Wednesday, October 15, 2014

Re-Elect

BILL PYSSON

District One Boone County Board

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Bill’s initiatives over the last two years have improved your county government. These are a few of Bill’s accomplishments:

  • · ·Suggested and succeeded in  having all appointed posts and jobs openings posted on county website
  • · · Insured that the required disclosures of employee salaries are available to the public; by name not merely job description.
  • · · Demanded the County Board Chairman posts all proposed appointments in advance. Based upon the requirement of the board’s advice and consent, Bill votes on no appointment unless they are posted in advanced on the website and the application letters of all applicants are made public. Unfortunately the chairman only sometimes complies with this request.
  • · · Questioned why the county has not completed a physical inventory of property in over seven years. In 2014 such an inventory was finally completed and a perpetual inventory system is being devised.  County ordinances required such inventories yet the county failed to comply with the requirement for years.
  • · · Written evaluation of employees supervised by the County Administrator will now occur once per year. Previously formal evaluations were not required and did not occur.
  • · · Discovered that Freedom of Information (FOIA) Requests were sometimes completed incorrectly. Personnel completing requests had not completed the two hour on-line training. Personnel are now properly trained and hopefully all FOIA‘s now comply with statute.
  • · · For the first time ever, farming of the 68 acres of cropland owned by the county went out to bid.  The high bid was approved by the county board in September 2014. Despite this year’s fall in commodity prices, the bid is $30 per acre higher ($280 vs. $250) than last year’s price which was privately negotiated.  Bill adamantly requested open bidding in 2013 and now it finally happened.
  • · · The county code posted on the website was years out of date. The only means of knowing the actual code requirements was to contact county administration. Based upon Bill’s questioning --changes to the code will now be updated quarterly. 

It is the duty of the county board to provide general supervision of the Animal Services, Planning Enforcement, Building Department and the County Administrator’s office.  Bill criticized the county for not having written procedures for each of these activities.   Bill suggested written logs of zoning complaints, car usage, office calls and office contacts; unfortunately these suggestions have not been accepted.  Hopefully the accountability benefits of such rudimentary recordkeeping will eventually be accepted.

Bill’s two District One opponents are opposed to Wind Farms. Bill voted against the ordinance change because the proposed 2000 feet set back would effectively prohibited commercial wind turbines in the county. Wind turbines can be effectively regulated by the special use provision of the county zoning code. This position was recommended by the professional staff of the County Zoning Department.

--THERE IS MUCH MORE TO DO--

Re-Elect BILL PYSSON

District One Boone County Board

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