With North Bend’s Position 7 councilman Chris Garcia vacating his seat this fall, two challengers are facing off for the right to take the council job, effective immediately after the vote is certified.

One of them, North Bend landscape contractor Ryan Kolodejchuk (pronounced “Call-a-day-chuck”), hopes to bring to the North Bend City Council a great optimism about the future of the city, and some tenacity at finding facts to solve problems. The city could be more business friendly, and needs to pursue more grant funding, and he hopes to make these changes part of his legacy to the community.

Ryan Kolodejchuk

Residence, Occupation:

We’ve been North Bend for six years, and my wife and I moved to the Valley in 1989, and we love it. We have three children, who have gone or are going through the school system. I know the Valley, I’ve been here 22 years. I think it’s an important issue to share with the local voters, I supported the local community long-term.

I have an award-winning landscaping company, Landwork Enterprises, Inc., and we are in our 25th year of business. I’m the owner and president.

What are your qualifications for a seat on the city council?

My ability to dig for information and get the facts, because I have to do this on a daily basis. Being in business for myself, I have a new boss every week. When I go out to meet these clients to give them estimates, I need to be able to hear their wants, likes, and dislikes, and what it’s going to take to solve the problem. The most important thing is I need to be able to do it within their budget.

I’ve served on the North Bend Parks Commission, presently on the North Bend Parks Foundation. I was on the team that extended the ULID when Tanner was annexed. Most recently I was with Friends of Fire District 38, to get the new fire station. That was just active community members… and we got it done.

I’m also a Eucharistic minister with the local Catholic church, and consulted with community members on reconstructing the soccer fields at Torguson Park after the sewer extension. I think I know the needs of the community.

What is the primary reason you are running for office?

To help the community even more. I can see that having a vote that will count… more than as a volunteer. This is a paid position, I don’t have to take it, my opponent doesn’t have to take it, but because it is a paid position, if I see something in the administration I disagree with, I’m going to disagree, whether I’m right or wrong, because that’s what I’m paid to do. Being in a volunteer position, you have to roll with the punches.

How would you bring jobs to the city?

I’m a business owner, I know about competition. To encourage growth, you need business. If you look at the new annexation area out on North Bend Way, all that commercially zoned property. If that’s their long-term plan, then we need to encourage business.

But a wedding facility wanted to come in and knock down some old rat-infested properties, and put in a million-dollar facility. I know the zoning is for cottage, and maybe I don’t have all the facts, but when the city said no, that really kind of surprised me.

The branding committee is doing a good job. I think they’re on the right track, but they need to look deeper into their codes of what they’re making these developers do. They seem to be a lot easier on a home development than on a business development. I’ve talked to a lot of people, and North Bend in the past has come across as a hard place to do business in.

How would you resolve infrastructure issues?

The crucial part is you have to have funds. I think what the city is doing right now, trying to get that .02 percent sales tax, is going down the right path. If my community doesn’t have something, I have to spend time and fuel to go to another community and pay their sales tax. It will affect me, but that two-tenths of 1 percent, I’ll gladly pay it. The best thing is that money has to be for improvement of roads, and do we need that, terribly, desperately.

Doing the work is the easiest part. The hardest thing on every job is getting it to fit in the budget.

What other challenges do you see for the city in the coming year?

I would like to see them be looking for more grant money. There’s a lot of grant money out there. I think they really need to be focused on that. Look what the city of Duvall has done, look what the city of Snoqualmie has done, with grant money. That is huge. North Bend has started the process, but I think they need to be looking more directly into that.

The downtown bypass is huge, I think they need to get going on that.

What do you see as the role of a council member?

I’ll need to learn the process of this, digging down and getting to the facts. Asking the hard questions. It comes down to the facts, not speculation, not emotion. How did this problem occur? Will it continue to be a problem?

Also, we’re stewards. For this council position, this short period on earth, we are stewards. Look at North Bend, how beautiful it is. What are we doing for the long-term benefit of the community?

What’s something about you that your neighbors may not know?

I love to see my fellow man succeed, in any and every little thing. Success is so important for people, and it can be any little thing. To be able to build on that. You’ve got to be able to take the little successes, as small as they come. I learned that from my son. He’s the youngest, and he is severely disabled, mentally and physically, and I still learn from this little guy, and he can’t even speak.

What specific challenges will the council need to address as North Bend grows?

We’ve got a new firehall coming up, new developments going in, which means more people moving to the area. More people, more traffic. Exit 34 is a huge mess, but the neat thing about that is there’s a whole set of active community members who are digging so deep, working so hard to resolve that one single issue only. That’s huge, and the potential is huge for what it can do for the infrastructure of North Bend, too.