Al Myers aims to ‘restore civility’ on county commissioner board

Myers

KATE LIEBERS

Staff Writer

For­mer Delaware County Sher­iff and small busi­ness owner Al Myers is run­ning against incum­bent county com­mis­sioner Ken O’Brien to “bring some civil­ity and pro­fes­sion­al­ism back into the office.”

He said that if elected, he would focus on devel­op­ing both small and large busi­nesses. Myers’ goal is to gen­er­ate sales tax and cre­ate jobs, so that the tax bur­den shifts away from residents.

“We need some­one to fill those chairs that have a busi­ness sense,” said Myers. “I have 29 years expe­ri­ence work­ing for the county and run­ning a multimillion-dollar bud­get for the county when I was sheriff.”

Myers said he would strive to attain a bal­ance between devel­op­ing the county while pre­serv­ing agri­cul­tural lands.

“We have a unique bal­ance between small busi­nesses, cor­po­rate busi­nesses and agri­cul­ture,” said Myers. “That needs to be con­sid­ered when we make our decisions.”

Rather than ini­ti­ate new projects, Myers said he is inter­ested in devel­op­ing and enforc­ing the projects cur­rently under­way, such as those at Sawmill Parkway.

He said that while bud­gets con­tinue to get tighter, local gov­ern­ment needs to max­i­mize its assets by imple­ment­ing technology.

Being in a posi­tion to expe­dit­ing eco­nomic devel­op­ment is fuel­ing part of Myers’ inter­est in the posi­tion. He described O’Brien’s vot­ing record as “anti-business,” and specif­i­cally crit­i­cized O’Brien’s influ­ence in delay­ing the com­mis­sion­ers’ vote on the Menards project on U.S. 23S.

At that Feb­ru­ary 2011 meet­ing, O’Brien was unsure whether vot­ing for a tax abate­ment would limit the com­mis­sion­ers from vot­ing on the Delaware County Regional Plan­ning Com­mis­sion, on which all three com­mis­sion­ers serve. Com­mis­sioner pres­i­dent Den­nis Sta­ple­ton con­se­quently opted to post­pone the vote so that a pros­e­cu­tor could review O’Brien’s concern.

Myers also opposed O’Brien’s sole dis­sent­ing vote when the board gave about 400 county employ­ees a 2 per­cent pay increase. Myers’ cited this as an exam­ple of O’Brien “not want­ing to spend anything.”

While O’Brien had sup­ported the raises, he dis­puted who should be eli­gi­ble. He sug­gested that the increase not apply to the employ­ees who were hired in at a pay rate greater than their predecessor.

“I just dis­agree with the man­ner in which he’s not pro­mot­ing devel­op­ment in Delaware County,” said Myers. “You have to spend money to develop Delaware County and keep good employees.”

Myers said that another way to max­i­mize local government’s assets is by work­ing closely with other elected offi­cials. He said O’Brien’s vot­ing record, in which O’Brien is often the sole dis­senter, reveals a lack of coop­er­a­tion with the board.

“My oppo­nent doesn’t seem to want to work with any­body, even the ones in the com­mis­sion­ers’ seats,” Myers said.

A vet­eran, vol­un­teer fire­fighter, small farm oper­a­tor and direc­tor of the Delaware County Agri­cul­tural Soci­ety, Myers said his expe­ri­ence “work­ing for and with the pub­lic” makes him more qual­i­fied for the position.

Dur­ing the cam­paign, Myers has been con­fronted with the charges filed against him while he was sher­iff. He pleaded guilty to two mis­de­meanors involv­ing vio­la­tion of ethics and a con­flict of inter­est. His record was later sealed.

“I think peo­ple of Delaware County will see it for what it is,” said Myers. “It was more of a polit­i­cal per­se­cu­tion than a crim­i­nal persecution.”

Myers said he was sought out by cit­i­zens and Delaware County employ­ees to run for the seat.

Posted by Kate Liebers on Feb 16 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.