Bloomington Regular Session

Good evening!

And welcome to our 2026 Lawrence County GOP County Council Forum. My name is Chase Cummings and I'm proud to serve as chairman of the Lawrence County Republican Party. I want to sincerely thank each of you for taking the time to be here tonight and for showing an active interest in our local government and community. This candidate forum is an important opportunity to hear directly from those seeking to represent you on the county council. We appreciate your participation and we encourage you to listen and stay involved as we approach the May 5th primary.

Thank you again for being here. At this time, my good friend, Jacob Leach, will lead us in a brief prayer.

Let's pray. Behold me, Father. Thank you for saying thank you for all the blessings that you've given us. Thank you for allowing us to gather here tonight, and thank you for your opportunity for us to live in this nation, to air our voice and everything in the local government. I pray that you're with all of us and these candidates tonight, and I pray that you will be done in this county. Hear my prayer? Amen.

Okay, so just real quick, I want to thank everybody for being out here tonight. We have a room full of people. So very thankful for everybody that's here. We just want to thank everybody that filed as well as not an easy process all the time, but very thankful for that. So if you guys would join a rise up and we'll join me in the play.

Thank you very much. Bye.

Candidates you now have 30 seconds to give an introduction of yourself and we'll just go in order of going down the ballot So we'll start with Joe Hayworth

Good evening. I'm Joe Hayworth. I would like to thank everyone in attendance today and also listening online Your engagement and support truly matters for more than 20 years I have served families at day and Carter mortuary and recently as co-owner and co-manager I've learned what it means to lead with compassion accountability and trust Well, I'm not the incumbent. I bring real world experience and a deep commitment to the community I believe effective leadership is not defined by tenure But by dedication and a genuine desire to serve and move Lawrence County forward towards a stronger future

with your support.

I would be honored to represent the people of this great county. Thank you.

Good evening. I'm Amy Redmond, a 40-year-old wife and mother of two. My husband Patrick and I are raising our two boys on the family farm in Williams. My day job is the director of the North Lawrence Career Center. You may know that as the vocational school. And that desire to keep youth ready for our local workforce drives me to do what I do. I want to make Lawrence County a place where everyone wants to live, work, and play. Thank you.

Hello, everybody. I'm Phil Inman, of course, and I have been married to my wife, Susan Hall Inman, for 45 years. We dated for like seven years. Been together 52. Soon to be another year.

Uh...

We have a daughter, her name is Blair Kimmel, and she is married to U.S. Army Major Travis Kimmel from Springville.

We also have a son, John Taylor Inman.

U.S. Army once again, Sergeant Major, and he is married to Marcy Robbins of Bedford.

I retired from Peabody Energy after 42 years of working in the mining industry.

And at the present time, I'm working for the Bedford Parks Department.

Uh...

I am Phil Inman, and I'm running for County Council, District 2. I appreciate your vote. Thank you.

Good evening. Brian Skillman, Lawrence County Council District 2. I was a first ever Lawrence County HR Director for four and a half years. So learned a lot of things in that time, working with every department, every department head. I'm currently a professional recruiter. I have 15 years of HR experience. Lifelong Lawrence County resident, lifelong Republican. My wife is a DCS Director here in Lawrence County. I have two young children. My grandfather was Bob Schar, Bob's market for 50 years. My aunt's Becky Skillman. So I think I'm as qualified as anybody to be on the council. So I appreciate your vote.

Hello, thanks everyone for coming out. My name is David Holmes. I'm a lifelong resident of District 3 in Lawrence County, live up in the Evoque area. Been married 25 years to my wife's crystal. I'm currently engineering maintenance supervisor up at Novo Nordis, formerly Cadillac. Before that I worked 13 years as the Lawrence County Highway Superintendent and before that I spent 25 years at Ford Vistia on plant until it shut down.

Um.

Worked with the budgets a lot at the superintendent, and I just would really, really appreciate your guys' vote, and most important, get out and vote. Thank you.

David said, whatever you do, don't trip.

I'd like to begin by thanking the committee for hosting this event, and the ladies for providing the refreshments, the ladies group, and the

people who are here showing their interest.

in the governance of Lawrence County.

My name is Jeff Litton.

um...

I retired from a 40-year career in banking.

