Kent Connelly, Chairman of the Lincoln County Commission, joined the Weekday Wake-Up to share his thoughts on a petition to go from three to five commissioners.

(0:00) Weekday wake up on SVI radio and a chance to catch up with the Lincoln County Commission (0:04) and talk about the petition for five commissioners and chairman of the commission that’s Kent Conley (0:09) he’s with me right now. Well commissioner let’s uh let’s start with this we talked with the (0:13) Lincoln County GOP previously about this petition to go from three to five commissioners. I know (0:18) this isn’t a new idea something that’s been kicked around in the county for a handful of years so (0:23) what are your thoughts on five commissioners? Five commissioners for me goes way back to when (0:27) I ran the first time in 2004.

It was it was highly talked about and it’s been highly debated (0:32) and I’ll try to walk through some of the reasons it probably hasn’t went to five for a long time (0:36) but I’ll start off with the part in there when uh Mr. Oviatt stated in there if we went to five it (0:42) will save money. You cannot add people and save money this is the bottom line to it and the (0:47) proposal in there it says remove our staff uh chief of staff. Our chief of staff is not a new (0:52) job.

It was a job that we had when Jonathan Tigert was here and in the cutbacks during the (0:57) recession he was taken away and when I came back into office we basically we threw Jerry Hansen (1:03) was in here then he came to us first with the idea that we absolutely needed this to get our (1:08) planning department back to where it belonged and that’s exactly what because one of his key jobs (1:12) is not only what he does for HR and a couple other things I’ll mention it is to take care of (1:17) planning in our planning department right now there’s only five in the backlog where we had a (1:22) when I took office and so that was part of the direction but also his one of his key jobs is our (1:28) health insurance which is a huge load that never existed 10 years ago he saved us a million dollars (1:33) in our health cost that position maybe one of my a new commissioner or whatever will decide that (1:39) that position is not needed but either way even if you lost that position and added to you’re (1:43) adding one person and when you add a commissioner you add the mileage you add the health insurance (1:48) you had the entire package when sublet county went to it it was two hundred and fifty thousand (1:52) dollars added to their budget and right now in park county where they’re trying to go away from (1:57) county five county commissioners and there’s seven counties trying to do that they estimate (2:02) that cost to be five hundred thousand dollars they would save in those other counties by going back (2:07) to three so that’s one of the main caveats when you add people you add you add commissioners (2:13) they have commissioners come in with the responsibility of traveling in this county (2:17) and attending meetings the number of meetings that they’re the minimum they have to go to (2:22) to show up on a regular basis is 72 of our regular meetings and then their assignment (2:27) meetings take them up to 192 meetings a year that’s a lot of commitment that’s a lot of time (2:32) and a lot of travel back and forth in there and there’s a cost associated with that as you well (2:37) know in a county like we’re a special county there’s very few counties you have to travel (2:42) 160 miles to go across if you go to five county commissioners and just say five at large which is (2:48) it’s a two-part question that’s where lance had it right in there mr roviata excuse me you (2:54) you can form districts if you want there’s only one county that did that and wound up in court over (2:59) it and that was fremont and they don’t like the system at all because if you go to five and you (3:05) vote to do the districts and there’ll be a two-part question he was correct on that (3:08) the one question will ask you do you want to go to five and then the others do you want to district (3:12) them if you district them you’re only going to get to vote on the district that’s created (3:17) and the districts are created by the will of the county commissioners and how they do it (3:20) people are telling us you have to use the areas of concern and what am i geography excuse me (3:28) and in that geography you’re not going to like the like how it breaks up that’s all there is (3:33) to it i’ve been using as an example the lincoln county school district number two and in order (3:38) to get an area in the middle of this county you have to dip up between cokeville and go clear into (3:44) osmond fairview up in through there and how you would break up the the upper valley and lower (3:48) valley in there they’re broke up but you would only be voting for whim in one area you wouldn’t (3:54) be voting for a whole county the county would not vote for example if if you had it in place right (3:59) now and i was the commissioner from down here i would only have to worry about getting the votes (4:03) from down here in southern lincoln county in my district that do you want the people need to (4:08) think hard about these decisions and that breakup what it would look like what your community would (4:13) look up like with five districts in there on it and you have the ability to have an at large but (4:18) that at large these are complicated things i’ve been working for the last two weeks basically (4:23) trying to gather information about the subject in there on it and so as voters my my advice to you is (4:28) sit down in your own community and say okay do i only want to be able to vote for one commissioner (4:34) or do i want to have a voice in what goes on in lincoln county and that’s a key question i (4:39) think everyone needs to answer in this discussion is it better for me if you ask me personally i (4:45) would say i would be rather voting on people out in the county people do not like the present (4:49) systems for a couple reasons number one you can reach a point like you were a few years ago when (4:54) you had three county commissioners from upper valley and through there but that was what the (4:59) people voted on getting candidates the people should be deciding this and that’s where i’m at (5:05) i’ve dealt with it long enough i’m almost to the opinion right now that maybe it’s time to vote (5:09) five to see what you want because but i always have believed in the people that they will get (5:15) it right and by that same token who we put into office but having commissioners that care about (5:19) your whole county is very key to me when i came into office one of the key things i got involved (5:24) with was an alpine library in a thane incinerator that people didn’t like smoking and the libraries (5:31) that didn’t exist in in thane