The League of Women Voters gathered the five candidates for Davis City Council on Monday night and, with the audience’s help, tested their rapid-response skills addressing important city issues in only one- or two-minute answers.

The league prepared two questions for the candidates. One explored what candidates would do if Measure G, a $49 yearly parks tax that will share the June ballot with them, fails. The second asked what skills they would bring to land-use problems.

The first question elicited a rainbow of ideas, ranging from Lamar Heystek’s and Stan Forbes’ suggestion that the city make up the $1.3 million difference by eating away at the almost $8 million reserve for which there is no hard and fast policy for use, allowing the city to craft a more effective tax with more time to educate voters.

If that wouldn’t work, Forbes said, the city would have to ask the public where cuts should be made.

Heystek said money might be found in the existing budget, but it would take a city audit to find out where.

“Our council has no plan if Measure G doesn’t pass,” he said. “I’d like to know where our spending problems are.”

Mike Levy painted the situation as an income problem, noting that the state has raided $19 million of city money since 1998. The city struggles to keep police and fire salaries competitive, he said, and no replacement budget exists for the city’s roads and buildings.

“If the community doesn’t want to pass $49 a year, then we will have to engage the community,” he said.

Ruth Asmundson noted that the parks tax, which has been in place since 1998 at its current rate, covers only about 25 percent of the parks and recreation budget.

Asmundson said the council has already directed staff to look at ways to cut and to explore public/private partnerships that would support the parks.

Rob Roy, who hasn’t wavered in his dislike of what he calls a “regressive tax,” said he supports taxes for park maintenance, just not at a flat rate.

“Flat taxes are not fair taxes,” he said. “The city procrastinated on this one. We should not be deciding in June when the budget is due in July.”

A question about what skills candidates would bring to land-use issues resulted in a flurry of resum/ qualifications, with candidates occasionally straying into examples of actual land use.

Roy again voiced a desire to see blocks of the downtown demolished, replaced with multi-story, multi-use buildings.

“Jack in the Box is hideous and a waste of space,” he said, suggesting instead a six- or seven-story building with floors of retail, office space, housing and parking. “It’s economically self-sufficient and not sprawled out.”

Heystek re-emphasized his commitment to a city that is small and compact with small, market-rate affordable housing. If a Target store is approved on Second Street as proposed, it “shouldn’t be allowed without helping with our land-use problems,” he said.

Asmundson pointed out that developers cannot make a profit and hence won’t contract to build only affordable housing.

“You also have to have the higher end pay for the affordable housing,” she said. “No developer would build only affordable at a loss. It’s always a balancing process.”

Eight questions were chosen from the audience, touching on subjects like handicapped parking — which became a discussion about a lack of parking in general — a safety tax, city employee retirements, police review commission, building synergy with UC Davis, improving bike ridership and critical issues with the county.

The topic of a police review commission elicited the widest range of responses, with Forbes, Heystek and Roy strongly supporting the commission that was suggested and supported by the Human Relations Commission and rejected by the City Council. Although the question of disbanding the HRC was not broached, the three noted the importance of the commission continuing to exist.

“By nature of its docket, the commission is and will always be a controversial commission,” Heystek said.

“I believe the Human Relations Commission serves a very important purpose in this town,” Forbes said.

Levy and Asmundson defended the City Council’s establishment of a review committee, board and ombudsman who is expected to field complaints about the entire city.

“I will not give subpoena power to a 15 year-old, a mentally disabled person or a person we don’t know where they live,” Levy said, referring to the HRC’s recommendation for a diverse commission. “The people who review police must be knowledgeable about police.”

Roy, however, said the public should get what it asks for.

“There has been a public outcry, so a police review board has to be done,” he said. “If there’s nothing wrong with the Police Department, then there’s nothing to worry about.”