U.S. Navy veteran, and my wife Bernie would be here, but she has taken our oldest great-grandson to basketball practice. Brian's a good coach.

So I hope she's not coaching.

Laughter

I would appreciate your vote in this election. I've been on the council for six years, and when I was caucused in to fill.

the unexpired term for Mayor Craig, I made a promise.

that I would would run again and I would appreciate your vote so I could fulfill that promise. Thank you.

I'm an ex-road- rock band roadie, so I understand. DON'T-

My name's Ray Todd Stevens, and I am a lifelong...

Computer lots of things person. I'm a ham radio operator. I'm a farm boy

not from this area, I got hired on at the strange Navy base over here, and then just stuck around after the contract ended. I am also the grandson of Ray Onslow Stevens, and the point for that is that he was the person who took care of me from pretty much the time I was, oh, about that size until

went off into kindergarten and that was one of my biggest times in my life was when I found out he wasn't going with me. And one of the things he used to say to me a lot was, don't complain unless you're willing to do something about it. And I've had some complaints so I'm here asking you to have me help you do something about it.

Hi, my name is Larry Arnold and I'm running for County Council District 4. That's not a surprise, is it? I want to say thanks to the Republican Central Committee for hosting this forum and to the ladies that are keeping us refreshed. I'm not a Lawrence County native. Close. I've lived here.

close to half my life, but I came to Lawrence County and had no intention of staying. I was going back to Texas where it was warm.

But I had two young sons, both of whom once retired Air Force and the other one's active duty over in Jordan right now on the front lines. And when I saw.

what the schools were and what Lawrence County had to offer. I thought, I don't want to go back down to Texas.

Even though it's nice weather, I don't want to go back down. There's too crowded, too much trouble.

I've been here 35 years, I've been married to my wife Karen for 32 years, did I get it right?

practice that one. It's been a privilege to serve on the Lawrence County Council since January 22nd when I was caucused in and I've learned a lot since then. My goal is simple. The same goal I had in everything I do that's to serve people.

And I think that's the job of an elected official is to be a servant. And my 14 years on the North Large School Board taught me a lot. And I think that's the job of an elected official is to be a servant.

And people said, why do you want to run for county council? Ask Justin. I'd rather be on the council than on the school board. And I've been deeply involved in the Boys and Girls Club for 12 years, serving on the board.

And it's been a valuable experience working with people. And as anybody knows, when you're dealing with people's kids.

you better look out so we have a good boys and girls club and I'm proud to serve it and I would consider it a privilege to continue serving on the county council. Thank you.

Good evening, I'm Brian Prince, and I was born, unlike Larry, I was born and raised in Lawrence County, but I moved to Florida. Good evening, I'm Brian Prince, and I was born and raised in Lawrence County, but I moved to Florida.

But I moved back because of my love of Lawrence County and my grandchildren.

And the reason I moved to Florida was for my wife to take care of her mother.

And it got to the point it didn't matter where she's at, I said we're going home.

But it is truly an honor to be a candidate for Lawrence County Council District 4.

Truly.

an honor, and I'm a member of Mount Pleasant Christian Church. I was a 1988 graduate of Bedford and New Florence High School, and

I've been married to my beautiful wife, Kelly, for 19 years. We have four sons, six grandchildren.

So I'm invested in Lawrence County.

because

I want Lawrence County to be a very prosperous place to stay because I want my grandchildren to enjoy Lawrence County like I did.

And don't get me wrong, there's a lot of other things I could be doing with my time. But I spent 15 years as a 4-H volunteer. I was over the rabbit club and everything. In my current position, I spent

27 years in water treatment. I currently manage three industrial wastewater plants. And...

I have dealt with budgets with my professional career and I feel I'm qualified, not that any other candidate isn't qualified, but we're going to leave it to the people of Lawrence County to decide who they like to serve and I would appreciate your support.

So I just want to check before we move on, is Chester Batman here?

No?

Okay.

So for this next round, we will go through and ask two questions. One question was given to the candidates in advance. Vice Chairwoman Connie Cook is over here and she has a bell she's been waiting to ring all day.

So, when we get to the 30-second mark of your two-minute response time, she will ring the bell and let you know that your 30 seconds is almost up.

