Republican candidates seeking their party’s nomination for a Brown County commissioner seat answered questions from the public at a forum April 11.
Diana Biddle and Ron Sanders took questions from moderator Julie Winn, of the League of Women Voters of Brown County. The third Republican candidate, John Kennard, did not attend due to a schedule conflict.
Democrat candidate Kyle Birkemeier made a statement before questioning began. His opponent, Jeff Fox, was not able to attend, so per League rules, Birkemeier was not allowed to answer any questions on the panel.
Two Democrats and three Republicans are running for the commissioner District 2 seat this primary election. The election is May 8.
[sc:text-divider text-divider-title=”Story continues below gallery” ]Not all questions and answers appear here due to space constraints in the printed paper.
Kyle Birkemeier (D): I have a very diverse background, including work in public government, leadership of private and not-for-profit organizations, strategic planning. I work in analytics and data science now. I’ve also worked in education and I have the technological know-how to provide a strong foundation to help guide Brown County in the role of county commissioner.
I was born and raised here in Brown County. I know and understand the unique beauty and challenges we face as a county. I do love this place. Not only is it my home, but it’s home to the community that I cherish. I left a lucrative career in Arizona to return here with my family about three years ago, basically for the wonderful opportunities that this community provided me as a child and the culture and the community that lived here.
I always paid attention to the happenings here even when I lived somewhere else, and on returning I was shocked at how this county leadership seemed to operate by skipping from one crisis to another and making decisions behind closed doors with complete disregard for open meeting laws and a serious lack of communication to the public. Just in recent months, we’ve seen our county use force and eminent domain to take away someone’s land for a public recreation project. We watched as county leadership failed to step in and fix the Van Buren fire department crisis, causing our county to now be in a place where we can’t get grant funding, and so far nothing has been done about it. We’ve seen the attempt to pass a draconian septic law that would hurt home sales, decrease competition, hurt people’s jobs as inspectors and embolden an autocratic county employee. We’ve also watched as our forest gets clear-cut and our community leaders sit in silence. I think we can do better.
Our current culture has elevated the buddy system, created an atmosphere where decisions are made in secret and only after a crisis has arisen. We need new leadership. We need to operate by planning for the future instead of waiting for a crisis to act. I am not running for commissioner out of any kind of political ambition. I don’t want to be a politician, but I am running because I know I can help by serving you, the people of Brown County. I can bring organizational leadership skills, planning and research to help fix our county. I hope by running, I can also inspire other people of my generation to step up into leadership roles.
I graduated from Brown County High School in 1995. I have a bachelor’s from Ball State University and a master’s in public administration from George Williams College. I worked in county governments in Arizona. We developed a successful trail program with the use of strategic planning incorporated within the county. I have some great experiences there with really good leaders and really good planners that I hope to bring back to Brown County.
I fully support the development of a comprehensive economic development plan and a comprehensive plan for the county. One of the first lessons I always taught in leadership training is the importance of planning, and that’s something that I feel we’ve been severely lacking here in the county. Our county faces many challenges. I could talk about them all night, but I only have a few minutes, so come speak to me in the hallway afterwards. The three I wish to touch on tonight are infrastructure, lack of vision and planning and the opioid epidemic.
Brown County has made significant progress, especially the last few days on giving us internet, but internet is only one part of infrastructure. I plan on bringing that internet to the rest of the county that doesn’t have it, but we also need to go in for the basics. We need to get back and make sure our roads are in good shape and we need to do this, again, by strategic planning. We need to plan for those winter months when the roads get icy. I have a kid here in Brown County Schools and he has missed double the amount of school this year than other counties. I think that through really good planning and vision, we could have that right road maintenance crew out there clearing the roads and making sure that on some of these, we get our kids to school.
I will work with the health department to create a better septic plan, one that does not use those fees to punish homeowners and one that helps people fix their issues and gives oversight to the actions of the inspectors, and end the current culture of intimidation that has resulted in many lawsuits against this county. I will work with the council to explore new opportunities for funding, like lobbying the state for legislation for a share of the state park gate fees, and we can look into other fiscal management issues to find more funding.
So many of our problems we face in this county are a result of a lack of vision and planning and loose organizational structure and no transparency. We need to create strategic plans as I spoke about, but we also need to update our organizational problems, fix our problems in the county and create better job descriptions, create better policies and make sure they are followed. We can set goals and benchmarks for our employees and government officials, have better training and funding through organizational structures. Again, go back to the League of Women Voters’ fiscal plan they put out in February. It has great advice for how to do it.
The other problem I would like to talk about is the opioid epidemic our county is facing. Our county has been very hard hit by this. I have lost friends. I know many people in this room know people affected by it, brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers. I feel the county needs to step up and do something. There’s no magic bullet to do this, but I do think if we work together as a community, we can come up with strategies. We can look to other counties, other communities around us to fix these problems.
