Photo by Deb Gau Marshall City Council candidates running in Ward 2 answered questions from the audience during a forum event Tuesday.

MARSHALL — Candidates for Marshall mayor and city council talked about their ideas for the community’s future during a forum event this week. Audience questions for candidates touched on some long-running challenges for Marshall, including economic growth, housing and child care.

Candidates also weighed in on the future of Marshall’s planned new Aquatic Center.

The office of Marshall mayor is up for election this fall, along with a total of three city council seats. Two city council members are running unopposed — Amanda Schroeder in Ward 1 and James Lozinski in Ward 3 are running for re-election. Taking part in Tuesday’s forum were candidates for Ward 2 of the city council and candidates for mayor.

Marshall Mayor Bob Byrnes is running for re-election against challenger Noel Ayala. City council candidates Dereck Deutz, Amanda Schwartz and David Sturrock are running in Ward 2.

One of the topics candidates discussed was how to address challenges to Marshall’s growth. Byrnes said the city needed to address a variety of needs in order to grow.

“It’s really a balance,” he said. Marshall is an agricultural community, so a lot of its growth would complement agriculture as well as existing industries and businesses. “But with growth and employment also comes the needs of the people. We need to be the type of community that can attract and retain families. So that means not only the job, but it also means things like housing, available day care, good health care, good education, good opportunities for amenities in the community.”

“I believe that we need to focus a lot on marketing,” Ayala said. “Marshall does have the amenities to provide the growth. And as we can see, we have numerous options from colleges being right down the road, to state assist programs that we can get workforce enahnced.” However, he said being able to bring those strengths to young people’s attention would be important for growth.

“One of the biggest challenges I think Marshall faces in growing is retaining our young people,” Deutz said. Marshall students tend to graduate and then leave, he said. “We have a college here in town, and yet we have this problem of retaining young, vibrant adults. And I feel like Marshall doesn’t have enough amenities for that.”

Deutz said he thought encouraging opportunities for light recreation — like bowling or roller skating — could help draw young people to Marshall and encourage them to see benefits of the community.

“I would say the biggest challenges that Marshall is facing right now is the lack of housing, affordable housing, and the lack of child care,” Schwartz said. As a child care provider, Schwartz said she got at least two or three calls a week from families looking for child care as they try to move into the area or return to the workforce.

“It’s just kind of a trickle effect. We can’t bring new businesses to town if there’s not housing, and we can’t bring new businesses to town if they don’t have child care,” she said. “If we can figure out a way to address that, I think that will keep us growing.”

“Historically our biggest limitations are size and location,” Sturrock said. He said Marshall has had some positive developments to help address those problems, like improvements in transportation infrastructure. “We have resource constraints, as we heard about with child care and housing. On the other hand, we do have land. We do have water supplies which are reliable and affordable, critical for our industrial development … We have a number of strengths to build on.” However, Sturrock said, the city couldn’t be complacent.

The topics of amenities and city finances came together when candidates were asked about Marshall’s planned new Aquatic Center. The city is looking at possible design changes for the project after construction bids came in over $5 million higher than estimated.

Candidates were asked what should be done about the Aquatic Center. Several of their answers focused on being willing to make changes to the original project plan.

“Growth is good. The community was very emphatic last year in approving the renewal of the sales tax for the Aquatic Center development and construction,” Sturrock said. “The problem is, you raise expectations in a growth-oriented community like ours, and you find that costs go with them.”

Sturrock said Marshall would have to make some “tough choices” to help bring the initial cost of the project down, but the city could find ways to add to the Aquatic Center in future steps.

“The size of the budget, I believe, should still stay under $18 million. I would say cut back on a few of the amenities,” Deutz said. He said he also thought Marshall could be using tax dollars in other ways to help encourage less costly amenities. “If, say, you took a million dollars and put it towards, you know, one of these light recreation businesses, I think that would provide a lot more bang for the buck,” he said.

Schwartz said community supporters of the new Aquatic Center were still focused on helping to make the project a reality.

“Touching on the emotional side of things, our community is very, very excited for this pool,” Schwartz said. “We’re going to keep pushing forward. The budget was a little bit of a setback, but overall, we’re still moving forward, we’re still positive about it.”

Ayala said Marshall needed to be flexible, and to consider factors like cost and safety in addition to expectations for the Aquatic Center’s design.

“You have to have the understanding that the materials, the labor, everything will come into effect and could change — it could be lower, it could be higher,” he said. “But we do have to take a step back and take that moment to be able to reevaluate what we were budgeting for and make those adjustments. And if we have to eliminate or downgrade a certain design, than that’s the step we would have to go.”

Byrnes said the city was taking steps to try and bring the Aquatic Center project in under budget.

“First off, the engineering firm was asked to go back and value engineer the entire project. You know, where can we cut some costs but still maintain the integrity of what the community expects?” he said. Second, he said the city has contracted with a construction manager instead of a general contractor, which could reduce costs. “The last thing I’d say is that our goal is, certainly we have to bring this project in under budget, but we also want to do it on the time schedule that the community expects. And that means hopefully being open in the summer of 2026.”