Meet Lewie Schneller, Ward 6

AGE: 64
OCCUPATION: Independent licensed Montana contractor and semi-retired entrepreneur
MARITAL OR DOMESTIC STATUS: Single parent of four grown children
EDUCATION: University of Montana, bachelor's degree in liberal arts, ROTC
MILITARY EXPERIENCE: ROTC
PUBLIC SERVICE: Fundraising for Missoula YMCA and UM athletic department
PARTY AFFILIATION: Democrat
ENDORSEMENTS: Chamber of Commerce rating: 2.2 of 3.0.

Questions and answers

What qualifies you to be on the City Council?

''My age and having been able to live in Missoula for almost 27 years, watching it grow from a small town into bordering on a good-size city. My basic qualification is that for the past 25 years I’ve been self-employed as an independent contractor. I’m familiar with what it takes to make a business successful, and I’m involved in the entrepreneurial aspect of business."

What are the best and worst things the City Council has done in recent years?

"The e-mails during meetings are a real problem. They are camouflage for partisanship, and I think the e-mails will reflect that when they’re all uncovered. The City Council has become very partisan, and it’s been orchestrated by a progressive, New Party move. If elected, I would never use a computer during the meetings, and I would ask for everything to be presented to me on paper."

What one thing would you most like to accomplish as a member of the City Council?

"I would like to help restore the balance of dignity, respect and communication on City Council. I would like to see the City Council become a symbol for uniting and not dividing Missoula. I would like to be a contributing factor in ending that divisiveness. I would also like to be a voice for protecting and maintaining the integrity of the neighborhoods in the ward that I represent and for the different neighborhoods in Missoula."

What can the city do to attract better-paying jobs?

"What I can do is promote and encourage city government and the county government to promote our city and the availability of all of the different talent pools and the excellent living conditions that Missoula offers. Then we can have a pool of major employers, which would establish a competitive spirit. If we have a multiplicity of employers in this city, then we will see wages naturally increase because of the competition for the employees."

What should the city do to encourage the development of more affordable housing?

"Missoula created this mess in the first place. Missoula allowed rampant developers and investors to come cherry-pick available space and multiply its worth by the so-called boundary reconfiguration. And so Missoula has allowed this problem – we created this mess. What it’s going to take to solve this is a lot of hard work in terms of backing up and reconfiguring the direction that we’ve gone. First, we have to admit that there’s a problem, then whole-heartedly search for a solution."

Should Missoula endorse a troop withdrawal from Iraq? Why or why not?

"The Iraq referendum was a horrible, horrible mistake. It was brought by the power brokers on City Council, and it isn’t the city’s business at all. The war in Iraq is a national issue."

What is Missoula’s most pressing traffic problem and where should the city turn for the money to solve it?

"I think the biggest traffic problem is congestion slowing down traffic where we have these mini traffic jams, bordering on big city traffic problems, like you see out on Reserve. We’ve got to stop trying to choke off traffic. I ride my bike recreationally, but I don’t ride it in bad weather or in heavy traffic. We need to free up traffic, and the way to do that is not to discourage the use of automobiles."

Should the city encourage or discourage more housing in existing city neighborhoods? Why or why not?

"I am against excessive crowding of our neighborhoods. Back-alley houses and infill wrecks our old neighborhoods. In my ward, 50 percent of the people are transient renters who are gone within a matter of months. The city needs to stop pushing off special improvement districts on neighborhoods too."

Should the city limit the number of unrelated people who may share a house?

"I am neutral on occupancy standards. I understand that it is an important issue to students in the university area, but not as big in my ward. I would be sensitive to both sides of the fence, and would be happy to hear both sides."

What specific problems in your ward would you like to see solved?

"I would like to keep high-density zoning out of my neighborhood. There are certain areas in Missoula that can be high density, like downtown, but there shouldn’t be large, clustered neighborhoods in my ward."