Nick Gosnell: In studio with us this morning is John Whitesel. He is the current District 4 County Commissioner for the basically the city of Hutchinson is the area that District 4 covers and he is on your ballot as a Republican for the primary that is coming up on August the 6th. Good morning John.
John Whitesel: Good morning Nick.
Nick Gosnell: All right so talk about your experience as a member of the County Commission and why you want to stay on.
John Whitesel: Well I am running on my record. I have done everything that I've promised to do. All of my stances are out there publicly known and I have not shied away from that. We've had a lot of 4-1 votes this year on things that are just not a function of government or places we're wasting money and I led the charge to make sure that the county lowered the mill levy so that your taxes did not go up and I was the only one to vote to vote not to raise your taxes this year.
Nick Gosnell: And that has to do with valuation. I want to give you a chance to explain that for a second.
John Whitesel: Okay so the numbers that administrators like to throw out is hey we're not going to raise your taxes we're going to keep the mill levy neutral and that's just a complete lie. If the mill levy is neutral and your house value goes up your taxes are going to go up your house payment is going to go up you're going to pay more out of pocket. Revenue neutral is the county doesn't take in any more money so we keep the money we take in the same if your property value goes up chances are you're not going to pay any more taxes.
Nick Gosnell: All right so is that still going to be the main priority for you if you get back in is just is the budget stuff?
John Whitesel: Well I mean there's there's been a lot of other things as well so there's been a lot of like contract things or so one thing about me is I'm very detail oriented you know the commission meetings are anywhere between 130 and you know five six hundred pages and we get them on Thursday and we have to be ready by Wednesday and I read every single page I go through all the stuff and there's a lot of things that honestly the rest of the commission just doesn't look at because I mean there's a lot there but like for example this last one there was a company that wanted $30,000 from us to do a promotional video and they said oh this is going to be go out to 60 million people well I checked their Facebook and they had 1500 followers they had 393 I think followers on YouTube and I was like guys this is not a company that's going to get us that kind of exposure and so we ended up not doing it just because you know I did a little bit of legwork and came prepared to the meeting.
Nick Gosnell: Well and that's a, that's a specific issue and I'm going to be careful how I say that because Eagle Media did also give a proposal for something similar and when there's still negotiations going on there so I don't want to pretend that we don't have a skin in the game here.
John Whitesel: Well but I think I think all five of us said hey this would be something that a local company should do.
Nick Gosnell: But, regardless of whether it ends up being us or the chamber or whomever, the point that you're trying to make is that this, that this group from outside that has a really good voiceover actor is that is acting like they're bigger than than they appear to be.
John Whitesel: Yeah a hundred percent I mean there's no way they're getting those kind of numbers you know but I mean you never listen to the sales guy you always do your own research and I've done that with every single issue and there's been so many things where, you know planning and zoning is another thing. You know, they wanted to put a fence around a church I mean like who who wants to make a church look like a compound and so we were able to get that reversed but it's every single issue I look into and make sure that the people of my district and the people of Reno County are represented.
Nick Gosnell: All right I asked this of the other candidates and they've danced around the issue I have a feeling you won't. What is something the county should spend less money on?
John Whitesel So, things that are not a function of government and things where we're competing with the private sector so one thing is we give a lot of money to some very very good non-profits in the in the county but here's the thing, we steal every single money that we have. If you don't pay us your property taxes you don't pay us your sales tax if you don't pay us your franchise fees then you lose those things. You know you lose your house you lose your car so we steal every single money that we get but then we try and use it to help the people of the county but is it right for us to steal money and then give it to a non-profit who should raise their own money?
Nick Gosnell: Well, and the general framework of what you're trying to say if I understand you correctly is if that same dollar was back in your pocket not only would you be able to spend it the way you wanted to but if you chose to give it to this person then you get a tax break, correct? So, as opposed to having the tax taken you would get a tax break for the same dollar correct?
John Whitesel: That is right.
Nick Gosnell: Okay just wanted to be sure people understood what you were looking for. Now what about are there areas in the county governmental functions that maybe aren't as much spending on it as there should be?
John Whitesel: You know, I think the county is really lean and you know if a department wants money they're going to ask us for it I would say one thing is maybe the register of deeds but I think that's probably because she's wanting to do more than than she has the staff to do so I think she needs another half person to do what she wants to do but she and I had a talk and I was like well why are you doing this if you don't have the staff for it why take on this extra work and so I think that's another framework you know everybody wants to do the the greatest and the best and get the best stuff and do the best things but you know sometimes if the money isn't there that's not something you can do.
Nick Gosnell: All right and there are lots of county areas that are for want of a better way of putting it the branch office of the state it's not really I mean it's a county function but it's a county function in that it's the pass down from the legislature the legislature has framed has framed up all the laws and and it's just the job of the local folks to follow it. How does the county commission keep budgetary control over those particular areas where a lot of the functionality isn't something you guys got to decide?
John Whitesel: Well I mean you don't focus on that I mean you know if that's what you have to spend then that's what you have to spend and you cut where you can you make lean where you can and you basically you you want to represent the people as best you can you know one thing I like to say is you know Twitter lost 90 percent of its workforce and nothing changed. In fact it got better. I don't think that I mean I think the county has run very well I've actually been very impressed with a lot of the departments but you know I mean there are cuts that can be made and people won't notice.