and stuff those are things that i’ve been part of if you’re if i’m only (5:36) in my district down through here are you going to be able to elect people that can do it and can you (5:41) get in certain areas can you get people to run if you’re an alpine how many people can get off work (5:47) enough to come to 192 meetings or if you live in thane 192 meetings that’s key and it’s very key (5:54) when when you talk to senators and representatives the first thing they’ll tell you is i can tell you (5:59) what senator dockstader tells me every other day i need my three county commissioners in cheyenne (6:04) to push this issue and he’s dead serious when he says that because that makes a big difference when (6:09) we are down there lobbying for money and you’re about to have a whole bunch of other districts (6:13) up in front of you there are going to be local issues and the money thing right now we’ve just (6:19) lost the coal mine basically it’s still going to be open but none of the coal goes in there so we’re (6:24) we’re losing money on on this side right now but the five county commissioners you’ve got to be (6:29) able to spend a lot of time at this job and please do go ask current county commissioners besides me (6:35) and the other county commissioners that have served how much time it takes so as the voters as (6:40) this comes before you in there on that thing in there remember it’s two-part question do you want (6:45) five but do you want districts districts are going to be very hard to manage and they’re going to (6:50) take a lot of going through by the present three county commissioners whatever you get because (6:56) you get to vote on that first you get to the two questions are asked first you ask the first (7:01) question that says five and the district and then once that says okay that’s in place then that’s (7:07) when it comes back to the county commissioners to create the districts so that in 2028 you would (7:12) fill the positions and so you’re not going to have any movement on this if it went through you wouldn’t (7:17) seat them and really until 2029 i’ll touch on growth and what it could mean and how you handle (7:24) districts lincoln county right now everybody says i mean i think mr oviatt said that the greatest (7:30) amount of population had grown up above we haven’t really grown that much we’re gaining people in here (7:35) in a lot of second homes and a lot of different things down here where i live i got a workhorse (7:39) of 600 people in coming in and out here they don’t have anywhere to live but they’re going to (7:43) try to build 1500 homes down here i don’t think there’s a town really i don’t know of many towns (7:48) in lincoln county right now that aren’t trying to annex in anticipation of this coming on so your (7:52) population is going to change which would mean if you establish the districts every 10 years just (7:58) like the legislature you’d have to readjust those districts to mirror the change in population (8:02) and you’re about to probably go through some growth is lincoln county changing yes is it (8:08) changing for the right direction with some industry and stuff it is and businesses are you know they’re (8:13) picking up our sales tax revenues down a little bit but the districting is it’s key in this (8:18) discussion school districts are different the school district for example if you live in your (8:23) district then that whole just the whole school district votes for you and so that’s the difference (8:29) the county commissioner’s answer to the wyoming state legislature we’re an arm of state government (8:33) so we have to follow their rules and by by good token because we handle the money commissioner (8:39) one thing i wanted to ask you was one of the reasons that some people might like the five (8:43) commission ideas they feel that it spreads out the vote and and you for for example um you can’t have (8:51) just two commissioners for example tag team on any one issue and it spreads things out and makes (8:56) things maybe more more uh complex that way with the vote maybe speak to that what’s your experience (9:01) being on a three-person commission like that my three-person commission meeting is it’s very (9:05) glaring to me because my entire time i’ve been on a three and i watch counties around me that have (9:09) five and what usually happens is when you have a large group of five in there you still wind up (9:16) with the most powerful voting group in the area of people that understand what they’re you know (9:20) knowing their job and knowing what it is do i care about the other part of this county i just talked (9:24) about what i help do all the time i field as many phone calls from the other part of the county (9:29) you want to have a mix of county commissioners with knowledge so they can bring different things (9:34) to the table and you also want to be able to work together and you lock us in districts and you’re (9:39) gonna you’re gonna guard your district that’s all there is to it i mean you people probably don’t (9:43) like me to say it that way but that’s what you do but that’s why school districts do what they do (9:48) and say the whole electorate has to vote you but under the rules we have the whole electorate (9:53) wouldn’t get you to do there a working commission the commissions that work the best the fives that (9:57) work together the best are in count in in counties that have a one large populated area i ran on the (10:04) premise last time that you needed a commissioner in southern lincoln county because you had three in (10:07) in in the afton area i understand what’s going on now in lower valley with no representation there (10:13) it is very glaring in the conversations i have with a lot of people but it’s in the hands of (10:18) the people to do that and so if you morph into one of these other things in there you could (10:23) wind up with still only one and when you have one and four and how they get represented in between (10:28) their the county commissions that are five i what i hear out of them all the time what they don’t (10:33) like i lose three to two all the time and and that’s what it is and i can lose two to one and (10:38) i remind people that very quickly or mel can or or terry but we we sat down in a room and we know (10:44) what it is take those into consideration as you listen to it i’m more than willing to take anybody’s (10:49) phone call and discuss it with you um and so is my two counterparts uh like i say every time we’ll (10:56) talk more about it on the ambulance because we had an option to actually impose a tax on you (11:00) in the rules the new rules of that by the three of us we don’t believe that’s fair we believe you (11:06) should be voting on these districts and how these things fall out thank you county commissioner kent (11:10) connelly it’s a weekday wake up sbi radio