I think my time might be up, so go to birkemeier4bc.com, meet me in the hallway and thank you for your time and involvement. I love the fact we have so many people interested in our county.
Q: Would you advocate the county participating in some way in cost savings for health care by supporting the Brown County Wellness Clinic (the new clinic at Brown County Schools’ Eagle Park)?
Ron Sanders (R): I would have to look at all of that and think about it. That’s a big step. I want to do as much as I can, but I can’t do everything.
Diana Biddle (R): The Brown County Schools Wellness Clinic is a great idea, by the way. It’s unfortunate that the commissioners didn’t know anything about that project until after the school had voted on it. We were in the middle of negotiating our own health insurance contract with SIHO. … It’s really hard to do a project like that when you’re dealing with two different insurance companies to make that happen. I think there’s room for discussion. I don’t know what the answer looks like. I don’t know what a solution looks like. I think, certainly, commissioners are willing to discuss how we can play a role in that.
Q: How do you plan to complete the paving project? What does it cost to maintain roads that are paved versus not?
Sanders: I said my approach is going to be a little different. Gravel roads, not paving them, that doesn’t make no sense to me because it costs more to maintain gravel roads. Basically, you put the blacktop down and get on there, smooth the snow off of it or stuff like that. I think there’s an issue with trenching the ditches. … When it rains it just washes it out and you’ve got drop-offs. That’s pretty dangerous. … I don’t come here and whine about my road, but my road is terrible. Mine got used for (the) 135 (detour). I am talking 18-wheelers, log trucks out at Yellowwood, overloaded, caved the road in. It desperately needs some work. The county was up there ditching the other day. The guys are pretty good on there; they just need some guidance. When you’re out there, make it count. Finish the whole road. … Get as much as you can out of your money and your people.
Biddle: … I can’t tell you what it costs to maintain a mile of road, but I know that to pave a mile of road it costs anywhere between $80,000 to $100,000 a mile. … What happened years ago was they took a gravel road and they just slapped a layer of asphalt on it and called it paved. That’s not good enough, so last year and the year before we spent a lot of time doing reclamation. … We took that old pavement that still had oil in it and we ground it up in order to a make new road base, then we went over and repaved over the top of that. We made a very concerted effort to fix a lot of those road beds, some of which were completely nonexistent. There were a couple of places up on Hoover that had actually gone back to dirt. There was no pavement there because of a flood. But we don’t plan to turn anything that’s already paved back to gravel. … I know a previous commissioner threatened that a lot, but none of that has ever happened. … Once we get to that caught-up point, then we could entertain converting some of our gravel roads to paved. That’s not off the table. … I know we have a five-year paving plan, so we’ll have to see what roads are on that list for this year.
Q: What are the next steps that you see in regard to the Salt Creek Trail?
Biddle: With regard to the Salt Creek Trail, INDOT has not been in any conversation with the commissioners’ office since we had our last meeting, so there’s been no eminent domain filed on behalf of the commissioners. I understand that the Olivers (who own land in the path of the trail) and INDOT may have reached an agreement, but we don’t have any knowledge of what that is. In fact, INDOT hasn’t even spoken to us about it. I actually made a call today and left a message for them. I don’t know until we get an answer back from that. I believe that the bids have been let out for the bridges in Clay County and for moving them (to be used on the trail), but as far as where they are going to go when they get here, I do not have confirmation of those final details.
Sanders: To be totally honest with you, I was never a big fan (of the trail), but that’s what the people decided to do and I am OK with majority ruling if that’s where they want to put their resources. I talked to Mr. Oliver about it and he was very upset. I don’t really like the idea of restoring and bringing an old, heavy, steel bridge here. I would probably prefer if you were going to do it to use some kind of covered bridge. The Salt Creek thing would be a plus with the Maple Leaf (Performing Arts Center). It can join things together. You can join the park. Nashville is a tourist town and that’s the direction it looks like it’s going. The motels, I think, in the town could benefit from it. I just know that the native people in Brown County didn’t like it and a lot of them didn’t like the Salt Creek Trail. Like I said, I am going to listen to everybody and the make best possible, informed decision I can.
Q: How will you work to protect the forests and developed forest recreational resources in the county?
Sanders: It’s kind of hard to have it all your way, all the time. I kind of like the woods. I don’t go out and hug the trees, but I like the woods. I work around my trees and try to keep the place in good shape. You know, logging is a part of it. I don’t want to see forests totally ruined, but these trees have a natural process they go through. You know, they die. You can go out and cut a dead tree now, it’s not a year later, something has grown up from the dead roots, same kind of tree. You have to have forest management. A few trees need taken out so the better trees can grow. Some loggers have done some awful things to Brown County over the years. I saw the thing up at the Bean Blossom Overlook. Boy, it looks like a disaster. I don’t know what they are going to do with that. … You can cut a forest down, and in a few years it’s going to start growing again. It won’t have the quality of the big trees. The tourists come to Brown County to see the trees. … The Yellowwood thing, that is one of my memories. My dad took us out there and we went fishing. It was neat is what I can remember. You go out there and it looks like it has been clear-cut. It just makes you sick. That’s all I have to say on it.
