BOISE, Idaho — Mountain Home voters have spoken, choosing to re-elect incumbent Mayor Rich Sykes for a third term.
Sykes was reelected during a runoff election Tuesday night, defeating challenger Misty Pierce with 58% of the vote.
During an interview with KTVB after his reelection, Sykes cited several reasons for why he believes voters chose him to lead the city for another four years.
"I'm very fiscally conservative when it comes to my policies and procedures," Sykes said. "I'm not a radical extremist. I'm here for all the citizens, I don't care if you're a Democrat, an independent, or Republican - I'm just here to do what's good for everybody and in move the city forward in that direction."
A direction propelled by projects like Mountain Home's fiber optics program, to take the city into the 21st century.
"If we learned one thing during COVID, it's that broadband is an essential service - just like water, wastewater, telehealth, telemedicine," Sykes said. "All our kids' Chromebooks are Wi-Fi enabled. So we definitely wanted to make sure that every citizen will be able to afford this broadband project. So that's the neat thing - it's a lot less expensive to jump on the city's broadband, or the citizen's broadband project, than to go through your local ISPs."
Over his next four years at the helm of Mountain Home, Sykes has his eye on upgrading and improving city infrastructure, following an initiative to revitalize the city's downtown.
"Getting the city pool up and running for the kids this year, and for the community this year," Sykes said. "Streets is never ending - we always have to try to improve the streets, get them fixed up and up and running. Infrastructure, we've got wells coming that we need to put in place, we've got a sewer lagoon that we need to come online. And then just overall quality of life, making sure the citizens are happy, and making sure that they have all the amenities that they want and deserve out in Mountain Home."
Sykes said the greatest challenge the city currently faces is housing.
"With the approval of council, and a very strategic plan of getting housing available, we've approved over 2000 dwelling units," Sykes said. "But we want to do it smartly - we want to do smart growth."
Smart growth in what Sykes said in one of the most diverse communities in the Gem State. A diverse environment - that makes the city better.
"The Air Force base and our family out at the 366 Gunfighters, they have made us one of the most diverse communities - and we're better for that," Sykes said. "I think if anybody takes anything away from Mountain Home, it's that we do care and share, and definitely when it comes to taking care of our families and friends and neighbors - that's what Mountain Home is."
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