“Are you satisfied with Ames?” was a question posed by a candidate for the fourth ward seat of the Ames City Council during a debate Sunday with other fourth ward hopefuls.

“I’m not satisfied with where we are,” said Matt Denner, senior in political science.

Denner, the only student running for the fourth ward, is vying for the seat against realtor Joe Paulson and professors Riad Mahayni and Joe Viles.

Ames is at the “cusp” of growth, Denner said.

“We need to retain and respect the students as part of our movement toward growth,” he said. “We need to make sure students are respected as the lifeblood of this community.”

Mahayni, current fourth ward councilman and professor in community and regional planning, was a member of the board that developed the city’s growth plan, the Land Use Policy Plan, in 1997. People are talking about growth as if the population is going to double next week, he said.

“We are not at the cusp of tremendous growth,” Mahayni said.

The planned growth rate for the city is less than 1 percent per year, which amounts to about 300 people, Mahayni said.

Denner said it would be a mistake to plan for only 300 people. Ames needs to look at things, like the proposed mall, in terms of what citizens need, he said.

Paulson, 3213 West St., said the mall is a crucial issue for the city, but he has not seen enough information about it to determine its necessity to the Ames community.

Mahayni said he fears Ames will end up with nothing in the event the new mall is not built and North Grand Mall is not renovated.

“This would be a disaster,” he said.

Viles, professor in genetics, development and cell biology, said the city should not even be considering the mall because the developer, James “Bucky” Wolford of Tennessee, does not own the land he is asking be rezoned.

“That’s the problem with the Land Use Policy Plan — it has so many exceptions to it, it is incoherent,” Viles said.

Audience member Hannah Schoenthal-Muse, president of the ISU Democrats and senior in liberal studies, asked the candidates about how they would protect the environment in the future, an issue which did not come up in the at-large seat debate.

“I would really like to see bio-diesel fuel used on all the CyRide buses,” Denner said.

Paulson agreed with Denner.

He said he would also like to see current programs stay in place like RideShare, which shuttles people to Des Moines by van.

Mahayni and Viles said they did not think Ames has a pollution problem.

“I don’t think Ames really needs to do anything,” Viles said. “We don’t have a pollution problem.”

Mahayni said Ames is one of the leading cities in the country when it comes to using alternative resources.

However, Ames should consider how its growth will affect the environment in the future, he said.

“[Ames needs to] be careful with the kind of industry we attract,” Mahayni said.