Doug Henke is the current mayor of Kenyon. He served a year and half as interim mayor and is now running for his third term as mayor.
Some of the accomplishments he has seen completed during his tenure as mayor include building the new Fire Hall, hiring the new police chief and finance director. Also completion of the Industrial Park and mutual agreement of city administrator leaving the employment of the city and cleaning up some of the blighted properties in the city.
He is looking forward to filing up the Industrial Park, attracting more businesses to downtown and looking for more land to develop for new homes.
He believes the strengths of Kenyon dwells in the mixture of older generations, middle age residents and young families, along with the ability to attract more families to the community for the affordable homes and a good school.
His priorities will be filling the Industrial Park and development of home lots for sale.
Doug is an Army veteran, vice president of the Kenyon Veterans Color Guard, service officer of the Preston State Veterans Cemetery and past vice commander and commander of the American Legion Post 78 in Kenyon for a few years. He is also a member of the 1st Lutheran Church.
As a mayor he sees his duty to be involved in all functions of how the city is running along with making decisions on what is needed for the future. Most important is getting out and visiting with the citizens on needs and desires for a good future for Kenyon, yet keeping taxes affordable for everyone.
Donald Kirchman is a graduate and resident of Kenyon, and an active volunteer firefighter and first responder of the Kenyon Fire Department. He has been active in the community for the past fifteen years, previously on the Park and Rec and currently with the Fire Department. He has been the secretary/treasurer for the Fire Department, safety officer and current president of the Fireman’s Relief Association.
He feels it is time for a change for the office of Mayor. He believes in supporting the community and the people who live here. He will represent and listen to the community and maintain an unbiased opinion. He would like to push toward ore housing, as without affordable housing it is hard to keep kids in town. The school’s attendance is dwindling because the town is not growing. He wants to relook at the Industrial Park which has been sitting empty for the last few years, because sitting empty does not bring income to the town.
If elected he will work for transparency, accountability and ethical conduct in the city government. He believes it is important to have competent, reliable people with ethical morals. He will treat others the way he likes to be treated. If he makes a mistake he will own up and rectify the problem instead of ignoring it.
He wants to encourage citizens to be active by attending meetings or following along online. “Speak up when you have a concern, and voice your opinion. Reach out to me if you need to, I am usually in town and available by phone.”
He believes it is important to support our police department, public works, fire department, etc. Some of them place their lives on the line, getting up in the night to restore power or coming to help in an emergency situation. We need to keep our community safe.
