Candidates fret over taxes, roads, turbines, administator
Staff writer
Three county commissioner candidates agreed taxes are too high, roads are in bad shape, they are against wind turbines, and think the county probably does not need an administrator.
Democrat Randy Eitzen and Republicans Dan Holub and Greg Wyatt discussed their views at a candidate forum Sunday sponsored by the Record. Republican Amy Soyez could not attend, and Republican Tom Britain indicated he does not want to run for the seat, asking voters to support Wyatt instead.
Holub was selected Thursday to temporarily fill the rest of the term of Dave Crofoot, who died July 10.
Despite their agreements, the candidates approached the issues from different perspectives. Here are some of their responses to questions asked by reporters and audience members at the Marion Community Center:
Taxes
Eitzen: “One thing I would start by doing: there would be jobs eliminated first at the courthouse and on road and bridge.”
Wyatt: “We have to do a better job of promoting ourselves. If we bring in industries and businesses and create affordable housing and bring in population, then the taxes will reduce.”
Holub: “You just have to start thinking differently. OK, do we really need this? Do we really need that? I’m looking at homegrown businesses because it’s a problem with where you’re going to get the workers and the housing.”
Roads
Holub: “We’re going to run out of money long before we get our roads fixed. It’s just a big, big, insurmountable object at the moment.”
Wyatt: “We [need to] just pick out however many [roads] that we can handle as far as a year is concerned...A lot of times I think we take on too many projects at once.”
Eitzen: “We just need to go back to the way things were about 65 or 70 years ago when people would do part of the work taking care of their own roads and ditches.”
Wind farms
Wyatt: “I’m not a fan of the wind farms.”
Eitzen: “If I was on the commission, I would want to hold them accountable.”
Holub: “The wind farms is not at all a good thing. We’ve got two wind farms in the county. I think it’s about as much as we can handle.”
Transparency
(All but Wyatt initially failed to list income sources and assets on financial disclosure forms.)
Wyatt: “It is important that people know what we are about and that there are no hidden agendas or conflicts of interest.”
Holub: “I misinterpreted that, and, just, the form wasn’t that clear.”
Eitzen: “I didn’t understand what they were asking.”
Administrator and five commissioners:
Eitzen: “I would probably, one way or another, eliminate the administrator. Why do we have county commissioners? That’s what our job is supposed to be. I’m really borderline whether or not we need to have five of them.”
Holub: “Five county commissioners, I believe, is a good idea…[The] administrative position, I think, was a bad idea. It was advertised as being more efficient, saving money. Did it save us any money, or make us much more efficient?”
Wyatt: I like the idea of the five county commissioners. Last Thursday, I was for the county administrator. My thoughts are changing a little bit. [We should] put more emphasis as far as what’s on the commissioners, as far as the duties that they have, then maybe eliminating [the administrator] would be the best option.”