Nick Gosnell: In studio with us this morning is a Reno County Commission candidate Garth Strand. He is running as a Democrat on your ballots on November 5th and so, Garth, first of all just give folks a little bit of your background. Now most folks probably know who you are you've been in the county a long long time but just for those that may be unfamiliar.
Garth Strand: Good morning Nick. I have been in the county a long time about 45 years. I am an original small-town Kansas farm boy grew up on the edge of the Flint Hills on a very traditional small Kansas farm and after I graduated from K-State I found myself here in Hutchinson a place that I had only come to the State Fair before that time. I worked for a local company it was bank called Bankers Investment and they decided well they were actually purchased and moved to California and at that time I discovered credit unions and that is the rest of my story. I spent a 37 year career at what is now Heartland Credit Union the last 28 years as president and during that time achieved some remarkable growth something around 19 million in assets to about 300 million from one location to nine. I had the opportunity to work with so many wonderful people volunteers employees and I had a great career. Okay so you talked about growth and how can the Reno County Board of Commissioners foster growth in Reno County what do you think? That's that's one of my primary reasons for running I think we need to have a different kind of leadership for Reno County one that's more positive more forward-looking and creates a culture of more of a culture of yes we can. In my former career I implemented a thing called a no no's policy and that was just to distract our urge to immediately say no to someone who was simply seeking service or help and encourage us to look at all the options before we say no and what we've experienced here in Reno County lately is a lot of no's significantly concerning wind energy and solar energy which clearly are prospering industries around many parts of our country and I feel that we're missing out I won't say that totally yes is the right answer but I really I don't think leadership should lead with no it sends the wrong message to those entertaining coming here it cuts them off from further consideration and it certainly discourages them from even exploring here because I knew especially a new business a new industry coming to town has a lot of homework to do just to get to the point of officially filing and asking and if they if they see no's before they even arrive at the border of Reno County we will likely not see them.
Nick Gosnell: Now this is tangential to the County Commission race but I've got to ask it you're on the Planning Commission now and at least from my seat watching the County Commission meetings and trying to cover them for Hutch Post it seems to me that the County Commissioners are trying to make policy sitting in the County Commission meeting instead of saying to the Planning Commission make this policy especially when it regards wind and solar. If you switch seats and you end up on the County Commission as opposed to on the Planning Commission how do you address that?
Garth Strand: Well I have to be careful because I'm I'm speaking for myself and not as a person sitting on the Planning and Zoning Commission so we'll proceed that way. Your assumption seems clear. We got marching orders to approve a ban for solar I've been on the planning and zoning now for three years so I missed out on on the whole wind process but solar I did I did see that coming I've got to live through it and our marching orders were to approve the ban and planning and zoning we had regulations we spent almost a year working on those we thought they were good and and protected areas and people in the county that need protection and we were ready to go forward and then we were asked to approve a man and I will say as a matter of public record I I was the one that made the motion to not approve the ban and so that was sent back to the County Commission and they have had some discussion and now referred it back for to the planning and zoning for further consideration which I took that as a good sign at the end of the day the County Commission holds the final gavel so we'll see what happens.
Nick Gosnell: But doesn't it seem, forgive the follow-up, but doesn't it seem that this all could happen when you've actually got a proposal sitting in front of you under the conditional use permit process rather than making a bunch of regulations? I mean you have to write regulations but making a ban or not ban decision before you even have a proposal?
Garth Strand: That is the premise of our entire planning and zoning strategy it's all about land use and I made this argument while we were trying to decide on the ban and I said look in our own regulations we give these examples of things that can be considered for land use, adult entertainment, landfills, right down the list of many undesirable things but it's kind of like the no no's policy there are places in Reno County we have a landfill we need a landfill so there there are ways to get to yes usually and just saying we are going to ban something starts out with no and eliminates further consideration.
Nick Gosnell: Garth, the county budgets are somewhat difficult because a lot of what the county does is, for want of a better way of putting it, a branch office of the state government the county treasurer's work is is controlled by statute the county appraiser's work is controlled by statute much of the county clerk's work is controlled by statute all of which the County Commission doesn't get to control. That all comes down from the legislature, so to what degree can a county commissioner any of them actually make a difference in the county's priorities when it comes to spending in the areas that are possible?
Garth Strand: Well, clearly we have to follow statute so there's a couple angles on that. Number one, we need to work closely with not only our local legislators, but the entire legislature. Counties are a significant form of local government and we just need to make sure that we are in Topeka watching what's going on and getting done what what we need to get done at the local level. I've always thought it very strange and hard to imagine being a county administrator when I have department heads that I don't hire and I don't really think that's the best approach going forward. Perhaps at some time in history that was fine. I think that needs to be considered for change it would be big, it would take many years to get over that hurdle, but I do think we should start to restart the conversation. I know it's it's been talked about before. The other thing that comes to mind in that same realm was townships, I think we need to take a close look at the function of townships what's expected how they're performing and is that the best use of funds for for our local government?
Nick Gosnell: Well, and another area that the county's been looking at he has been fire districts because fire districts are their own taxing entities as well there was at least a proposal to make the county basically one fire district for the purposes of consolidating some of the funds and some of the resources and so on now you'd still have the same number of fire trucks and firefighters or awfully close to that I suppose because you've got a huge county and you got to cover it all, but reducing down to one fire district was at least on the table at one point or another I guess, is that something that may be reasonable to do if you can figure out how to get this the the subtext taken care of kind of in the same vein that you just talked about townships?
Garth Strand: Yes it obviously seems reasonable to me, excepting the fact that it's a large task and there's a lot of people to convince and a major shift in county governments across the state. In my mind it is something that County Commission should be spending more time on instead of drilling down into day to day expenditures those are always important, but when you have a professional full-time administrator you have to trust that person, verify the work but spend your time I call it being up in the crow's nest, so to speak, so you can see what as far as you can see into the future what's coming at us and try to get a head start on on challenges and eliminate problems before they even get a chance to be problems.
Nick Gosnell: Garth Strand is running for County Commission, how can folks find out more about your campaign?
Garth Strand: I have a Facebook page. I did not set up a website this year. My phone number is public information and I would love to talk to anybody about issues. That's why I'm running is to represent us all, that was my history I represented a group of members that grew to about 20,000 and there are ways to find value for everyone in an organization or in a county. It's not easy but we all have to come to the table and listen with open minds, not have a predetermined outcome.
The audio interview is below.