Meet the candidates: Amy Hunt vs. Joe Schlomer

General election on November 5, 2019

This week's issue of The Record continues a series of articles in which the candidates running for positions in town government have been interviewed and allowed to present their views on various topics of interest to Odessa's citizens. The planned community forum on October 7, during which townspeople can meet the candidates, will then allow each candidate to explain in greater detail how he or she plans to address the issues facing the town's government officials. It will also allow the public some additional opportunities to question the candidates in an open but nevertheless structured environment.

This week we bring you the two candidates for town council position #2, in which incumbent Amy Hunt faces challenger Joe Schlomer.

Ballot Drop Box Locations:

Lincoln County Courthouse

450 Logan, Davenport

24 hr. drive-up drop box

Elections desk drop

Mon-Fri 9 a.m.- 3 p.m.

Harrington City Hall

11 S. 3rd Street, Harrington

Drive-up drop box–24 hrs.

Amy Hunt

Amy Hunt was appointed to the Odessa Town Council in March of 2018 to fill a vacant position. She is now running for election in order to retain that position. She says her goals as a council member are to increase community pride, to beautify Odessa again and to find ways to make Odessa a town to which its high school graduates want to return and become contributing residents.

Hunt is the mother of three boys, the youngest of whom is a senior at Odessa High this year. She has taught in the Odessa School District for the past 15 years. This school year, however, she has taken a leave of absence from teaching for two specific reasons: She wants to have more time to devote to learning about Odessa's municipal laws and the workings of the council so that she can make informed decisions, and she wants to spend more time with her youngest child before he heads off to college.

Hunt says she is proud of what the council has accomplished in the short time that she has been a member, particularly the infrastructure grants that have been pursued and awarded. She has served on the police committee and is pleased with Odessa's two new officers and the job they are doing. She has helped the council to clean up ambiguities and contradictions in ordinances and wants to continue that work. She has been working with the Friends of the Pool to help ensure that the community pool can stay viable. She and the Friends have been searching for ways to secure funding for needed improvements and for recruiting lifeguards.

Joe Schlomer

Joe Schlomer says he wants to help the Odessa Town Council become more pro-active in dealing with issues, rather than reactive. He also wants to become more involved in town government in order to contribute to the community where he has decided to make his home.

Schlomer has lived in Odessa since 1996. He works as a crop advisor at CHS, Inc. Wheeler Agronomy in Moses Lake. He and his wife Gina have a daughter Ella, who is a fourth-grader in the Odessa School District. Gina has a son from a previous marriage who is a senior in high school this year and is living with his grandmother in North Carolina.

Joe also has three older children from a previous marriage: Casey, who graduated from OHS in 2016 and is pursuing a career in the U.S. Air Force; Theron, a 2019 graduate of OHS who will attend Eastern Washington University in Cheney this fall and Tori, a sophomore at OHS this year.

Although this is Schlomer's first foray into municipal government, he previously served on the Odessa School Board for two or three years.