Incumbent Quance Likes Facilitating Action In Role As City Council President
Incumbent Quance Likes Facilitating Action In Role As City Council President
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Dan Spalding-dspalding@timesuniononline.com
Incumbent Quance Likes Facilitating Action In Role As City Council PresidentEven as a grade school student, Diane Quance had an inkling that she would serve the public.
Quance remembers growing up in South Bend and one day standing along a Michigan street, cheering as President Kennedy’s motorcade zipped by.
“My teacher told us we had to be 35 to run for president and I remember figuring that I had a certain number of years to get ready,” Quance recalls.
The presidential ambitions eventually faded, giving way to community involvement in Warsaw.
The District 5 councilwoman’s involvement is as lengthy as it is varied.
Over the years, she was a founding member of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Kosciusko County and a founding member of Kosciusko County Youth Soccer League.
Her church mission trips to Mexico and Bolivia led to her founding role with the late Ray Monteith and the late Wendy Long in establishing Sus Amigos, a program that helped provide translators for non-English speaking immigrants.
The program aimed to help students stay in school rather than often being pulled out to serve as translators for their parents. The program ceased to exist after the issue was alleviated
Quance, 64, was appointed to the council through a Republican caucus when Dan Hampton became prosecutor in 2010. She has since been elected to the council twice.
In a prepared statement, Quance said that over the years, she’s grown to appreciate the “small town caring” nature of the community when a need in the town is brought forth.
“I chose to run for city council initially because I saw that we were on the cusp for rapid growth and I wanted us to have a plan to manage that growth that helped preserve our values, our natural environment and our neighborhoods while providing planned areas to grow both residential and commercial communities,” Quance said.
While they’ve made strides, Quance said the city needs to continue looking at how the city is growing.
Quance serves on the plan commission and said she wants the city to work on housing issues, a topic other candidates have been discussing.
Quance said she believes future annexation should consider the need for more housing that can accommodate families looking for homes in the $100,000 to $150,000 price range.
She said she’d like to see a change in policy to allow for smaller lots and more community green space.
“We have a lot of nice housing around Warsaw, but we don’t have the kind of housing that we need in order to house the mainline workforce and they deserve that,” she said. “They deserve good housing.”
As council president, she made asserted efforts to get council members more involved.
She established several task forces. One involves city employee wages and was an effort to make sure city workers receive a competitive wage, a move that helps the city attract good job candidates.
Another task force will look at utility rates. In coming years, they are expected to track the rate structure for sewer bills to determine if any changes are needed. That move is in part a response to last year’s new rate structure, which drew some complains from renters and small-business owners.
Another task force is charged with evaluation of community not-for-profits and how to assess their funding requests and doing so with the support of the Kosciusko County Community Foundation.
She’s also made an effort as council president to ensure council members are able to speak openly when debating issues and share information.
As council president, it’s her role to share concerns of the council with the mayor.
Quance said the open dialog among council members and the public is important in reaching sound decisions.
“That’s how I expand my thinking and that’s how I get educated. There’s no way that one council member can know everything. .... We need everyone working together,” she said.
She’s served several stints as council president and finds satisfaction in that role.
“I?enjoy helping facilitate things,” she said.
She said she’s also proud of her work on the state level, where she serves on the Environmental Policy Committee through Indiana Cities and Towns, which makes recommendations to protect citizens and the environment.
Several years ago, she proposed a plan to protect future home owners when they are looking for homes.
Under her recommendation, a bill was crafted making it mandatory to disclose at the point of sale if the house had been used as a meth lab and how it was cleaned up.
“Now it’s something that protects all of our citizens,” Quance said.
She has a degree from Manchester College and earned a master’s degree in social work from Indiana University. She worked for Bowen Center for 15 years with a focus on family and children services and became director of quality assurance. She then worked for Warsaw Community Schools Corp., eventually becoming director of guidance and counseling before retiring in 2017.
