Three minutes with … David Slaght

Published 6:00 am Wednesday, September 29, 2021

What is your job?

Echo City administrator/recorder.

What do you like best about your job?

Every day, I get to learn something new. There’s some busy work, but there’s also a lot of new things. I get to build relationships with people in the community. It’s a pretty neat opportunity.

What’s the latest new thing you have learned about yourself?

I’ve learned that I am not a politician. I’m a direct, straight-forward person, but some people like that. And I’ve been able to build relationships with legislators, senators and congressmen.

What wrong with being a politician?

They can’t just be themselves, because they have to represent everybody else. That doesn’t seem like a lot of fun. I’m better suited to work with them.

What do you like about Echo?

It’s a sleepy, little town that has so much potential to stay small but grow a little bit. It’s an interesting place that’s off the freeway that you don’t see. When you get here, it attracts you. It’s also a great place to live to folks who live here.

When people visit Echo, what restaurants do you send them to?

We have a coffee shop, Buttercreek Coffeehouse and Mercantile. For a quick visit, that’s a nice place with some food. If they want to sit down to a mom-and-pop deal, I send them to H & P for comfort food.

What else would you like people to know about Echo?

It’s an agriculturally surrounded community with a lot of history. There used to be a railroad depot here. My predecessor, Diane Berry, who was in this position for nearly 40 years, did a tremendous amount of work at gaining the city notoriety for history. We have a number of buildings that are listed on the national register. Our history includes many ethnicities going back to Native Americans, to Irish, to Chinese. We have a rich history, and that is something that we want to be known for, like Pendleton and its tunnels.