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Show PAGE 8 THE ZEPHYR/SPECIAL ELECTION ISSUE..FEBRUARY 1993 District #3 Mike Holyoak v. Paul Menard Zephyr: Fiscal responsibility in government is a concern shared by citizens at all levels of government. What personal experience do you have...what can you point to in your personal lives, that would convince voters that you have the skills to responsibly manage their tax dollars? Menard: That's it; my personal life. We all have to learn how to balance their checkbook, use credit cards if you have to use them wisely, and not get buried in debt, and go bankrupt. Local government should be able to do that with the same ease. We don’t have the option that the federal government has of turning on the printing presses and making more money whenever we feel the need and going into trillion dollar debts. That’s basically it; just common sense and watching every dollar. I think we need a little more accountability in local government. Budgets I see from the districts and the county itself are a little ambiguous. It’s hard to interpret what’s going on. Holyoak: I think fiscal responsibility of money is very important for every candidate. The reason I think I could do that is I’ve been a business owner, I know what it takes to make a business run, I know what it takes to balance the budget of a business, and I look at the county the same way. One of my main goals as a county councilman is to invest in the county and to not only make sure we can balance the budget now, that we can get some income coming back in to the ~county by other means than property taxes being raised. One of the things that people brought up as I talked to them was that their taxes have been raised. And they have. I will agree with them; we need another source of income coming in to the county to offset those property taxes. Zephyr: What would that be? Holyoak: One investment that has already happened is the equestrian center. There’s a lot of good things going at the equestrian center to get business into town to stimulate growth. That's an investment that’s already happening. I talked to one individual who's already moved his business to town because of the equestrian center. Because of the indoor arena, he can have his horses in the arena all winter long. I know a lot of people don’t like to hear this, but the Book Cliffs Road is another good example of investing in the community. Zephyr: The county faces a budget deficit this year and there are needs to cut the budget in the future. Specifically, where would you cut them? Holyoak: That’s something we're going to have to take a look at as a county council. Things that I think could be cut are the, and I hate to do this, but you have to look at it as a business, is you've got to cut the things that aren’t benefiting the county as far as getting some revenues back in. Now everybody needs some special programs, everybody needs things, but you’ve got to have the money first before you can put a lot of money back in to it. I think we need to figure out a way to get the dump back into fiscal shape. I know the city has taken over the responsibility right now, but I think it should be a joint venture. In 1986, when it was being financed by both the county and the city, it was done pretty good. Zephyr: But right now the city is running the dump so that’s really not a county expenditure to be cut. What are programs within county government that you could cut? Holyoak: I'd really have to look into it, because I really can’t tell you right now what I would cut. Some things might seem like a good idea now, but then I could get in there and my mind might change. Menard: Basically, I feel the same way. I find it impossible to finger a particular area where money could be cut. Again, going back to the accountability. When we can start doing a budget that the ordinary person can read and understand, perhaps we can see where money can be saved, if there is any. As Mike pointed out, then we'll have to get the input from expertise in the community in advisory committees. Somebody on the new council is going to have to take the ball and look at these issues. Zephyr: There have been some controversial issues like the I , the Hastings Fr road, the equestrian center; how would you have voted on them? Menard: I can’t look back with hindsight and tell you, but looking forward to the seven person council, instead of circumventing the voters, I have a data base of the voters in District 3, and with volunteers, call people and see how they want to do it. The equestrian center...we have it; now we have to make it work for us. The voters did not get a say on that. The courthouse expansion, we were going to have that, come hell or high water. The people did get to vote on that, so I can’t feel too sorry for the people in that situation. Holyoak: One thing Paul said, the people didn’t get to vote on the equestrian center, but they did get to have input in public meetings like 5-year planning. I can remember 5 or 6 years ago when we had these county planning meetings to see what direction we'd like to go. Moab was in a recession, there wasn’t much going on, everything was leaning toward tourism. Most business people thought it would be a good thing. This project has been going on for years and years trying to get it going. The impression was that people wanted it back then. Maybe they did change their mind but we've got it—let’s use it, and it’s a good building. I mean it could be an asset to the community. Zephyr: But let me try to pin both of you down on an least one issue. On the courthouse construction, on the first vote the issue was defeated. Did you favor courthouse construction of that magnitude at that time? Menard: No, I didn’t. Holyoak: I did because of the fact that every time I went down to the courthouse and looked at the state that it was in—I mean the roof was leaking in the council room. We were in a situation where the jail was in such shape that the state and federal were making us upgrade it. I mean, we had to do something with the jail. Zephyr: Right, but did you have to expand it at that magnitude or was there a lesser option? Holyoak: Let’s put it this way. To do it right now, and to do it right, is going to be cheaper than looking at doing another job in the future. Yes, I agree with what they did. One thing that they’re doing is--there’s been a lot of talk about it running over cost and $600,000 cut out of the budget. The job is over cost. But it’s only over cost one tenth of one percent. In a job of that magnitude, it’s hardly nothing. They did cut $600,000 off of the cost of the courthouse by having it made up in other ways. For instance with the remodeling of the jail, drug seizure money was put into some of that so that costs could be taken down; so the money’s still there, but it came from other sources. I think