The first question is with, and I'll put it up on the screen for everyone out here to see, and then they can look back to you if they need it. With the recent SB1 passage that greatly affects local governments, how do you envision being able to work within those constraints, yet still providing Lawrence County citizens with public services that keep the community safe and improve the quality of life for all residents?

When we talk about SB1, it does create pressure. It forces tough decisions and discussions that need to be made. I am looking forward to those challenges and working for a better tomorrow. The main priority is that public safety must come first. It is our responsibility to fully support our law enforcement, firefighters, and emergency responders. They deserve our support, no matter what.

With tighter budgets, that means we have to be smarter. That starts with full transparency and accountability, making sure every taxpayer's dollar is fully accounted for and being used where it's supposed to go. We need to make sure there is no waste. But this can't be done alone. That means it has to be a team effort. Communication between officials, municipalities, and local organizations is key. Everyone must work together as a team and results and goals will be met. But let's not forget about the big picture.

Infrastructure, economic development, and long-term quality of life don't hit the pause button just because we're in a tight budget. Smart investment needs to be made now to ensure a better future, better tomorrow. The challenges we face are there. With the right leadership, a true commitment to our community, and a willingness to

We can meet this moment head on.

Protect what matters most, strengthen the foundation, and keep Lawrence County moving forward.

I believe in the community, I believe in the people, and I believe we can build a stronger, safer and secure future.

Thank you.

The hardest part about answering this question is that we still don't fully understand the effects of Senate Enrolled Act I of 2025. It's still being unpacked and analyzed and changed in legislation. So I think our best approach is the same one that we should be taking whether we were undergoing tax reform or not. Lawrence County has to define the services that we're going to provide and then define what level of those services are acceptable. For example, if we say that we want X amount of trucks on the road when it snows, now we know we need the funds for this many trucks and drivers and materials and all of the items that support that.

But those are tough conversations, and they're tough decisions to make, that cannot be made in silos.

I don't have the best ideas, but don't tell my husband I said that.

Those best ideas might be a little bit of mine, and a little bit of his, and a little bit of hers. We've got to build a plan, analyze it, break it down, and then build it back up to get to the best one to provide what Lawrence County citizens deserve. Maybe that's the blessing of where we're at right now.

We need a plan to get us through this reform and for what's coming down the road, because it's really not about us that are in this room tonight. It's about who's gonna be here after us. Let's leave Lawrence County a little bit better than what we found it.

Thank you.

Well, let me trip over that, cool.

Okay, well, Amy had a pretty well spot on. First, let me say

SB 1.

It not only affects Lawrence County, but it's affecting all 92 counties of the state.

So.

and the cities and the municipalities as well.

We, the council, have been attending various meetings.

and trying to stay up to date on all of the legislative changes. That's been a rough road in itself. With the changes that will be occurring, not just for 26.

but over the next five years.

Some councilmen attended a meeting recently here at the Chamber of Commerce and it was hosted by Lawrence County Economic Growth Council.

Thank you, Dan.

for having that.

And the speaker was a professor from IU. His name was Justin Ross.

And one thing, he's stressed.

was the uncertainty of SB1.

the changes over the next five years.

At the present time.

They're estimating that we're gonna have to save right at $2 million. That's right now. It could change, maybe go up, maybe go down.

Um, if some of you remember last year, we had to cut 2.8 million.

We managed to do that. I think it was, I was told that was the first time we actually had a.

balanced budget in 23 years.

So a couple weeks after that, we had another.

Meeting.

Some of the councilmen and the commissioners attended an AIC meeting, a legislative conference in Indianapolis.

And the speaker there was a Purdue University professor.

Larry DeBoer.

He basically reiterated.

what Justin had said.

So it is imperative that we, the council, commissioners, and all elected officials...

Department heads.

be aware of the impact of these changes.

over the next five years.

There's going to be change after change after change, and we've got to stay on top of that.

We owe the hard work and...

taxpayers to provide essential services.

Police. Fire.

Ambulance and yes, highway.

Wasn't that long ago, we had 13 inches of snow.

who's out there trying to get those roads cleared to keep these other essential departments running.

The Highway Department.

So

In closing.

I thank the council, working together. It's not I.

It's we, the council, working together.