Nick Gosnell: What do you see the role of the county administrator as as it relates to the county commission?
John Whitesel: He is our employee we we hire him to manage the day-to-day affairs to to field the department requests so basically we give him direction and then he carries out that direction and I will say regardless of who gives him the direction he's very flexible on not trying to set out his own agenda but do what the commission wants I really do feel that about him.
Nick Gosnell: All right. As for the county counselor have you seen any issues obviously you weren't on the commission before Patrick's time but Patrick Hoffman splits his time between two different counties Reno County and Barton County the previous county counselor was Reno County's counselor alone have you seen any issues in terms of getting things accomplished?
John Whitesel: No, I mean he's very prompt anytime I have a question and he researches it and I've been very very pleased and this is one of those things you know where hey we made a cut and nobody knows the difference.
Nick Gosnell: well and and that was that's that's where I was going with this is are there other departments that you say to yourself well this department does this and this department does that but that's the same thing one person should be doing all of that?
John Whitesel: Well I think there's some departments that are really busy during certain times of the year and I'm like well why don't when they're not so busy why don't we have some of them go help out some of the other departments that are busy at other times of the year I think that would be a great efficiency to have you know there are there are some departments that do things that compete directly with the private sector so, RCAT for example you know they they compete with Dillons they compete with Walmart they compete with local taxi service uber lyft these are things that bring money into the community and instead we're we're doing basically on-call ride sharing to get our rides up and it's taking money out of these people's pockets so I mean of course government's always going to be cheaper because we take your money to do it but I don't think it's right for for us to compete directly with the private sector.
Nick Gosnell: All right and I know that you've had real you talked about you alluded to it but I want to get more directly to it you've had just real issues with their sub boards underneath the county commission that that basically there are appointments that happen to those sub boards whether planning is the one that everybody knows about but there's lots of them you've wanted folks to need to come to talk to you before they get appointed to those boards. Why is that?
John Whitesel: Well I think it's very important because yes at the end of the day we make the final decision but a lot of the work happens at these different boards and commissions and things that that report directly to us and if we don't have people that share values then we're not going to get the results we want which is why you know there's so many things that go back to planning and zoning you know all I said was not not necessarily me but the commission you know hey if we're going to appoint somebody we ought to talk to them first and ask them some questions and make sure they share our values.
Nick Gosnell: Right, and you have been consistent in that that if they didn't come talk to you first you voted against the appointment not because you don't like any of these people that's not the point.
John Whitesel: No no no that's I mean I just don't know who they are you know and I think they ought to come talk to the commission the same way the medical advisor did you know when we when we did that we we talked to all the people but I mean it takes a lot of time to do that and there's a lot of applicants but I think there's some very good applicants that we pass up because we take staff's advice and rather than doing our own research and talking to the people ourselves.
Nick Gosnell: All right and is there anything else that you say the county commission maybe ought to dig a little deeper into into these things just before before it comes to the meeting anything specific I've missed?
John Whitesel: So the agendas are set by the chair and the administrator said no I don't think I don't think there's anything that I would say that we need to dig into deeper before I mean it'd be nice to do research but I mean you know that's why we're there you know when the items are on the then we do we do the research and I don't think there's ever been anything that we've asked to be on the agenda that hasn't gotten on there.
Nick Gosnell: One other thing that I've seen happen quite a bit and some of it's just the function of the way a board works but there's a piece of the agenda called the consent agenda that always happens at the top of the meeting and those are generally speaking thought to be things that it's for all five of you agree on and it didn't say you just move them on that hasn't been the case all the time there's been quite quite often that things have gotten moved off of the consent agenda and then you guys talk about them later on in the meeting what are some examples of things that you say you know that it was on the consent agenda but I think we really did need to talk about it?
John Whitesel: Oh gosh there was something this last meeting I don't remember what it was.
Nick Gosnell: It was it was the canvassing time was the one that got pulled.
John Whitesel: Oh yeah yeah yeah so I mean it was just little things like that you know they said hey this is this is what we recommend and I was like well we're having a meeting on Wednesday and we've got four people that don't necessarily work inside of Hutchinson so you know why not do it before the meeting and so we ended up moving it to the meeting dates with a 4-1 vote just just little things like that but sometimes they are bigger sometimes they are matters of importance that we really need to discuss I don't think it's anything malicious so any one of us can ask for something to be pulled off of the consent agenda and so once once we made that change then I don't think there's really been any issue with that you know they the chair chair thinks hey these aren't going to be controversial than myself or Bogner or you know and one of the other commissioners be like hey we want to talk about this more.
Nick Gosnell: Yeah and actually let me be clear you've done it often but I think everybody's done it at least once at least since you've been serving that I've that I've seen so it's not like it's not something special that they all do it on different things whatever they think is important right
John Whitesel: Yeah and I mean you know if you're if you're saying hey I don't think this will come to be controversial you know but then somebody else has a different take on it then you know or I mean it's not even always controversial sometimes it's just like you know hey this needs to be discussed more before because a lot of times I'll vote for it but I just want clarification or you know I want to ask some questions.