Candidates answer questions at forum

The Hot Springs County Republican Party hosted a candidate forum on June 25 at the Annex building. The room was packed with standing room only. Jean Skelton moderated the questions and answers section for the invited Legislative candidates and Hot Springs County Commissioner candidates.

This week, we are featuring the first part of the four county commissioner candidate questions, answers and discussion. Next week’s IR will feature part 2. We will feature the Legislative candidates in the following issue.

Commissioner Phil Scheel is running for reelection with Bob Aguair, Mike Chimenti and Joe Martinez also running for the single available seat.

Skelton asked the four candidates four questions with a time-limited answer. There was also a lightning round of short answer questions. Then the candidates were given the opportunity to give their campaign speech. Also, at the end there were three questions directed at specificallyt to commissioner Phil Scheel.

Skelton first asked, what motivates you to run for as county commissioner?

Bob Aguair replied, “I’ve been very involved in the community. Many people in town know me. I’m pretty controversial with school board issues, fighting for the kids. And I have worked with the 4H group as the chairman of the shooting sports program for quite a few years. But I want to be more involved. I see issues in town. I see the population of our community. I think, Hot Springs County runs 29% seniors over 65. And I’m concerned about taxes. I’m concerned about spending. Some of the spending issues I see going on in the county, both on the county level, school level, federal level, state level, I’m not comfortable with. And I think we all need to take a stand. And that’s my way of taking the stand is running for the county commissioner to hold people accountable for spending and for financial issues. They have responsibility. They have accountability. I think that’s my biggest concern now. I want to make sure we can keep the taxes in this community at a level that the community can afford. So that’s my biggest concern. And growth is the other issue. I came from an area where we saw little towns grow too fast, and I saw what happens when the town grows too fast, how it affects the locals.And I think this community would really be affected if we’re not managing our growth logically.”

Mike Chimenti replied, “I served this community for over 50 years. I was a policeman for 43 years. Two terms as chiefs of police. I ran for mayor and was elected mayor and served one term as mayor. And what I see here is a lot of what Bob’s already discussed is the budgets and the taxes. And our senior population here. We’ve got to be careful for our senior population because the majority of Hot Springs County are seniors. We’ve got to be careful what we do with our taxes and how we spend our money. So I got to take a good, hard look at the budgets and work with all of our county entities on their budgets to see if we can’t trim those a little bit. Keep them from costing our taxpayers money. And my point is, is that this community has given to me for 50 years, and I just continue to want to continue to give back. So in that aspect, I want to make it clear that if I do get elected, I don’t intend to take any wages for compensation from the county at all. This community has served me, and I’m gonna serve it.”

Joe Martinez replied, “I’ve served in various capacities in this community as a school board member, fair board, in my church on that board as well. And I feel it’s important to continue to give back to the community to stay involved in the community. There’s things that I’ve seen over the years that I would like to try and bring positive influence to property rights. We all have property rights. And whether it’s from the federal government, local government doesn’t matter. Infringement on those rights, it’s not OK. We need to go through the right processes in order to make sure that those rights stay in place. I truly enjoyed living here in Thermopolis. We’ve been here for almost 20 years. This is the only town that my kids know. We decided then we wanted our kids to grow up in one community. And this is the community that we chose. This is a wonderful community. It gives back to the people through various charity events. I’ve never seen such support in any other community I’ve been in. This community supports itself a great deal. So anything that I can do to give back I will do.”

Phil Scheel replied, “If I get reelected, I’ll be serving my third term as county commissioner. I’m the only incumbent. a lot like my Mike, I’m a Wyoming guy. I’ve lived in Wyoming my entire life. Moved to Thermopolis a lot like Joe about 15 years ago. I don’t have an ax to grind. I don’t have an issue that drives me to be a county commissioner. This is the absolute best place I’ve ever lived. My daughter was born in the same hospital room my wife was born in at the county hospital. This is the best place. I sure enjoyed being a county commissioner. 99% of what I do as county commissioner is enjoyable. There’s 1% sometimes that’s not always fun, but that’s part of the job. I hope to have your vote get reelected and continue to serve Hot Springs County again.”

Skelton’s second question was: Often we hear that the county commissioners do not have a lot of power in the county. So what are the responsibilities of a county commissioner? And, of those responsibilities, which do you consider the most important?

Mike Chimenti: The responsibilities of the county commission are to listen to the people and listen to what ideas and concerns people have and do the best we can as county commissioners to fix those problems or make this a better community. But we can’t do it without the people if they don’t tell us what’s going on. And as a county commissioner, we have to keep open ears, open lines of communication so we can find out what’s going on from the people. Because if we just meet here, as three sitting county commissioners, we just discuss between ourselves and the people don’t find out about it and we don’t hear from the people, then the commissioners get done what they want done, but we don’t let people walk up. So to me, I think as a sitting county commissioner, I think that we need to  have open communication and we need to open lines of communication. 

Joe Martinez replied, “I believe that the power in any elected official is in their vote and that vote is reflective of the people that they’re serving. For the commissioners themselves, really of utmost importance is fiduciary responsibility, which is, money that comes from the funds that are generated. And they have to work diligently, closely with the other elected officials of the county in order to make sure that, one they can’t over spend. Two that it is spent responsibly. That they’re doing what they can to help this community grow.”