Thank you.

been doing a lot of reading about the SB1 the last couple of weeks. Obviously I'm not on the council now but my four and a half years there. Familiar with the budgets, each budget line, what can be cut, maybe what can't be cut. You have to look at everything, what's being outsourced. You have to have public safety obviously with the highway, the sheriff's department, those things have to be there but certain things will have to be looked at. It's going to be tough for every county. I don't have all the answers but I do have a lot of ideas and things that I've saw. I was part of a statewide HR group email thread every week so we talked in collaboration, bounced ideas off each other. We need to look at things like that, work with other counties, maybe look at getting more grants. Obviously I'm always a big proponent of economic development because I'm worried about my kids, my grandkids, all of your grandkids, what the future of Lawrence County is going to be so just taking a look at all of it, making hard decisions. Transparency is number one. Not in favor of raising any taxes for anybody. It's tough out there. Nobody wants to see that so just working together and seeing what the future holds but it can be done.

Senate Bill 1, there's a lot of moving parts to Senate Bill 1, and I'm not going to stand up here and tell you that I understand everything because I do not. I've read it, and you know how that stuff's written, it's very hard to understand. Eric Cook might help us out, but...

Um...

How do you envision being able to work within those constraints? You ain't got no choice but to work within those constraints. We have to work within constraints of our household budgets.

You have to, me personally, I'm going to take more of a business-like approach to that. And by saying that, I'm going to understand this is not a business, it's services. We don't provide business, but it's services, but efficiency.

You know, in manufacturing, what we call OEE, Overall Equipment Efficiency, and my brother Terry, he can certainly speak to that.

But you look at everything, and I mean everything, to become the most efficient, proficient that you can be.

And I know if I'm elected, there's a meeting in Indianapolis from the AIC on May 18th about budgets, and it's going to...

Focus on SB1.

And I plan on attending that, and I can tell you that I will do everything that I can.

for the taxpayers of this county.

and certainly a focus on public safety and quality of life of all our citizens.

But saying that, I'm not in favor of raising taxes.

But, you know, they say Senate Bill 1, big property tax relief bill, yeah, it is, it is, but you know as well as I do.

What can happen with that?

And we just have to look and

Stay focused on our budget, find the efficiencies, cut where we can if we have to.

and sometimes make hard decisions, but I promise you that I am one that is willing to make those hard decisions.

Thank you very much.

Don't trip.

Thank you.

Thanks for putting that up on the board, I guess I won't need my reminder.

The constraints of SB 1.

are going to be felt.

in a lot of different ways.

I believe that the approach to this should be based on three pillars.

diversification of revenue.

Operational efficiency.

and transparent prioritization.

We need to use new sources of revenue to replace those that we have lost.

State legislature has provided some.

avenues to those.

Operational efficiency.

We've got to become leaner.

and that's gonna be with some sacrifices.

We need to use

grants to a greater extent than we have already.

And we also have to

make our actions transparent to the taxpayers.

The safety first mandate, public safety, and critical infrastructure must remain non-negotiable.

Other quality of life projects, such as parks, secondary developments, may need to rely more heavily on public-private partnerships or volunteer engagement.

using the new Tax Transparency Portal.

as a tool to show citizens exactly where their dollars go will be essential.

If revenue increases.

It's needed to maintain and may be needed to maintain sheriff's patrol.

first responders, then that data must be presented clearly to the public.

Thank you very much.

Well, this is, in one way, a very good question. On another one, it's kind of almost a red herring because it's a constraint.

and R.

Government always has to deal with constraints. It's going to be a...

constraint, but it's a constraint.

and

We've been dealing with those all along.

and we're gonna have to deal with them in the future. And that future is gonna be dealing with the kids and grandkids.

And so.

I think a lot of it is gonna have to be finding efficiency, finding ways to fund things, and also.

Maybe finding ways to get things done.

without the government.

I know that when I was a kid in Illinois...

I would respond with my parents to fires.

and the firemen.

would load us up, a bunch of us junior high kids, up in pickup trucks.

and toss flares at us and drop us along the road and do the traffic directing. And then the fire chief, if this happened enough, the fire chief would then make a list of all the kids who had actually helped. And that was your parental excuse to skip school the next day.

