LETTER TO THE EDITOR, Carolyn Huddleston, Liberal

I agree with Earl Watt that if the recall petition against Todd Stanton can be approved, that makes a farce of the whole recall process. If my commissioner believes the county is paying out a higher level of pension than is actually warranted, I want him to question that with the proper authorities. Stanton was doing his job, and not just ignoring the situation, which seems all too often to be the stance of our commissioners when something isn’t as it should be.

On the other hand, the petition against Steve Helm is very valid and justified, and intended to show that we the people aren’t going to tolerate it when commissioners don’t conduct county business in a lawful manner. Here the farce is what went on for five months. The budget was reworked to return to RNR in February and the position of the Assistant Administrator was eliminated. The budgeted amount for personnel costs in Administration dropped from $270,617 to $165,440. The Commission as a whole decided they didn’t have the money to add an assistant administrator this year and told Brock Theiner to return to the landfill, where he had been working previously. His pay then began to come out of Landfill funds, which would have been perfectly proper if Theiner had gone back to work at the landfill. However, he didn’t. He continued in the now eliminated position of assistant administrator, appearing twice a month at meetings in that capacity, and for a couple of months nobody seemed to be questioning why the guy was still there. In early May I discovered from the pay data that the landfill was footing the bill for Theiner’s pay and benefits, while he was obviously still working as the assistant administrator, and I brought this to the attention of a number of people, including Todd Stanton and Earl Watt. Earl began questioning this on the morning show, and Commissioner Stanton brought it up to the commission. Landfill funds are restricted and can’t be used to pay the bills of any other fund, while Administration is a cost of the General fund. So to taking 100 percent of Theiner’s pay and benefits from the landfill is a misuse of public funds. Chairman Helm should have known that as soon as he heard about it. However, he took no action to correct the situation and wouldn’t even second a motion by Commissioner Stanton to ask their attorney how this should be handled. It was only after the first version of a recall petition against Helm was filed that the county’s counsel was involved, and the pay for Theiner reassigned to the General fund. No, the money the landfill spent on Theiner’s pay and benefits from March through July, which totaled $68, 857, has not been repaid to them.

On the morning show Aug. 26, Earl didn’t point out that there are two statutes Chairman Helm violated. One says the commission has the responsibility to ensure that expenditures are done properly, and the other, that the money assigned to one fund cannot be used for expenses of another fund. Those statutes were violated. There was diversion of landfill funds for an unauthorized purpose. Chairman Helm failed to perform duties prescribed by law, namely to spend money as required by statute. This wasn’t a claim of simple misconduct in office. Although there no doubt was that, too.

I believe it’s a serious issue when commissioners disregard statutes that pertain to how money is supposed to be spent and are deaf to those trying to point out that they are doing so. Thus, I want to urge people to sign the recall petition against Steve Helm. If you don’t, you are saying that misuse of public funds is nothing we need to be concerned about.