The race for Boise mayor: one-on-one with Mike Masterson

Today we're hearing from the man running to unseat Boise's Mayor Lauren McLean. Last week, Mike Masterson officially launched his campaign in a prepared speech before supporters. Now, he's answering some of CBS2's questions.

"So after seeing the crisis, waste, and drift of the current administration over the past three years, I felt it was my obligation to step up and run for the next mayor of Boise," said Mike Masterson.

Mike Masterson served as Boise Police Chief from 2005 to 2015.

He’s taken issue with the way the current mayor, in his words, disparaged the entire department. However, he says he did support her decision to tap Ron Winegar to stay on as police chief permanently.

“Ron is a good choice, he should have been made three years ago," Masterson said. "I would have taken Ron out and we would have had listening sessions with the community, and I wanted them to have the opportunity to ask him about his vision for safety in the community, about how he would work in partnerships with the community to solve crime and increase our livability and how he would address the hiring issue and retention issue of police officers."

We asked him what he’d do with the findings and recommendations offered in the more than half-a-million-dollar investigation into the department that revealed failures in recruiting, training, and promotion practices.

“I think that they are valid critiques and would like to see them improved as well," Masterson said. "I've been gone for eight years and a lot of things changed. There are new faces and names with the police department. I've lost connection with how the systems work there but I would empower my chief to find the answer to those critical issues."

He says he'd also like to see more front-line officers.

“The police department really hasn't increased staffing but our city has grown tremendously over the last five years. I would be interested in hearing from the chief what positions that he thinks should be added that add value to the public safety in our community. Is it more bicycle officers in the downtown area, is it more investigators in CID, is it more patrol officers and what is our response time to emergencies? How does he plan to use these additional assets?" Masterson said.

We asked how his approach to homelessness would be different from the city's current efforts too.

"We have seen building a large facility along state street, which is basically warehousing people. We haven't seen wrap-around services like we should. There's a portion of the homeless community that need our help and need that hand up and need not only emergency shelter but mental health counseling, AODA issues, financial management, childcare issues," Masterson said. "The county commissioners stopped funding the temporary monies that was given to emergency shelter because they wanted to see more permanent housing... There are monies that came in under the Trump administration and now under the Biden administration. There's actually two different levels of those that allow for 25% of those funding to be taken and allocated to permanent housing. And so the county commissioners and the mayor should be working together to combine those funds because we're talking about $11 million that could really have an impact on finding permanent solutions to homelessness in our community.

Then there's the update to Boise’s zoning code.

"There's many good things in the zoning code rewrite. It's been many years since we have undertaken that. 611 pages is a long document to try to digest, but my main objection to the zoning code rewrite is the fact that it takes an important voice away from people who live in our neighborhoods about the future of our neighborhoods," Masterson said. "We didn't have that educational effort."

How does he think the city would look under his leadership?

"I think under my leadership you will see a greater collaboration with ACHD, with the board of commissioners, with other regional entities, with our state elected officials because we need those services and we need to work together. In terms of the transparency, you know, I'll publish travel agendas for when I go out of town. I will make sure my office budget doesn't increase 60% in three years and other issues that I think the public are looking for in terms of that accountability and I think I can bring that to the leadership that Boise deserves."

Mayor Lauren McLean's campaign manager says she'll be available for an interview on the race in a couple of weeks.

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