To the editor:

I, like many Brown County residents, have a high level of concern and frustration regarding the government of our beautiful beloved Brown County. We have an opportunity to change that now with the quickly approaching election. As a matter of fact, early voting has already begun.

My concerns, shared by many other residents, are specifically related to wasteful spending of taxpayers’ hard earned money.

Here are just a few examples:

We have an very large new music center in town with a large debt to pay for it, but our roads are generally poorly maintained and phone calls for help often go unanswered.

We have an enormous new antique bridge with required hefty maintenance costs for a foot path now where a much smaller, much less expensive new one would have worked very well.

We have a humongous eyesore of a forest clear cut “mistake” along a formerly beautiful stretch of highway that cost us dearly, both financially and emotionally, and resulted in damage to residents’ properties and possible lawsuits against our county.

We have enormous health care plan benefit costs, including for part-time government employees. The total county health care plan needs to be reviewed.

Concerned Brown County residents can unite now and help turn our government around because longtime resident Ken Birkemeier is running for Brown County Council.

I met Ken when we were kids in Columbus when his mother moved her two boys to our neighborhood after her husband died. His father had farmed and Ken helped with the farm chores in Rising Sun, Indiana.

Ken’s mom had a wonderful career as a school nurse where my mother taught school. I knew Ken from our neighborhood and as a classmate. I was very happy to see him show up in Brown County as a loan officer at Nashville State Bank in 1973. I got to know his lovely wife Carol when she worked at the Methodist Church’s daycare center and cared for my daughter there.

We can all benefit greatly from Ken’s extensive and very appropriate education in economics, commercial and private lending, law and his long professional experience in banking.

You may already know Ken because he served as a board member for more than 15 local nonprofit and school organizations, church groups, political groups, government entities and youth sport organizations. Ken contributed to our county while on the founding boards of the Brown County Community Foundation, Leadership Brown County and the Indiana Statewide Certified Development Corporation.

I think Ken Birkemeier is just what Brown County needs to help our county get back on track financially.

Please consider joining me and other concerned residents by helping Ken get elected to improve our county. And please, vote for Ken Birkemeier for Brown County Council.

To learn more about Ken’s campaign for Brown County Council, please visit his Faceook page: Ken Birkemeier for County Council.

Thank you!

Susan W. Showalter, Brown County

Send letters to [email protected] by noon Thursday before the date of intended publication (noon Wednesday on holiday weeks). Letters must be signed by the author and include the writer’s town of residence and a contact method in case of questions.

Letters are the opinions of the writer. They are not verified facts.

Only one letter every two weeks, per writer, to allow for diversity of voices in the opinions section. Please be considerate of sharing space with other letter-writers and keep your comments concise and to the point. Avoid name-calling, accusations of criminal activity and second- and third-hand statements of “fact.”