Now, obviously, our systems have changed since then, and that's just not going to be permitted. But we have a lot of youth.

And

we need to find something to do with them, so that may be one of our things we have to do, but in the end we're just going to be having to deal with the constraints.

and do what the public would want us to do with that amount of money.

SB1 or not, we got a pile of money.

Day one.

a group of people to decide how to spend it and

That's what this is all about.

I have to back up just a second because my wife gave me the Karen look.

I have two sons that live here in Lawrence County and two grandsons here in Lawrence County. So just so you know, I spaced that. Sorry.

On the county council, we are one of seven. When I first got on the school board, I got on there with Perry Mullis. And Perry taught me a lot about being.

one of seven, and being able to work with each other and to concentrate on teamwork. And that's what the county is. It's a team. You know, the council has to work with the commissioners. We have to work with the department chairs. We all have to work together. One recent example of this was in our meeting Tuesday, excuse me, last Tuesday, Sheriff Day brought a proposal in to be able to hire more jailers and raise the pay and still save the county some money. And I think that's what it's going to take. It's going to take all of us looking at ways to work through Senate Bill 1.

And you know, I think the more we cooperate, the more we work together, the better off we'll be. I also attended the Association of Indiana Counties legislative conference in Indianapolis in February, and there is a lot of unknowns. But you know, the thing about it is we have so much money, we have so much we need spend our money on, and it's up to us as the council to spend it wisely. And I think we have to look at public safety, we have to look at

uh different uh avenues of things that are absolutely necessary and as we move forward we must remain flexible and responsible in planning. That means working together and doing what's best for the citizens of Lawrence County and I'm committed to do this. My focus is and always will be to serve the people of Lawrence County and that's what we are public servants.

Senate Bill 1.

is all mine.

fellow citizens, this running for office, explain.

you know, over the next...

five years, it's going to be $1.3 billion in tax credits.

But, unfortunately...

You know, city government, county government depends on that. And I remember.

when uh

The last property tax issue was about the time Sean O'Gurk is coming to office and things were tight.

and

Um, there were some

decisions made that wasn't very popular.

But the city survived.

I ended up retiring from there.

in 21.

And there's going to be some very tough decisions that are going to have to be made. We're going to have to look.

as

They've said every line item to see where we can cut. Some things you cannot cut, but this is a restraint.

And it's going to be there for the next several years. And we've got to look towards the future. And we've got to find collaborated ways.

to work through that.

You know, I would like to see county roundtables where the county council met with, you know, every other month with different

counties around us to brainstorm.

And that didn't cost us.

as much as hiring a consultant.

You know, we are the stewards of our candidate tax dollars.

And if we can get a solution, you know, that's why Good Lord made Excel and spreadsheets.

You get elected to office, you're supposed to be able to budget.

All right, you need to sit down.

If you're in.

Sometimes you have to donate your own time to serve other people, sit down and work as a collective.

unit.

to solve issues.

Well, I was a 4-H leader.

for 15 years, you know, and

They don't, sorry, thank you.

This will be the final question for the county council candidates. This question is a surprise, so the first time I read it will be the first time that they have heard it. I will also put this up on the screen as well. If budget constraints required Lawrence County to reduce spending, which areas or departments would you suggest reviewing first and what process would you recommend for?

evaluating potential adjustments.

I would like to thank whoever placed me in the first chair, that way I'm first with a surprise question, I'll go ahead and get it started for everybody, and also I am less likely to trip being there, so I do appreciate that, and I would like to thank you guys very much.

constraints. So that's kind of what we talked about earlier, even kind of goes hand in hand with the SB1 bill. It's communication. It is sitting down with the whole team. It's just not one person. Everybody is going to have to come up with solutions, work as a team, just to reiterate what I was saying before. I still truly believe law enforcement, firefighters, first responders, all that. They deserve, definitely need our full support. The rest of the budget, like I said, it's going to be a team effort and it's going to be a lot of hard and tough decisions, tough discussions, but I truly believe everybody here has Lawrence County in truly their best hearts and anybody up here, we will be able to make Lawrence County better today, definitely better tomorrow. Thank you.

Thank you.

Joe, I will publicly recognize your sacrifice on behalf of all of the rest of us. We appreciate that.

