To Voters

Since one of the three candidates for commissioner will be sitting in my chair, I am very interested in what they are saying to our voters. That said, I have some facts for Mr. Horn and others with those ideas.

Mr. Horn is correct; Valley County has better places for our tax dollars than a swimming pool in Glasgow.

Our agreement stops there. You cannot fix Skylark Road by simply hauling milling[s] in and dumping them out. “Isn’t going to cost anything?” How about $600,000 (one third of our road budget) to rebuild the base and pave with millings.

I take real exception to his statement that our roads are a mess. Valley County roads are not a mess. They are gravel roads, it is dry, people drive too fast (myself included) and they have heavy truck traffic. Compared to other eastern counties, we have the best roads. Our road crew, that is the smallest it has ever been, maintains 1,800 miles of road. That is with eight patrols, while other counties maintain 800 miles with eight patrols. Not to forget that taxpaying votes voted down the 10-mil road levy, so apparently they are not too dissatisfied with our roads.

“Excess taxes??” Excuse me? I have been here 18 years and have never found any excess tax money. The problem is always not enough money to go around. If your taxes went up, the credit goes to the Dept. of Revenue. Valley County received $30,000 more in tax revenue this year. Finally, to all three candidates: there is no “Lone Ranger” commissioner. It takes at least two agreeing in this office to move anything forward and there is no “Silver Bullet” to solve any issue.

Valley County has excellent employees and is functioning well and will, I believe, continue to do so.

Thank you Valley County for allowing me to represent you these past years.

– Dave Reinhardt

County Commissioner