Cheney’s mayor facing challenger for third term

Amy Jo Sooy, seeking re-election as Cheney mayor, is nowhere to be found on the campaign trail. Instead, the two-term mayor is on a cruise vacation outside the country.

A sign of confidence she will be re-elected on Nov. 8, or poor planning?

According to Les Harris, Sooy’s campaign manager, the mayor scheduled her trip months before she decided to run for a third term. Harris said some of Sooy’s backers persuaded her to run again.

In her second term, she ran unopposed. This election, she is being challenged by Allan Gainer, a Cheney textbook store owner who said the city needs to rethink the way it spends money.

The candidates will present their views Oct. 19 at 7 p.m. at the Wren Pierson Community Center, 615 Fourth St. The City Council candidates also are invited to participate.

Four positions are on the ballot, with only incumbent Curt Huff running unopposed. The community-based organization Pathways to Progress is sponsoring the event.

“I’m getting a sense this is going to be a tight race,” said Gainer, who unsuccessfully ran for City Council in 1996.

Only 27 votes, or 2 percent of the votes, separated Sooy and Gainer in the Sept. 20 primary. The low election turnout yielded 477 votes for Sooy and 450 votes for Gainer.

Cheney chiropractor Dennis Higbee was one of four candidates running and received 15 percent or 177 votes. Higbee, who is considering running for state representative in two years, is throwing his support to Gainer.

“I believe in citizen input, and I think change is a good thing and a way to get fresh input,” Higbee said.

Harris, meanwhile, said the election should come down to the experienced versus the inexperienced. Sooy, a widow with four children and four grandchildren, was instrumental in getting the city street resurfacing and brick sidewalk project off the ground

Gainer, married with two children, questioned why the sidewalks had to be done twice before they were done correctly. Harris explained it was because the sidewalks “settled.” However, money to pay for the project was “held back until it was fixed.”

Sooy helped get the parks and recreation programs running again after the city had a $550,000-a-year revenue shortfall for 2003 because a statewide initiative repealed the motor vehicle excise in 1999.

After one proposed tax raise failed, the City Council vote unanimously to put a scaled-back 4.75 percent utility tax increase on the ballot. The increase passed, and Cheney kids got their swimming lessons and other recreational activities back.

Gainer said he thinks the city acted irresponsibly from the start and it shouldn’t have had to come down to a second-time ballot issue.

City Council contests

Incumbent Michael McKeehan, a longtime teacher at Betz Elementary School in Cheney, is being challenged by Cheney police officer James Wallingford for Position 3.

In the position 4 seat, incumbent Teresa Overhauser, a Spokane Transit Authority worker, is running against John Dyer.

In Position 7, Tom Trulove, Cheney mayor from 1978-1986, is running against Ray Gawenit and Tim Gainer, who is Allan Gainer’s younger brother. The council seat opened for special election when Councilman Jim Reinbold took a job in Fife, Wash., after the primary.