I think it's important to remember that in county government, all of our departments make up a piece of our wheel. We can't just have a sheriff's department. We can't just have an auditor's office. Everything has to work cohesively in order for us to move forward. I'm sure you guys have all been around a wheel. If one of those spokes is off a little bit, you hit a thump every time you come around.

I think our review has to come through conversations and conversations and conversations. At the state level.

in our area and at the local level. It's networking, it's figuring out what's coming down the pike, how are other counties addressing it, how are other local governments addressing it.

It's keeping the department heads involved.

It's making sure that everyone has a say in the decisions that are made.

Those people that do the job every day have the best view of what can be cut and what needs to stay.

It goes back to what I said earlier. It's not just one person's idea. This has to be a group effort.

That's the only way that we're going to make it through this reform.

Thank you.

Well, I'm going to go back to last year's budget.

Once again, we had to cut 2.8.

There's not one of us that did that.

It was all of us.

The commissioners had a hand in it.

the department heads.

and the other elected officials.

I know the sheriff has been mentioned.

He worked.

Very hard.

at cutting his budget. Now see Amy back there, she worked very hard at cutting her budget.

No one knows their budget better than they do.

They know where they can catch.

And so we listen to what they have to say.

And

It's a team effort, like I said, there's no why in this. It's all of us and we have to work together. It's a team effort, like I said, there's no why in this.

And that's the way we're gonna have to do that for the next five years.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Like I said before, I do have a lot of ideas for my time with the county. I'm not in favor of cutting jobs, but I was there. We did the first salary study back in 19 that had been done for 40 years. So I reviewed every job. We had new job descriptions. So I think it goes back to the efficiency that we talked about, looking at every position, what they do, how they do it. You look at maybe the benefits. The elected officials are getting benefits in this county, which most other counties don't get. I'm not saying to take them away, but maybe you look at all those things. You have to find other revenue sources going to each department. Obviously, public safety, there's different pots of money with the highway and those kind of things that you can't touch or maybe can't use as much. But it is a collaborative effort. But there's a lot of idea things that we can do to make it work. So thank you.

Oh, I missed a question.

Ahem.

Two-part question here. Which areas or departments would you suggest reviewing first? Any golfers out here? Golf 18 holes.

You take the sum.

A leech hole?

to get the total.

You gotta take the sum of each.

whole department to get the total doesn't doesn't matter which one you review first

because they all have to be reviewed.

process I would probably do is last year at the courthouse when they was going to do this, President Rick Butterfield put all the departments in a

bucket and had someone, which was me, draw them out, and that's the time slot you got to sit with the council to.

go over your budget. That's probably the process that I would suggest.

reviewing each department.

What process would you recommend for evaluating potential adjustments? I'll go back to the efficiency, overall equipment efficiency, overall department efficiency. We have to look at efficiencies. Cut where we can. Cut to...

Dirty word.

But, you know.

We all have to do it. We got to cut a little bit now because we're paying more for gas.

Um...

There's probably going to have to be some

Probably not potential adjustments, but...

positive adjustments. I mean, I think that's a given, and I think everybody here probably knows that. Most of the citizens probably don't.

It had to be 100% transparent, which I would.

I would very much be. I strive on that.

I would, um...

go to several meetings with AICs and the legislators and stuff like that, and other counties. Every county is facing the exact same thing. When I was at the highway department, we worked a lot with other counties, best practices for roads and bridges and stuff like that, and I would take the same approach as the council, work and get the best ideas from other councils, from other counties, and let them get the best idea from ours. Thanks very much.

And I do want to shout out to Aaron Harrell for broadcasting this on YouTube. Thanks, Aaron.

As I said a while ago, I've had the privilege to serve on the council for

Close to six years.

The other part of this is I'm also a department head.

So I know this problem.

from both sides.

We've got a good process and it has been successful.

demonstrate that because we did balance the budget last year.

as was said, after many years.

It's important to involve the department heads.

We've done that the last few years that we've...

Reduce the budget.

It's not easy.

It takes a lot of hours, and it's very painful.

And I think that only when you go through that do you realize how difficult a job that is.

We need to stick to it. This bill is gonna increase.

the pressure on cutting our budget.

