Joel Wicoff has been sitting at the city council table for the past two years serving as president of city council and going through the growing pains that came with the eight seat city council. He has been training for mayor before he realized he would ever run for the position.
Mayor Bill Shirley is stepping down from the role.
“It was a job that needed to be done,” Wicoff said. “There is still a lot to do in our community.”
Wicoff said some of the tasks needing to be done in the city are based on infrastructure, such as streets, water supply, housing and sewers.
“It would be nice to have houses in all different price levels,” he said.
Wicoff said the bulk of the construction seen in Iola is for lower income homes.
“There are nice homes on the north side of town but I would like to see more medium income housing being built,” he said.
But Wicoff understands the difficulty behind that wish and that nothing can be accomplished overnight, or even one week at a time.
“We are stuck with taking it one step at a time,” Wicoff said. “In today’s economy we are limited on the funding side. We have to concentrate on what doesn’t cost as much.”
Also necessary to improving the city of Iola is making itself a contender with surrounding areas such as Chanute and Garnett.
One way to make Iola more appealing to the outsider would be having new buildings such as the hospital and schools.
“When you are shopping communities old school buildings are not tempting. A new school would be a big draw,” Wicoff said.
One aspect of the city that is already moving along is the EMS merger, but it will still take some time.
“I am confident it will and can happen,” he said. “It would offer a better service for everyone in the county, save money for the tax payers in the county. The quality of the service won’t go down, it will go up.”
Wicoff said a committee is working on the details and thinks the merger can be seen in one to two months.
Wicoff owns and operates his own engineering company and has four children, all still in school.
Wicoff ready for mayoral position
