Nick Gosnell: In studio with us this morning is Melony Ball. She is running as a Republican for the Reno County Commission for the seat currently held by Commissioner Ron Hirst. He is running for re-election. Also, Ken Nisly is running in that race. They will both join us on Thursday, but Melanie was able to come in and join us on Wednesday. Our other segment this morning, of course, is phone forum, so we wanted to talk to Melanie first about the County Commission race. Good morning, Melanie. How are you?
Melony Ball: Good morning. I'm doing well. Thank you for having me.
Nick Gosnell: Oh, you bet. So, first of all, what is the experience that you have that makes you want to serve in this way?
Ball: I think I know how to talk to people. I think just getting to know people and understanding what they want and being a good listener are all the things, first and foremost, that will help serve the people, because if you can't talk to them and know what they want, you don't know how to move forward from there.
Gosnell: All right. So, what is your top priority should you be elected to the County Commission?
Ball: My top priorities are doing my very best to decrease our property taxes so that we can encourage more people to come in. I would like to encourage small businesses being able to start up and being able to thrive here.
Gosnell: So, when you think about the way the county spends money now, what do you think that maybe the county should spend less money on that they currently do?
Ball: Well, I am familiar with the fact that they were allotted money to help with child care and beautification, and I'm not really, I don't really believe that that is the county's responsibility to pay child care. I believe that duty is on the parent and the parent alone to figure that out. I understand in other ways that other larger businesses were given money, and I feel like if it's a good thriving business, they shouldn't need help from the county, and I do believe that counties should be more focused on infrastructure and things like that.
Gosnell: Okay, so when you talk about infrastructure, what's specific that you say, you know, we could probably get more bang for our buck doing this?
Ball: Well, I think roads to start off with. I don't, I've been driving around quite a bit lately, and I think our roads need attention, especially out in the county. I live off one particular road, and I can tell you that the potholes at the end of it before getting on the highway will totally eat your car.
Gosnell: Okay, is that a dirt road, or is that a paved road?
Ball: That's actually a paved road. Okay.
Gosnell: But there are both. Yeah, and that's where it, sometimes it's difficult because the dirt roads, the individual townships sometimes maintain. The paved roads, our county public works a lot of time, unless it's a state highway, and so that's where these township elections, that they're also on your ballot, by the way, in August, are important, too, in addition to county commissions, so try to find out more about candidates in that race as well, if you can. So what do you see the role of, Reno County has a professional administrator, what do you see that person's role as being? What should they be doing with their time?
Ball: I have not looked into the roles of every single person and what they do, so I can't specifically speak to that.
Gosnell: Okay, and so I guess my question then is, the county commission, let's call it back prior to a county administrator, and forgive me, there's going to be people yelling at their radios because I haven't been in town long enough to have been here before that was. It was somewhere on the order of 15 or 20 years ago that they switched from the county commissioners doing the day-to-day and having a budget person that helped with that side of it, to having a county administrator who does the day-to-day, and the county commission really makes more budgetary decisions, and I don't remember the exact year, and like I said, there are gonna be people shouting at their radio going, Nick, it was in whatever year it was, but making that change leaves in the county commissioners lap really chiefly the budget process. We talked about it a little bit more, but when you sit down and you look at a budget, whether it's for your home or for the county or for whatever it might be, how do you make decisions about what is important now, and what needs to be saved for, and what maybe you say, you know what, we just don't really need to do that? What's your thought process like, maybe to get inside it a little bit?
Ball: I'm pretty passionate about budgets, actually. My thought process on that is I think you look at everything and you pick out your wants versus the needs, and I think you stick with focusing on the needs first, and you prioritize those, and if you can't meet all the needs or you can meet all the needs and you just want to do some wants, then I think those need to be prioritized as well, and to find out when you're talking about the county in a group of people, you need to find out which ones are going to best serve and to have the most impact at the time.
Gosnell: All right, and when you're thinking about those wants, do you want to save over years for those when I'm talking about from a government perspective? Do you want to save over a period for that stuff, or do you want to bond to pay for long-term projects? Because today's dollars, especially in these days of inflation, are cheaper than tomorrow's. Any thoughts on that, generally?
Ball: Well, overall, I believe that the borrower is the slave to the lender. So, yes, I do believe in saving for things, especially if they're wants and not needs. I believe, again, it comes back to prioritizing and finding out what the best move is for the overall people and economy.
Gosnell: Commissioner Hirst and Ken Nisly are both running as well for the seat, and they will be on on Thursday. So, we will await their comments and then have all three interviews that'll get posted at hutchpost.com at the same time so that everybody can find those and listen to them and or read transcripts of them prior to advanced voting. Advanced voting is going on at the Reno County Annex during regular business hours, and it'll be going on until August 5th at noon. If you're not able to get there by then, you'll vote at your regular polling place on Tuesday, August 6th from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., and Melanie is running in the Republican primary. There is not a Democratic primary for this seat. So, Melanie, there have been meetings earlier this week in Arlington and Pretty Prairie regarding zoning in the unzoned parts of the county. Now, I'm going to try to frame this back up based on what I heard from County Administrator Randy Partington the last time I had him in here to talk. Basically, outside of the towns, the western half, roughly, of Reno County is not zoned. Have you been hearing from people about that as you have talked as part of the campaign?
Ball: Absolutely. Yeah, I've actually been going to as many doors as I possibly can. First and foremost, I wanted to... I think it was a great opportunity for me to be able to get out there and have something to talk about with my future constituents. So, it was a great lead-in for me to be able to invite them to a zoning meeting that was not well-publicized. Most people hadn't even heard about it. I am not for zoning, and that seems to be the consensus of what I feel the people out in the western half of the county want as well. Well, most of the people...
Gosnell: We have an employee here that lives in an unzoned portion of the county. He says, well, that's the reason my wife and I moved out to that part of the county is because we want to be able to do what we want to do with our land. And for those that are not near larger communities, there's a lot of that that's the case. Not to mention, as Administrator Partington said to me, agricultural land is already unzoned by statute. So, if it's farmland, it's not going to be zoned anyway.
Ball: But it's not just farmers out there. I mean, that is a large portion of it. But there are so many... you think about all the Amish, all the Mennonite out there. So many of them have cabinet shops, they have welding shops, they have all these different businesses, salons in their garages and things like that. That is their livelihood. That is how they make their living. And they can't do it in town because the taxes are extremely high, and they can't afford a places to do that. So, I think this is a huge benefit as a way for them to make a living.
Gosnell: All right. So, the other piece of those meetings was brief questions on solar generally. The Planning Commission is going to have their big writing of the regulations meeting on Monday the 29th. So, what are your general thoughts on solar across the county and where it maybe would be good and maybe not?
Ball: Well, I certainly don't wish for large scale utility to come in. And I don't think anybody wants that. I do believe that smaller scale solar could happen all over this city. If there's... we've got so many empty rooftops, they can be putting them anywhere and everywhere. I do believe another commissioner had mentioned once before that you could put awnings over the parking lot of Walmart and just fill it with solar there. I think there's so many other ways to approach solar than large, taking up large portions of land.
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