that was fiscally very good responsibility on the commissioners. I really do. Menard: I was not in favor of the present construction going on there. I felt that for a lot less money, the renovation could have sufficed quite well, from some of the plans that I saw, and saved the county, the taxpayers, a lot of money. As you pointed out when you asked this question trying to pin this down, we voted the first time against it and the second time it passed by a narrow margin. It makes you wonder if we should go for the best two out of three. It was going to go through one way or the other; the commission was bound and determined to get it to go through at a time when we didn’t have the kind of funds to expend, quite honestly, to the extent that we have now. It was one of those things that the way things were gone about on it— for instance, the CIB money, the moneys that were used for the loan on that, supposedly the first payment wasn’t going to be due until 1994. All of a sudden at the budget hearing this year we find out that, "Oh, gee, we found out that first payment had to be made this year.” There's a big chunk of money all of a sudden that we have to pay back on that loan. And I don’t know how we get involved with something like that without reading the fine print and knowing what our obligations are. Zephyr: Would either of you have preferred that there be a performance bond on this project? Apparently there’s no performance bond at all. Menard: Absolutely. As a matter of fact, I haven’t looked at it that close, but as I read Title 17 in the code, it specifies that kind of construction, county buildings, courthouses, jails and so forth require a performance bond. Holyoak: Yes, I think that it should have had a performance bond on it. I’m not dissatisfied with what's going on right now; I think the job is being done well. I think coming in as close to budget as it is, I think it’s going along good. You know, I hate to spend that much money on a courthouse, too. I'd be the first to admit that. But like I said, it’s either now or a few years later when it’s going to cost a lot more. One thing you did say about the Hastings Road. The Hastings Road I feel was a necessity. The Hastings Road will come out of class B road moneys which we've had a surplus of through the years. Paul Menard and Mike Holyoak Zephyr: I talked to Dave Warner who is head of the road department here, and the way he explained it to me, there was a plan for a road that was going to cost about $800,000. Then the commissioners, along with the engineering firm Creamer & Noble, came up with the idea of making a much better road for something like $3 million, and Creamer & Noble thought that they could find the funding for it. But it did increase the county portion of it and it also increased Creamer & Noble’s percentage of the engineering fees, which I think is now $126,000. Menard: Yes. | listened to the people at the budget hearing from Green River who were down there to testify for the road, in favor of the high class paved road going back to that takeout point on the Green River. But it obviously needs work, and it sounded like the original plan to me would have been a really good road that also had tagged on to it a regular budget for maintenance that would have been very adequate without spending $3 million, without getting into the Creamer & Noble issue as far as our involvement in every thing that goes on there. Zephyr: Let’s jump into the Book Cliffs road. You’ve both made yourselves clear in public, but you also went to a Road Board meeting Saturday and I don’t know if that changed your minds. Just for the record, where do you stand? Holyoak: For the record, I don’t want to spend any of the county money on the road, the taxpayer’s money. The mineral lease money coming back, that comes through the Road Board, comes from the oil companies and through the federal process anyway. I’ve had talks with Jimmy and I know what's going on with the road across there. One of the biggest things that I would like to see happen is I would like to see that right of way go. Now that right of way is going to cost about an additional $20,000 left to do the paperwork. I want to see that happen. The reason I do is because it’s an investment for the county. There’s rich mineral deposits up there, oil and gas, tar sands, oil shale, those are income that the county could receive if there’s an interest from the oil companies. Now, it’s an investment. I’m not going to say that it’s going to happen overnight, but it could happen. They could say, oh yeah, you've already done those inroads. One of biggest problems with oil companies nowadays is the fact that regulations and things and paperwork are such that sometimes it’s not worth going in and drilling for oil here. If we could give them a little bit of an inroad with the right of way, it might spark some interest and bring back some real big revenues to the county, to offset a lot of property taxes that people are very unhappy about. Menard: I did go to the Road Board meeting on Saturday and Mr. Walker put on a good presentation. Had I had no knowledge of what's transpired on it since 1989, I probably would have been sold on continuing with it as far as getting the right of way. But I’ve talked to an awful lot of people too, in the district that I’m running from, and just general street talk, that want it stopped totally. Not another dollar spent on anything down there. Yes, it is mineral lease money. However, I’ve got to quote this, and I don’t know how this could ever have been interpreted any other way, but it has been for a long time now. "To the department of Transportation" and that’s in regard to mineral lease moneys, "to be distributed by the Department of Transportation to special service districts established by the counties for the purpose of constructing, maintaining and repairing roads or other single purpose special districts established by the county." And that seems clear to me that the county can establish other special service districts and those funds can be used for capitol outlays for hospitals, other roads in the counties that need repairs or other construction done on them. That road to me is a road from nowhere to nowhere. When the price of oil reaches a point where it’s economically feasible for oil companies and mineral exploration companies to go in there, they'll be in there like flies on manure. Zephyr: With you, Mike, you’re for the road and you're for the right of way for right now. Holyoak: For the right of way. z Zephyr: How much more money would you be willing to spend in the road district before you felt like you were wasting it? In other words, how much money would you be willing to spend before you'd start seeing a return on your investment? Holyoak: The $20,000 to get the right of way; one thing that I look at, is it’s going to benefit the |