EARL WATT

   • Leader & Times

Out of the three commissioners who were appointed by the Republican Party precinct men and women in January, two are seeking to keep those seats in a public election Nov. 3 — Clay Louderback and Jairo Vazquez. John Mettlen chose not to seek election after the January appointment.

Louderback and Vazquez each have a challenger, and tow other candidates are seeking to fill the upcoming vacancy that will be created by Mettlen not seeking election.

To better know why all the candidates are running, they were asked what was the driving force that made them decide to run during last week’s candidates’ forum provided by the Liberal Chamber of Commerce.

“I don’t have an agenda,” Dist. 2 Commissioner Louderback said.  “I’m just trying to work with the other commissioners to try to unify and bring forward a positive reflection of the community. I want to keep property taxes low. I am a conservative. But we have to address issues and improve our roads, our infrastructure. We have to address the employees. They need raises, and we need to take care of county buildings.”

His competitor, Kay Burtzloff said employee treatment was one of her motivations to run.

“The tipping point was how we are treating our employees,” Burtzloff said. “I’ve known many of them for years. They are struggling with finances. When you increase cost for health care but not wages, we are watching an exodus of employees. They can get better jobs at other places. It used to be the county was a good place to work. The pay wasn’t the best but benefits were good. We will continue to hemorrhage employees. And we have no strategic plan, no goals and no reasonable way to address goals.”

Current Dist. 3 Commissioner Vazquez said a college phrase was his guiding light in serving as a commissioner.

“In college I was involved in student ministries,” Vazquez said. “An acronym we used is FAT — Faithful, Available and Teachable. I took that approach and looked for an opportunity to help my community. The first was the planning board, and from there it grew into this current position. The  driving force is I see myself and my family here for a very long time. I just got married and want to raise a family in Liberal.”

Dist. 3 challenger Dr. Lizette Avalos-Morales said watching the controversies at the county led her to join the race.

“To be honest, seeing everything the county was going through — petitions, recalls going on in local government. I had never seen that before. I teach communications and leadership every day. I started teaching in 2016 as an adjunct professor at Fort Hays, and I do workshops for business owners here. If I was going to teach others I should step up and take action. I dedicated myself to my students and community. I do a lot to develop leadership skills in my students. I got back at midnight taking the students to KU, and it’s time I dedicate myself to local government.”

District 4 has to candidates, Fred Bloom and Jose Lara. Bloom said his family history was a motivating factor in his decision to run.

“Our family has been in this community for 120 years,” Bloom said. “We have a vested interest in this community. I want to help build on that. I’ve been on local,  state and regional boards. Maybe I have a little bit of knowledge that can help the community.”

Lara currently serves on the Liberal City Commission and has been mayor. He said watching the county shut out the community was a reason he decided to run.

“Transparency is one of the No. 1 reasons I am running,” Lara said. “ The last three years it has been compounding. When you have questions being asked and answers being, ‘Well I know, and we must do a 17 mill increase,’ that is an issue. The community didn’t know why. I watched all the budget meetings. Why you aren’t looking for community buy-in when you are going to hurt the community so badly? We see how well the city is doing, and they don’t need me there, but it’s the hospital. A city cannot thrive without a thriving hospital. The county oversees the hospital, and they have allowed the same board to remain.”

Given a chance to respond, Louderback said cuts to employee benefits were necessary.

“My opponent keeps claiming that we did cut health care but we had no choice,” Louderback said. “We went to RNR and had to cut $3 million out of the budget, and that cut $1 million.”

Lara responded that the cuts were really just a shift of the burden to the employees.

“That was a true statement, but the way it was done, every dollar that was saved was put on the backs of the employees,” Lara said. “Deductibles increased, premiums increased. The county didn’t save any money on the health care plan, they just put the burden on the employees for every dollar that was saved.”