Mayor Vester ready to pass the torch
Wallace mayor Dick Vester gives his state of the city address at a Wallace Chamber of Commerce meeting earlier this year. Photo by JOSH MCDONALD
Photo by KERI ALEXANDER Mayor Dick Vester received the 2014 Citizen of the Year award from the Wallace Chamber of Commerce. Bonnie DeRoos (pictured on the right) presented the award to Dick at Noah’s Loft in Kellogg during the joint Chamber of Commerce Gala in January 2015. Also pictured with them is the late, great Vern Hanson who photobombed the picture while MC-ing the event.
“Being the mayor means that you’re the head administrator for a city, but it also means that you’re the head cheerleader too.”
For the last eight years, Dick Vester has been Wallace’s head cheerleader, but he will soon be passing the mantle down.
Vester first decided to run for the position of mayor in 2008 at the behest of some of his friends in Wallace who thought that he could continue to build upon the work of former mayor Ron Garitone.
“I didn’t have any type of agenda when I decided to run, I really wanted to follow in mayor Garitone’s footsteps,” Vester said. “I knew that I wanted Wallace to continue to be pro-business and I think that myself and the Wallace City Council have remained pro-business.”
Vester will joke that his original campaign platform was to bring back gambling and brothels to Wallace.
“I failed miserably at that,” Vester said with a laughed.
Vester has been the mayor of Shoshone County’s biggest tourist draw for the past eight years, navigating them through several ups and downs.
“I think one of the biggest things that we accomplished during my time as mayor was improving the city’s infrastructure,” Vester said. “We did $2.7 million in paving, $4.3 million of sewer work (of a total project that will be near $6 million), and have done well to fund a lot of these projects through grants.”
Other big projects that Vester made a priority during his time as mayor revolved around some of the city’s biggest public assets — things like fixing the heating system inside the Wallace library and making several upgrades to maintain Wallace’s public swimming pool.
The financial well-being of the city is another place where Vester has prided the city on.
“We still have half a million dollars in our reserves,” Vester said. “That’s right around where it was when I took office.”
Despite all the hard work Vester has put into the city, he believes that the success of Wallace is truly on the backs of its volunteers.
“We have a terrific group of people here in Wallace who volunteer to keep things like the flower project and the stairs project going each year,” Vester said. “The volunteers we have here are amazing and do so much work for the city. A lot of those projects have been so successful that they have spread to the other cities in the Silver Valley. I think that is a testament to how well they are doing them here in Wallace.”
And while Vester is capable of seeing the places where Wallace has succeeded under his watch, he is also capable of recognizing where things have not gone as well as hoped.
“I think it was two summers ago that we had one of our tougher tourist seasons,” Vester said. “I think some of that is on me for allowing too much to go on during those times. We would have a festival on one street downtown and then sewer work or paving going on another street and it made things tough.”
One of the biggest things Vester enjoyed that he will miss is the involvement and interaction he has with the other local mayors.
“Kellogg Mayor Mac Pooler and I started the Silver Valley Mayor’s Coalition in the first year that I was mayor,” Vester said. “That was a lot of fun. Getting to work with the other communities has been a lot of fun. Mac and I worked well together and we were definitely able to accomplish some things together and we have supported one another behind the scenes in some of the things we have accomplished for our communities.”
Vester won’t be riding off into the sunset though, he still has Vester Eye Clinic to keep him busy and definitely has no plans on stepping away from civic involvement.
“I like to have my grimy hands on things, but I’m ready to step aside and let someone else run things and I think Lynn (Mogensen) is going to do a fabulous job,” Vester said. “Like I told one of my friends before I was mayor, just because I’m not mayor, doesn’t mean I won’t be staying involved in making Wallace and the Silver Valley a good place to live.”
Mayor Vester will be swearing in the new mayor and city council members at the Jan. 10, Wallace City Council meeting.