But that's nothing new to this council.

We've struggled with this for years.

Wait a second.

come up to the mark many, many times.

And I'm confident that we can do that again.

Thank you very much.

Well, as has been pointed out, we already just discussed this a little bit on the previous question here.

but I'll elaborate a little bit here. Now, if I had like 10 or 15 minutes, I'd do a whole lot more points here, but I don't.

And so one of the things I've thought about.

is

when I've had some friends who were on the council, we used to drive by and we'd go, that's great land over there, but oh, it's contaminated, so it's been abandoned and it's not raising any tax money. Well, we don't have the funds to fix that, but there's federal grants for that and I think there's time we started looking at those federal grants and started bringing some of that abandoned land back into the tax base.

but also is the comment about silos here. Sometimes departments become silos. If you guys remember here, remember eons ago, Chicago's snow began, one of their solutions to snow plowing after that was putting snowflow frames on the front of their garbage trucks and using their garbage trucks and garbage truck drivers to clean the easier roads to have the experts doing the hard roads.

And we may need to look at some stuff like that of getting different departments to help different departments here.

And I'll tell you one other one that I would definitely be dealing with, our court system. I had the misfortune of having to be in court.

on a criminal case as a third party.

and being the general.

marching people through times, four times. In that time, screw ups in the cases.

and one of them, they're all about the same, but one time I remember actually starting counting, they officially heard 28 cases. Out of that, they actually did something with four. Now, court time, I bet they spend $1,000 an hour for a court time. You think about what we could do with that money.

Well as everybody said pretty much we have to look at all departments but it's not the council's job in my opinion to look at the departments. I think it's up to the departments to look at their own department and then let's sit down together and see what we can work out. I don't know enough about every department and I you know I don't think anybody does except for the department heads and so we have to count on them and again we have to work together. Public services must come first. We have to take care of the roads. We have to take care of the police. We have to take care of essential services and recently at our last meeting we entered into a contract with Baker Tilly to advise us on how to negotiate and navigate all of these things and we need to look at more economic development. That's the key to our future and on the school board one of my

Pet projects, I guess you'd call it one of my most interesting, or the thing I was most interested in, was our career center. That's our future.

is keeping our young people here.

and having them have good jobs.

You know, we have to have teamwork. We have to work together. This isn't easy. You know, I teach a Sunday school class and I say, you know, there's a word that goes way, way back.

back to the Old Testament, and that word is sacrifice, and it's almost become a dirty word.

sacrifice and

You know, let's face it, cuts aren't popular, but we have to do what we have to do to maintain fiscal responsibility.

Um.

My, uh...

on this one.

had to bring, sorry, but yeah, it's teamwork.

Nobody can solve these complex issues.

Um

The Senate bill isn't just over the next year or two, it's projected out.

over five years.

you to um

Um...

the departments. Yes.

the department heads.

know their departments best.

Council will have to work jointly with them and they will have to be cut, very difficult cuts but also we need to look at other.

revenue, you know, in the Senate bill.

The Senate has opened up.

gateways for us.

Nobody likes taxes.

Nobody like, I mean, taxes is a...

It is a.

Nobody just likes them, but it opens up a gateway to where we can adjust our other tax rates to help recoup some of this.

We may have to do that. I'm not in favor of the county laying anybody off because those.

People depend on that. That is.

essential they provide central services they

You take, they'll have to go somewhere else and find a job. Sorry.

30 more seconds. But anyway,

I wish I was a better public speaker. I have a lot of ideals. I think that I could help the council. And I agree that nobody can solve itself. It's got to be a unit working together.

like it was when I was on the Purdue Extension Board and the 4-H Council, you have to work together. And I like, you know, yes, the county went into a contract with Baker-Tilley. I would prefer, myself,

for them to

Worked with other counties and had meetings and brainstorm and say that.

I just want to thank all of the candidates that showed up tonight. It's one thing to put your name on the ballot and file to run, but it's a whole other thing to show up to a forum and get up here in front of a crowd of people and speak and answer questions. It's not easy. I don't think anyone likes it, and if they do, they're probably crazy. But I want to thank all of you all for coming out as well. We need more involved and informed voters every year. Get out and vote, honor before election day on May 5th.

And thanks again for being here.