Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
There is a new mayor in Uniontown where he’s been all along, except for the 20 years he served in the Air Force.
The service included time in Pleiku, Vietnam, where he repaired electrical systems on helicopters and fighters and rescue helicopters.
Dave Jacobs, formerly mayor pro-tem, took over Jan. 1 after the resignation of Mayor Joyce Mayer due to health problems.
“The only thing I told city council is I’m proud to be mayor of the town I was born and raised in,” he said. “You’d have to go back a long ways to find someone who was mayor and born and raised in Uniontown.”
He was greeted by computer problems in his first month.
“That decided to go belly up,” Jacobs said. “The hard drive went out of it, and we bought that one at Wal-Mart and of course they have no tech support.”
The failed computer was still under warranty from Hewlett-Packard so they sent it away for repair.
In the meantime, they also had a new one custom-built by Dan Otremba of Sandpoint, Idaho.
“I haven’t got all the bills from that so I’m not sure (what it cost),” said Jacobs.
Back at Hewlett-Packard, their technicians ran into a wall.
“They finally figured out it was fried,” said the mayor.
The company sent Uniontown a replacement, and it was put in the city shop to take over for the outdated one being used by Public Works Director Brandon Schell.
“He’s our maintenance person, and our water man and our sewer man,” said Jacobs.
Before becoming mayor, Jacobs served on the city council for six years.
“It’s okay so far,” he said of being mayor. “I toyed with it before but hadn’t made up my mind for sure, then all of a sudden it got dropped on me when Joyce had to resign.”
The post culminates a long relationship with his hometown.
He remembers the earliest days of the Uniontown Sausage Feed. After high school, he joined the Air Force, learning electrical systems on airplanes at Elmendorf Air Force Base in Alaska.
That was followed by duty at McChord Air Force Base in Tacoma. Then it was off to Pleiku, a base in the central highlands of South Vietnam. There he spent one-year servicing A 1-E single engine fighters (propeller), AC-47 gunships, C-47 transport planes and H-43 rescue helicopters.
“I worked on anything that was flying in and out,” said Jacobs.
His main assignment was the A 1-E planes which were a still-active model from World War II.. While Jacobs was there, they were used on missions during the Tet Offensive of 1968.
“When the Marines got in trouble, they called and we hauled, so to speak,” said Jacobs.
The A 1-E planes carried their weight in armament.
Jacobs finished his Air Force career in 1983 at Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield, Calif. He returned to Uniontown and drove a bus for Head Start in Pullman for 11 years. Now he drives a bus for Colton Schools District.
He lives next door to his brother, Don, who lives in the house where they were raised by their parents, Henry and Dorothy Jacobs.
His step-granddaughter Sarah Burnet graduated from Colton High in 2010. Her grandmother, Dave’s wife Jerri, died in 2003.
Mayor Jacobs says his main focus is to enforce city ordinances that are already in place.
He cites laws for junk, dilapidated buildings and other eyesores.
“To make it more appealing for people to move to Uniontown,” he said.
Enforcement involves following the complaint process, in which the mayor can file complaints too.
He has glanced through the Colton-Uniontown community survey results and plans to give it more study.
“From what I saw I liked the feedback that people gave us. It was positive,” said Jacobs.
He was at the Community Center all day for the 58th annual Sausage Feed March 4. He remembers the entertainment on the stage from long ago.
He is the current president of the Uniontown Community Building Association.
For his other post, he will need to be on the ballot in 2013, which was when Joyce Mayer’s term was set to expire.
Garth Meyer is a former Whitman County Gazette reporter.
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