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Show PAGE 10 THE ZEPHYR/SPECIAL ELECTION ISSUE..FEBRUARY 1993 District #4 Bobbie Domenick v. Bill Hedden Zephyr: The county budget is heading toward $5 million. What in your experience qualifies you to handle those kinds of sums? Bobbie: I put together'20 budgets in 20 years I Worked, putting together county budgets. And they were balanced budgets. We always operated on a cash basis. They money we collected at the end of the year is the money we operated on the next year. And when I left there in 1986 we had the one year surplus. Bill: I’ve chaired the boards of a number of different nonprofit organizations that had budgets in the half million to $5-10 million range. While I don’t think that’s the equivalent of Bobbie’s experience, I am used to dealing with budgets and numbers in that ballpark. Zephyr: The financial performance of the county has been a major issue. In your opinion, has the county commission done a good or a poor job in financial management? Bill: I think they've probably done a poor job in a few pretty glaring areas. And that means I’m passing over areas where the nuts and bolts have been handled just fine. I think that when for example with the Book Cliffs Road you're handling a major money situation so badly that the people vote to overturn the form of government, that’s a pretty clear indication that you could be doing better. Also, having relations fall apart at the landfill over the issue of how to amortize payments fora dozer up there right at the point where the county’s getting ready to face new EPA landfill regulations is kind of a crazy thing that the county can’t afford to do. Bobbie: I think over the last two or three years they’ve been run downhill. The surplus is gone, they’re going to have to borrow $350,000 this year to operate in 1993 with, unless something unforeseen happens. So when you are overspending what money you have, you aren't doing too good of a job. Zephyr: What specifically would you cut or expand in the county budget? Bobbie: That would be a hard question to answer. I have looked at the budget, and there’s some of the budgets I don’t agree with, but until I sit down and look at them thoroughly, to see line by line how the money’s being spent, I can’t really judge. Zephyr: Any specific cuts or expansions? Bobbie: I don’t want to say right now, until I’ve looked into the budget on a line to line basis. Bill: I think I would like it a lot if the new county council took a different approach to budgeting, rather than just saying, lets add a little bit to this category, let’s subtract a little bit from that category. If we could get ahead of the process and say, where would we like to go, we might find that we had some drastically different budget priorities. And | think the example of creating a landfill special service district and use mineral lease monies, that’s not really adding or subtracting from last year’s categories, that’s kind of a new way of handling that whole issue. I would like to see a lot more of that go on. I'd like to go with Bobbie, and duck the idea of which category should have been $75 higher or lower last year. Zephyr: Are there any categories that should have been $50,000 higher or lower? Do either of you see the county doing anything grossly wrong? Bobbie: The courthouse addition, this is something I really want to look into first thing. How it’s set up, and how the money’s being spent. I see the news and I say, "they can’t do this,” or "they can’t do that." But unless you’re sitting in there and studying it and getting at the ground floor of it, I hate to say. But it looks to me like the equestrian center’s got an awfully big budget. That’s another I would like to look further into. Bill: We're spending an awfully lot of money right now from the transient room tax on promoting Grand County. We’re allowed by law to spend up to 30 percent of that money on bricks and mortar projects to address tourist impacts. I would strongly support the notion of using up to 30 percent of transient room tax to address the impacts of tourism, because it’s basically an explosive situation. The more people who come here, the more money we have in that fund to promote this place, to bring more tourists the next year. And sooner or later, no matter where you set your limit, you’re going to exceed it. There’s a chunk of money there that we could be using differently. Zephyr: That money now is being used to finance the new visitors center and a proposed golf course in Green River. Are these good uses for that money? Bill: I think the visitors center. I would have to find out a lot more about the golf course, find out if there is actually a justification for it. I’ve heard that one kicked around a lot, and I haven’t heard any convincing arguments either way. But that’s the kind of thing I’d like to see us continue to do with that money, not just spend it on ads to bring people here. Bobbie: I was confused about the visitors center. I watched Channel 6 news and they said the federal money was holding up the construction. And a couple of nights later they said, they’re going to go ahead with it, and they let the contract, and if the federal money don’t come through, we can use travel council money. I think this is kind of a shoddy way to do something. It was about $150,000 in federal money. | didn’t want to see the visitors center put where it was. I think we needed one, but not in the middle of town, where parking will be a problem. The golf course in Green River, if it would stimulate any Green River business, I would be for it. Sr] EQUIPMENT RENTAL Zephyr: Do you support the proposal by the Roads Special Service District to build the Book Cliffs Highway? Bobbie: No. Bill: No. Zephyr: If the district gets permission from the BLM, they have already gotten agreement from the Community Impact Board for a $3 million construction loan. What would you do if the board goes ahead with that? Bobbie: They’ve already signed the agreement? Zephyr: The CIB has approved the loan, pending federal approval. Bobbie: That’s what I was afraid of. The road district board, I don’t know how much power the council has over it. But if the council had any power over it to say, no we can’t go with that money, that’s what I would do. Bill: There are a lot of good things that the special service roads district could do for Grand County. So all of us are in a position of hemming and hawing a little bit when you ask us what we would do. But I’m getting to feel that the voters have told us real clearly what they want the Bobbie Domenick and Bill Hedden new council to do, to clean house on that thing, andI think that’s what the council needs to do. We need to replace all the people on that board and just start over again. Bobbie: Can we do that, Bill? Bill: 1 think it would be real hard for the state to get us that the will of the voters in Grand County means nothing, that we can’t do that. Bobbie: I’ve questioned some people about that aad they say until their term is up, you can’t replace them. Zephyr: Is it a different situation than the hospital board, where the commission went in and replaced it? Bobbie: Yeah, the commission just went in said, you're all gone. Bill: I’d like to have someone come in afterward and tell us that we can’t do it, rather than never do it. One of the big problems we have in the county right now is we've been getting so many of these CIB loans we have this incredible backlog of debt building up over this community, and one more...I’ve been saying for a long time that the right of way for the Book Cliffs Road looks like the camel’s nose to me. They want to go ahead and borrow $3 million out of our pockets. That’s crazy. We've got to stop it. Bobbie: We do get in this rut, "well, we can get a grant for this, a grant for that, but where do they stop and say, after this thing’s built, how do we take care of it? How do we get the money to take care of it? Bill: If they ever got a real grant instead of a loan it would be a different story. But all these things turn out to be loans. Zephyr: What should be done about the hospital? Bobbie: We're going to have to support it. They’re going to have to levy a tax, whether it’s through the general fund or the hospital special service district, one or the other. This is where I'd like to use the Book Cliffs road money. What is it, $170 thousand they generate with their tax money at the hospital? Well, there’s where some of it could go, instead of raising another tax from the people. We can’t be a big hospital. I would like to see us have heart monitors and mammogram equipment, stuff like that. And if you had the doctors handle pregnancies, and extended care, and emergency room service. I would like to see Book Cliff money go to finance that. 989 N. Main ¢ Moab Call anytime 259-6976 Pager 259-2838 industrial * commercial residential * lawn & garden "I hold it that a little rebellion, now & then, is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical." Thomas Jefferson |