Commissioner hopefuls present their platforms during Sunbury forum

Five Delaware County Com­mis­sioner can­di­dates met with vot­ers Thurs­day for a Meet the Can­di­dates Night in the Sun­bury Town Hall. From left are can­di­dates Al Myers, Joe Gar­rett, and incum­bent Tommy Thomp­son, COC Pres­i­dent and mod­er­a­tor Dave Mar­tin, and can­di­dates Gary Mer­rell and incum­bent Ken O’Brien. (For the Gazette | Lenny C. Lepola)

LENNY C. LEPOLA

For the Gazette

The Sunbury/Big Wal­nut Area Cham­ber of Com­merce, the Delaware County League of Women Vot­ers, the East­ern Delaware County Repub­li­can Club, and the Delaware County Demo­c­ra­tic Party hosted a standing-room-only “Meet the Can­di­dates Night” in Sun­bury Town Hall Thurs­day. Can­di­dates in con­tested races each were allowed three min­utes to speak and respond to questions.

All five Repub­li­cans vying for Delaware County Com­mis­sioner seats par­tic­i­pated. Chal­lengers Joe Gar­rett and Gary Mer­rell are seek­ing the com­mis­sioner seat held by incum­bent Tommy Thomp­son. Chal­lenger Al Myers is seek­ing the seat held by incum­bent Ken O’Brien.

Gar­rett, a Con­cord Town­ship trustee, described him­self as a busi­ness owner who is pas­sion­ate about cut­ting county spending.

“A lot of peo­ple are strug­gling,” Gar­rett said. “We need a gov­ern­ment that spends dol­lars like aver­age peo­ple do — not just when it’s time to do the annual bud­get, but look­ing for sav­ings every day.”

As the for­mer pub­lisher of The Delaware Gazette and The Sun­bury News, Gary Mer­rell said his busi­ness back­ground would be valu­able at the com­mis­sioner dais.

“I never ran for pub­lic office in my life,” said Mer­rell, who has a degree in mar­ket­ing with minors in finance and account­ing. “I’m a fis­cal con­ser­v­a­tive. My par­ents grew up in the depres­sion and they taught me that you could do more with less if you try.”

Com­mis­sioner Tommy Thomp­son, who’s retired from pub­lic edu­ca­tion, said he has tried to be dili­gently effi­cient with dol­lars while in office.

“We’ve spent money where we’ve needed to and have to, but we try not to spend money,” Thomp­son said. “Peo­ple com­plain about high taxes in Delaware County, but they don’t real­ize that 60 to 80 per­cent of county taxes go to school districts.”

Com­mis­sioner Ken O’Brien said dur­ing his term in office he has accom­plished the things he set out to do.

“We didn’t fin­ish a $52 mil­lion cour­t­house, and we did fin­ish the Hayes build­ing,” O’Brien said. “Peo­ple wanted the tor­nado sirens on the bal­lot; we put it on the bal­lot and peo­ple said no. We con­sol­i­dated 911 services.”

For­mer Delaware County Sher­iff Al Myers said he under­stands bud­get­ing and added that his entire fam­ily has been in the small busi­ness industry.

“Three things make Delaware County — com­mer­cial enter­prises, busi­ness enter­prises, and agri­cul­ture,” Myers said. “We have to bring in small and larger busi­ness ven­tures. I’m con­ser­v­a­tive about spend­ing tax­payer dol­lars wisely so you have growth, but I don’t believe we should freeze dol­lars. We can’t afford to not give raises to peo­ple who haven’t had a raise in four years.”

Myers also brought up an issue that got a response from the audi­ence — a three mem­ber county com­mis­sion with, in his words, a rep­u­ta­tion of two fight­ing against one.

“We need to take per­sonal ani­mos­ity out of the office,” Myers said. “County com­mis­sion­ers need to vote in the best inter­est of the peo­ple of Delaware County.”

Mer­rell said he believes a county com­mis­sion work­ing together is nec­es­sary, con­sid­er­ing the chal­lenges com­mis­sion­ers face on a daily basis.

“I think it can be done, if there’s a will­ing­ness to work together,” Mer­rell said. “We’ve got to work on it because it’s important.”

Thomp­son said he is also both­ered by the appar­ent divi­sive­ness on the county board of commissioners.

“The com­mis­sion­ers seem not always to be in charge,” Thomp­son said. “Com­mis­sioner Den­nis Sta­ple­ton has added a lot of sta­bil­ity to the board.”

O’Brien said it’s impor­tant in our democ­racy to be clear and rep­re­sent those who elected you; and that only two to three per­cent of the commissioner’s votes have not been unanimous.

“But it’s that two to three per­cent that makes the news­pa­pers,” O’Brien added. “I’ve always believed that it’s impor­tant for the com­mu­nity to have a good, fair, log­i­cal debate.”

Gar­rett said peo­ple are flawed; peo­ple always like to get their own way. But he also said an elec­torate should expect com­mis­sion­ers to disagree.

“If com­mis­sion­ers didn’t ever dis­agree we would only need one com­mis­sioner, but you have to show respect while you dis­agree,” Gar­rett said. “We teach our kids to respect oth­ers of dif­fer­ent opin­ions. As adults, we should do the same thing. Being a com­mis­sioner is about the com­mu­nity you rep­re­sent in Delaware County. You should act in such a way that you do not embar­rass the com­mu­nity you serve.”

Posted by Staff Reports on Feb 21 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.