The forum will soon be up at PEG Central but for now some quick observations about how the candidates fielded questions. Mary Loiselle, apparently an appraiser, was not able to attend sending her husband instead and promising to answer questions on her website. From an earlier forum I was told by someone in attendance she made sure the audience knew she had not voted for Obama and did not support Obamacare. Not sure what that has to do with county business but she evidently felt it was important.
One question is “If elected what will you do to help businesses”. The questions reflects a common misconception on the part of the public that the job of commissioner has anything to do with business at all but then the crowd was the Chamber of Commerce.
Steve Pickering, dressed in a suit and with beard trimmed, appeared very comfortable speaking to the crowd and says he is a member of the chamber. Pickering, to his credit rightly noted the job of commissioner is to manage the public assets and ensure that public services and infrastructure and public safety are maintained to enable commerce to occur. He then proceeded to through his support behind ORC wholeheartedly ‘even one job is one more job than we have’. And apparently to hell with the consequences. (Dan Smith from ORC was beaming).
Don Van Dyke was eloquent, witty and revealed his Republican leanings as he spoke about why he wanted this non-partisan post.
Larry Van Elsberg, a former roadmaster, is clearly getting more comfortable speaking before a crowd and came off as very genuine and revealed a knowledge of the workings of the budget process and funding areas with some of his answers about timber payments. Specifically he was asked if he would rehire the road crew laid off so abruptly New Year’s Eve 2008. Larry answered that in his experience he could not see how the existing crew could adequately maintain the roads even with all the new equipment (no one there to run it) and felt it would be important to reevaluate the department.
Incumbent Nikki Whitty showed she is a seasoned campaigner and rattled off her vision for the county and asserted that all departments were adequately staffed (not sure if she was still in her vision section or self praise section) and perhaps perceiving Larry as her closest threat disagreed with him the road department needs to be looked at saying she thinks ‘they are doing a great job’. (Tell that to Dean Caudle’s family).
More than one candidate stated the County is ready for some change and all, even Pickering, presented themselves well.
Commissioners Main and Stufflebean were also in attendance
