Senate District 5 candidates focus on economic issues
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Challenger Edd Blackler, D-Bigfork, opposes incumbent Verdell Jackson, R-Kalispell, for the Senate District 5 seat.
Blackler, 66, is retired, but he drives a school bus route in Bigfork. Blackler and wife Janet have been married for 38 years.
With a BE degree in music from the University of Montana, Blackler taught vocal music in Eureka for two years and in Bigfork for 11 years.
Blackler was a USN and USMC reservist as well as working as a real estate broker and a detention officer in Flathead County.
A former Bigfork volunteer firefighter, Blackler served as one of the three original Bigfork Elves, and was on the Bigfork Steering Committee, a Bigfork Park Advisory Board member and an Essential Stuff Project core team member. Also Blackler has been a candidate for House District 9 for the last three election cycles.
As far as his reason for running for office, Blackler said, “… Primarily I feel I am a concerned citizen, with valuable, valid input. I think I can be a good representative of the concerns that I’m aware of that people in this district have. I also think people in this district deserve a choice.”
Two important issues to Blacker have to do with economic considerations.
“One is we are in a troublesome time. People are out of work” so we need to do “whatever we can do to incentivize small businesses to hire people.”
The other problem for Blacker is one that affects many property owners.
“We’ve been hit with property taxes that are unrealistic,” Blackler said. “I would hope we could do something for the reassessment system so taxes we’re asked to pay reflect the market value of our property.”
Although Blackler realizes when there’s a decline in revenue, he said, “One place I don’t want to cut is the area of education. … Well-educated citizens generate a good economy. We need to maintain the level of support for our education system. There is no way around it.
Green issues such as alternative fuels and an energy solution are important because, Blackler pointed out, “The earth, let’s say, has been used up, is past the point of being able to provide enough oil to continue our quest for the consumption of fossil fuels.”
Blackler said alternative sources of energy are going to have to be a priority, such as solar energy and different biofuels that don’t necessarily have anything to do with food. Conservation of the energy we do have should be a priority until we’ve discovered new ones that don’t contaminate the environment.
Another issue Blackler feels strongly about is that “the influence of money in our political process is totally out of hand. We need an election process that eliminates that sort of influence.”
“I don’t think politicians should be in the business of raising funds,” Blackler stated. “I’ve declined contributions of money from any source. I’m totally relying on word of mouth to support my campaign, and it would be good for people to know this when they’re deciding how to vote.”
Incumbent Verdell Jackson and his wife Linda have lived in Kalispell for 19 years. They have one daughter, a son-in-law and three grandchildren.
Jackson has a bachelor’s in business from the University of Colorado, a master's in business education from Arizona State University and educational specialist in agriculture and vocational education from Auburn University.
As well as owning and operating two small businesses and farming and ranching, Jackson taught business classes at the high school and college level. He also served as Alaska State Supervisor of Business Education, Director of Vocational Education and Vocational Specialist as well as working as a school administrator. Jackson worked as a roughneck in the oil fields and as a beef processor in a slaughterhouse, which convinced him to go back to college.
Jackson has served for eight years as a Montana State Representative and four years as a Montana State Senator.
Jackson became interested in running for the legislature when he was active in driving to Helena to testify on bills.
“I realized that with my educational background and experience I could make a contribution. I see myself as a servant to the people, and most of my bills deal with freedom, safety and financial accountability,” Jackson said.
One issue concerning Jackson is the economy.
“Our economy in Montana hasn’t moved much. Western Montana has the highest unemployment. Eastern Montana with its gas, oil and coal are doing better,” Jackson explained, “I guess what I’m hopeful is we‘ve hit the bottom. If it doesn’t get any worse, the state budget cuts will be manageable.”
Since families are the foundation of the United State, Jackson said several top issues he’ll continue to work on are financial strength, freedom and safety.
Financial strength for Montanans would include good paying jobs, reducing property taxes, eliminating the business equipment tax and a low-cost energy supply. Montana now has a tourism economy with average wages that are 49th in the nation, Jackson said.
“Prudent expansion of the harvest of natural resources, especially energy resources,” Jackson said, “can provide low cost energy, good paying jobs, eliminate the need for the business equipment tax and mitigate the tax burden on property owners. Legislation to reduce unnecessary regulations and litigation is needed to improve the financial opportunities of families in Montana.”
Jackson added that property rights, water rights, gun rights and access to water and public lands are all under attack each session by socialist, conservation groups, and government bureaucrats who do not trust citizens to be good care takers of their own property or for the responsible use of guns and public lands and water.”
The trend is to take freedom away from everyone because a few people cannot be trusted, Jackson said, but he added, “It is a much better policy to punish the guilty and not infringe on the freedom of the rest of us. Legislation that infringes on the freedom of the innocent is present each session.”
Alternative fuels and green issues are hot button topics now. Jackson said hydrogen or a medium-sized nuclear plant might work.
Although nuclear power has been demonized, Jackson said other countries have utilized nuclear energy and plants have improved in the last 15 or 20 years.
Jackson said a hydrogen generator, which uses two electrodes and nano technology, installed on a diesel pickup could improve the mileage by 30 percent. Hydrogen burns much cleaner since it operates as the catalyst and burns more of the fuel.
“I’m very skeptical of wind (power),” Jackson said.
Wind generators put in Alaska and Hawaii 25 years ago are defunct, Jackson said. They only generated electricity 30 percent of the time, and they required a lot of maintenance.
“The most important thing is to get off mid-east oil,” Jackson explained. “(And stop) buying all this oil from people who hate us.”
