Schrader wraps up 16 years on Troy council

If Laura Schrader has learned one thing in her time on the Troy City Council, it’s that a good decision isn’t always a popular one. 

“You can’t please everybody,” she said, grinning. “Most of the time you can’t please anybody, and you never please everybody.”

After 16 consecutive years on the council, next week Schrader will sit in on her final meeting.

Her straightforwardness and will to do what’s right for the city at large – regardless of the complaints of a loud few – has not always made her popular, but she believes it makes for a better city.

“She really wanted to do some good things for the town,” said mayor Jim Hammons, who will also be out the door in January after serving four years as mayor and seven years on the council. “She’s like everyone else – she doesn’t like the higher water rates and the higher sewer rates, but she understands that these things need to take place for the town to move forward.”

Hammons was referring to the city’s current efforts to replace its aging water system. Anything that increases rates is not popular, but waiting too long to replace the infrastructure would have worse and more long-term effects.

Last month Schrader attempted to make another unpopular decision – begin the process of annexing nine lots that are surrounded by city limits. The issue, however, was tabled by the mayor and other councilmembers and won’t be on December’s agenda.

“For those few people that were at the (November) meeting that own that property,” Schrader said, “there’s probably the rest of the city that wants to see them annexed to share the (tax) burden.”

Schrader has enough on her plate – working full-time as the sheriff’s office records clerk and helping her husband, Max, at Alta Vista Meat Co. – that she won’t mourn the loss of her council duties. But she does wish should could have gotten a few more things accomplished.

She wanted to push the annexation through, for example, and build the proposed interpretive center. It’s a shame, she believes, that all the ideas are there with architectural designs drawn up for the new building. There just are not any funds for construction.

Schrader was appointed to the council in 1993 after she had already filed to run that November.

“I knew who was running and I wasn’t happy with my choices and my theory was, if you’re not happy with the choices presented to you, maybe you should do something about that,” Schrader recalled.

She also wanted to give something back to the community. After she began working for the sheriff’s office in Libby, she gave up volunteering for the Troy Dispatch Center.

She had volunteered one six-hour shift a week between 1972 and 1989, taking time off only to have her three kids.

Schrader admits that a city the size of Troy doesn’t overwhelm coucilmembers with responsibilities, but the volunteer position comes with more headaches than praise.

She’s proud of past and present mayors and councils that she has worked with and the things they have accomplished together – such as the park and the work on the city’s water system. 

Schrader didn’t run for re-election this year, she said, partly because she didn’t know if she would win and partly because she didn’t feel that the incoming council would appreciate her knowledge and insight. With no allies, her vote would do no good. 

“If they won’t listen to you,” she said, “you’re not effective. I wouldn’t have been effective.”

Schrader offered advice for new councilmembers.

“My best advice for the council coming in is, don’t base all of your decisions on the vocal people that come to the meetings,” she said. “Take into consideration the people that don’t come. They also have an opinion.”