Biddle: I grew up with responsible forestry management practices. Trees are a crop. They get to a place where they are at their prime and they are harvested. But I agree that some of it is messy and unsightly. With regard to Yellowwood, we had these conversations several years ago. That Yellowwood (road and bridge reconstruction) project has been on the table since the 1980s. … Dave Critser can tell you that he was up in Indianapolis and they had a table model scale layout of all of Yellowwood and how they were going to put this road in. That is not INDOT money. … It’s being done with DNR money, and it’s part of the forestry road access budget, so there is money set aside for access to forestry areas and that’s what that money was to be used for. … North end people are complaining because it’s really, really overly wide. You need to go back and look at the plans for that, because what happens is the creek and the road run together in several places, which is causing a lot of wash and fill going into Yellowwood Lake, which is a concern with the Yellowwood Watershed Group. They are going to move those farther apart and then also, I believe, that plan at the north end calls for buried underground utilities, so all of the utilities up there on lines should be going on the easement underground. With regard to developing resources, county really doesn’t have much skin in the game when it comes to state-owned properties.
Q: How important is it to follow all Open Door Laws, and what will you do to ensure that they continue to be met?
Biddle: We follow the Open Door Laws. We have our county council that makes sure we comply. … Things come up and somebody wants to meet. Well, you can’t meet because you have to have 48 hours. If we do have to meet on a short notice, I usually call Sara (Clifford, newspaper editor) right away to make sure she knows and gets it on her calendar. But we try not to do that. We try to make our meetings follow a certain schedule and do what we can to comply with those things. There is going to be a change to the Open Door Law the first of July. It will allow county executives and town councils to meet for administrative functions. It defines very specifically what administrative functions are, so if I want to go talk to (county commissioners) Jerry (Pittman) or Dave (Anderson) about what color we’re going to paint a wall, that’s allowed now. That is a change you should look up and be aware of. I believe it only affects county executives and town boards.
Sanders: I suggest you follow them. Are you down to the question with ad hoc (committees)?
Winn: Yes, if you’d like to use that.
Sanders: I had to look it up. I don’t know if I had ever heard the word before. That’s usually something that was done on a national and international level. I think my response was, yes, you should be open, but in a case of an emergency, if you had to do something to act fast and protect the people, the commissioners might have to do that. They’re not going to have time for 48 hours’ (notice). This special committee and stuff … the people who put Maple Leaf together were obviously very intelligent. I think it probably moved too fast for the average citizen. I know they had, they considered, countless meetings. You have to inform the public somehow. They work and they can’t always come (to meetings). I am never going to go into a meeting and agree to vote one way in private and go in public. I believe that’s illegal. I am no attorney, but it don’t feel right. It’s tough, man. You’ve got people coming at you from all different directions and they remember what you say and they call you on it.
Biddle: I do think ad hoc or task force committees are useful. It’s a way to bring people together from various different boards who don’t normally work together on projects. Our Broadband Task Force brought together five or six people in our community who were businessmen. … We just get together from time to time. We also have a Small Business Task Force, so if someone is coming into Brown County for economic development purposes and they want to build a business, but they don’t know what hoops we need them to jump through … we get all of those people together in one room, and instead of the individual who wants to invest money here running around like a chicken with their head cut off going to five or six different offices, we bring all of those offices together, kind of a one-stop shop. … That’s one of the ways we use it (ad-hoc committees) and it’s been very successful.
Q: Do you allow people on Facebook to influence your position on county issues without doing research?
Sanders: I probably have 50 friends on Facebook. Most of them are racers all over the country. I only actually talk to one. I might put a few likes or something, but the only person I send messages to is a person I used to work for. I used to sell used cars and he was the guy that owned the car lot. … I wouldn’t be influenced. I want to listen to both sides of the issues and people that really know me, and I think Diana would probably say this, I am going to do what I think is right for the county.
Biddle: I don’t spend as much time there as I used to, because frankly, I just don’t have the time to spend there. I do use Facebook to share information that is useful to the public: If a road is going to be closed, if we’re working on bridge projects, if there’s some change for county business. … No, I typically don’t allow Facebook rants to color my opinions. You all know me. The people in this room who really know me, know I do my homework. If somebody tells me something that is new to me — in fact, I wrote a couple of things down tonight — I go research those things.
