City budgets, cuts to education and rising utility rates were among the topics discussed at a candidate forum held at Covington Christian Fellowship Oct. 13.

The forum was featured as a part of the Covington Chamber of Commerce luncheon.

The forum started with an introduction by each candidate, followed by a question and answer segment. Those attending the luncheon were also allowed to write answers for the candidates to answer.

The first question went to Joseph Cimaomo, Jr. and incumbent Marlla Mhoon, who are running for Covington City Council Position No. 1. Both of them were asked what their priorities were for the city’s budget.

“When it comes to something like this, one of the biggest things is…promoting a farmers market,” said Cimaomo. “Residents from Auburn, Black Diamond and maybe even Federal Way will come to the city. They’ll come, have lunch at a restaurant…and while they’re here we’ll be getting money from them as well.”

“We’re just entering our budget season and it’s always a challenge,” said Mhoon. “Just like in your businesses, our city is running a very tight budget. We’re being very conservative with our expenditures. We’re very conservative about projections for income.”

Mhoon added that one of the biggest challenges that the city is facing is funding for Covington Park. Although they have received $1.5 million in grants, they are still trying to figure out how to deal with park maintenance.

“That’s going to be a huge, huge issue,” she said. “How are we going to fund our park?”

Incumbent Tom De Laat and Vern Allemand who are running for the Covington Water District Board of Commissioners Position No. 1, were asked about the apparent negative image the District has received recently concerning its impact on development.

“They made a decision to buy into future water that now has to be paid form,” said Allemand. “Let’s be realistic. The district portion of treatment plant; that’s going to be passed onto the taxpayers. Developers, they have to pick up their part of the tab, too. But they did secure future water for the next 50 years. There was a cost to that. I think that as a commissioner, and I’m sure the commissioners that are currently serving have done everything in their power to prevent this, but there’s some of this that’s just unpreventable. People don’t want to pay the price that has to be done to hook into the system.”

“This goes back to the question of why are we in a position of having to pay the city of Tacoma a substantial amount of money to supply us with water,” said De Laat, who currently holds position number 1. “The Washington State Department of Ecology said you cannot put in water wells until you study the impact on the roads. How does one show that installation of a ground water well doesn’t impact the street flow?…Essentially, we said we can’t. So we went to other sources of water.”

Debbie Straus and Leslie Kae Hamada, who are running for the Kent School District Board Position No. 3, were asked for their opinion on a recent comment made by Randy Dorn, the superintendent for Public Instruction, in which he spoke in opposition to Gov. Christine Gregroire’s plan to cut spending on K-12 education by 10 percent.

“I think it’s a bigger issue,” said Hamada. “I want to take this position to a higher level. I want to have a presence in Olympia. I know it has been started. It all begins with the funding out of Olympia.”

“His reasoning behind it was because it would make a statement, because education is not the place to make cuts,” said Straus. “I’m proud of the school district’s fiscal responsibility.”