Two challengers win county seats
November 8, 2012 at 6:00 pm in Alexandria Echo Press
Two challengers defeated incumbents in Douglas County commissioner races Tuesday.
In District 2, Jim Stratton edged Norm Salto by a margin of 2,109 to 1,867, and in District 4, Charlie Meyer prevailed over Paul C. Anderson, 2,157 to 1,697.
The incumbents in the three other commissioner districts were re-elected. Continue Reading
Why anyone voted for Bales or Johnson baffles me. They spent a dollar to save a dime on the various building projects…lets see now, in search of a solution to the aging jail and law enforcement center (LEC) they came up with this scenario. Instead of buying some land and building an LEC, jail, and court together (Taj Mahal price was 50 million). They tore down a perfectly acceptable public works and built a new one (about 8 million). They built a jail at the old public works facility (about 15 million). They now needed a courts holding area for inmates to be housed while waiting for court (2 million). Multiple daily trasports of inmates to court ($$$???). They decided to not proceed with the joint building with Alex PD and Douglas County sharing space and let the city build alone (5.1 million). Then they remodeled an old building downtown for the Sheriff’s Office (a guess at about 6-8 million, maybe more). So our law enforcement, jail, and courts are now in four separate buildings, a disservice to the public and we have spent roughly 40 million dollars. Remember the 50 million dollar figure originally quoted to the county board was for a top of the line, huge facility. They were also quoted other less expensive options more suited to the needs but chose to ignore them. Not to mention the hundreds of thousands of dollars that Bales and Johnson wasted by studying the downtown jail/LEC over and over again, even though they were advised against it. The Echo Press endorsed them saying the the building blunders were done and water under the bridge. But I say what about the next project? What else are they gonna screw up? How about Bales and the Co Rd 42 project? Did she not decide on her own to send a letter out to residents in the name of the entire county board? Or maybe that was for the sewer project, I can’t remember off the top of my head…But what I do remember are the uneducated decisions they made. It was funny to read all of the letters in support of Bales. They all basically said the same thing. Bales is available. Bales listens to us. Bales attends our functions. Important as those things may be her poor decision making skills far outweigh her schmoozing skills.
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