability of upgrades and capacity improvements many years ago. It's not an easy task to invest in an initiative when you're being bombarded with many other pressing matters. It's a discipline and one I plan to put in place and consistently invest effort into.

I had several folks approach me about their desire for me to consider running for mayor. I was considering City Council but not mayor. I chatted with many folks in the community and working for the city to gain a better appreciation for the role and the city's challenges. I retired from my 40 year career in technology a year and a half ago. I had no intention of "going back to work" but I felt like this was what I was meant to do. I've felt for a long time at my age I still hadn't fulfilled my true purpose to society. I really believe this is it. This is my way of contributing to society and now to our community. I certainly feel this is an opportunity to give back to the community that embraced my Dad so well moving here to Chewelah alone 21 yrs ago.

I'm a listener. I can certainly talk with the best of them but I enjoy listening more. I want to hear what you want for our town and help make it happen. I have the skillset, proven track record of getting things done and the passion to help make our town what it can be for all of its residence big and small.