Ward 2 race: Roszel wants to give back as city councilor, make Bartlesville better

As a candidate for Bartlesville City Council, Loren Roszel is running to repay the debt he owes to the community for all the help he was given. Now that his kids have left for college, he feels he can dedicate the time needed to commit to this vital role.

"The community had helped me so much whenever I was growing up when I was raising my kids, so I wanted to give back to my community, so I started going out and getting involved with different organizations," he said. "Volunteering, serving on boards and supporting organizations...I found I had a real passion for serving my community, and I love doing those things."

He will face Chelsie Wagoner for the Ward 2 seat in the Nov. 8 election.

Keep improving Bartlesville

Roszel's primary goal is to keep improving Bartlesville and improve and maintain essential services like water, roads and emergency services.

"I believe city government is really important to the community because it affects everything they do every day, The streets you drive on, water getting to your house, dirty water getting away from your house, your trash getting collected."

He wants to execute the city's plan to improve utilities and services to the community's standards through things like the City Strategic Plan and public forums.

No roadblocks

Roszel sees himself as a problem solver, not a no-vote.

"I want to be able to be a problem solver. A lot of people will run for office because they want to sit up there and want to say no," said Rozsel. "My philosophy and way I'll be in city council is I want to look at people and say 'How can I help and how can we accomplish this?' We're not here to put a roadblock to things the community wants to accomplish."

He wants to use the city's strategic plan to help guide his long-term decisions and use community feedback as a road map to operate the community.

Roszel explained, "We are moving into the next phase along with a lot of community input and citizen input of what are the projects that we have to execute to meet those strategic plan objectives and how to do the projects we do fit into that strategic plan."

'Medium town size, small town vibe'

Roszel talked about how Bartlesville has a community culture that supports one another.

"The culture of Bartlesville is really special, and we should we should value that," he said. "We have so many great organizations in town that try to better the community and help people out."

In his opinion, Bartlesville needs to keep improving with better parks, roads and resources to attract new businesses and primary industries.

"We can do water a little bit better, we can do streets a little bit better, we can do a lot of things a little better, and so there's a lot of things that the City Council needs to continue to strive to improve," he said.

Business is key

Roszel explained the symbiotic relationship that makes up the parts of a city, and to improve, there must be a sales tax base to fund projects.

"Bartlesville is a community of, not only people, but businesses. And economic development is absolutely key in executing a strategic plan for Bartlesville."

Roszel described the city infrastructure, utilities and emergency services as the "nuts and bolts" of what the city council does, but economic development is equally important.

He explained how the Bartlesville Redevelopment Trust Authority and the Bartlesville Development Authority are essential to improving the city.

Roszel said his role as a city council member would be to help shape and direct those authorities.

"As a city council, we can give direction to both of those entities to not only help our local businesses grow but then also help us build our sales tax base and helps attract people to Bartlesville, helps attract jobs to Bartlesville, helps attract primary industry, because that's where the citizens have told us they want us to concentrate," he said.

Our water is safe

Roszel wanted to be clear about where he stands on Bartlesville's water quality.

"Let me say that categorically and I can say that because I have sat down with Terry Lauritsen, our water department director, and I have had more than one conversation with him, he took me through our water treatment plant, and we talked about what we currently do to treat our water, how we currently test our water, what our water levels and chemicals in our water and what those levels and lab tests say about our water."

He added, "I know after talking with Terry, after looking at the EPA reports and the Oklahoma Water Resources Board reports, that our water is absolutely safe."

Roszel explained the water department's priority goes beyond just providing safe water.

He said, "they don't like it whenever our water tastes funny or looks funny, and they have plans to deal with that and try to keep it from happening, but every once a while, nature gets away from them and overrides their plans a little bit, and they have to shift and adjust, and I think they do a good job of that."

This article originally appeared on Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise: Roszel wants to give back as city councilor, make Bartlesville better