Phil Scheel replied, “I think the job of county commissioners is constantly not quite understood well. We are elected officials, same as the sheriff and the treasurer and the assessor. We’re not overlords or governors of the county, and all disputes are resolved at this level. That’s not the case. Each individual elected official is in charge of their respective office. However, the county commissioners do take care of a lot of things where there’s an appointed director. For example, we take care of all operations of the airport, Road & Bridge, courthouse, maintenance on the entire campus that include search and rescue building, the library. The museum building is owned by the county. The senior center is owned by the county. This building, the courthouse. We’re also in a partnership with the state to take care of public health. That’s on the other side of this annex room here. And we’re also in charge of emergency management. We hired the emergency management coordinator. We also are proud to run the Youth Alternatives program managed by Barb Rice, which is a diversion program for underage kids who’ve bumped with the law. That program works really, really well. We’re very proud to have it. Other places in the state emulate Hot Springs County Youth Alternatives. And the county planner is also one of those groups that works for the county. Unbelievably, the county does not get to set anybody’s taxes. That all happens at the state level. So when the legislators come up, you can chew on their butts for their taxes. We really just have to enforce what the state law says. Specifically in statute, city and county commissioners shall approve the mill levies as part of your property taxes funds, special districts like the fire district. The fire district is seen as a political subdivision. They’re almost on the exact same playing field as the entire county. It’s a special district that the people have decided to put into place. So we can’t tell them what to do any more than anyone else can. We can attend their meetings and jump up and down as a constituent of those. And I would recommend that if you’re unhappy with some special district stuff. I don’t think there’s any one part of being our commissioner that is the most important. Obviously, we talk about budgets. County does set with the help of the clerk, the assessor and the treasurer set the county budget. And that’s where we just make sure that everybody is using the money that we have to operate the county effectively.”

Bob Aguair replied, “I believe the financial responsibility, the fiduciary responsibilities are our number one concern. Various boards around the county will come to the county commissioners to get their budgets approved, get their spending approved. The county commissioners will be yea or nay, ask for adjustments, ask for whatever needs to be done. They do monitor what goes on in the county as far as spending. I think that’s the primary one. There are other issues going on. Land use is a big issue right now in our community, and that’s an issue. Private property rights are a big issue in our community right now. I think there are other issues other than just paying bills. But, if you had to do it in layman’s terms and it’s just a real throw it out there and just say, yeah, well, most of the time we pay bills, but then they’re all the other 1%. Like Phil said, those are things that are not so comfortable to work with and other things that the county commissioners do need to engage in. It takes responsibility. We need to be open to input from the community. I see a lot of meetings where we’re not allowed to get much input. I’d like to see that change. I’d like to see the community more involved with the county commissioners, and I would like to see the county commissioners more involved in the community both ways.”

The third question Skelton asked was: There were multiple property tax reduction bills that went through the legislature this past session. And currently there’s a property tax initiative for the people to vote on. What effect will these bills and the initiative have on the county?

Joe Martinez replied, “Financially, it could have a negative impact. Everything that’s currently funded they’re going to have to figure out how they can operate on potentially reduced budgets and what that’s going to look like. You definitely don’t want to have to go through a RIF or a reduction in force. Our county employees are part of our community, and they’re important. They help the county and the government get things done and there’s a lot of responsibilities that each of the departments in the county. So that’s probably one of the biggest downfalls in reduction of property taxes. Really with property taxes in Hot Springs County, I think if I remember correctly, I could be wrong roughly about, I think, 20 to 30%, of county funds from the property taxes. The rest of it is minerals. And so we’re a heavy mineral taxed county. We rely a lot on that. So exactly how much it might affect funding and various entities throughout the county, I don’t exactly know, but it will definitely impact budgetary issues in the county.”

Phil Scheel replied, “The property tax initiative, if it’s passed, would reduce property tax primarily. Property tax is the way that local entities are funded. When you talk about mills and how that all trickles down, sometimes those special districts receive up to three mills, the hospital district, the district fire district can receive up to three mills. The county operates on 12 mills. The school district is close to 24 to 28 mills. The reason the school is funded like that is because it’s written into the state constitution. When they built the state of Wyoming, they said education is important here. So we’re going to make that part of the constitution. I don’t have a problem with that. There’s been other folks that say, well, why does the school get so much? We should have some of that….I wouldn’t recommend that. If the property tax initiative passes, it will undoubtedly affect the county budget in a negative way. I don’t have the exact statistics. Joe was talking about how minerals pay a lot of tax here. A lot of that is severance tax that goes to the state. Part of that comes back. But Merit Energy is the largest property taxpayer in the county. They operate on a lot of land. … We have very few industries in Hot Springs County. We don’t have the can factory or the sugar beet plant like some of those neighboring towns do. The industry we have is oil and gas and some of those minerals, bentonite and such. It will affect us drastically as well as the schools and the special districts and anybody that receives any of those mill levies. I understand property tax was a super hot item. I hope we can talk to the legislators who did their absolute best. The four bills that the legislature passed this year all had a backfill, which meant the state was going to make the county whole for those dollars that they passed bills to reduce the taxes. The state was helping us out in this last session on the four bills that they did pass. The property tax initiative is a referendum that will be on the ballot. Everybody gets to choose …then that will just go into place with no state backing. So that will definitely affect us. The reason property tax is in everybody’s minds is because of the value of everyone’s land when up. And maybe, I’m naive.Maybe I’m just a young guy. But the reason my property tax went up is because my land is worth more. So when I choose to sell it, it’s worth more. So that’s the bright side. I’m not in favor of the property tax initiative.”

Bob Aguair replied, “I have a different number than my associates here. The residential property tax is a very small portion of the amount of money that actually comes into the county, but primarily 75% or more comes in from oil and gas, from industry. So the residential property tax is a very small portion. Will it have an effect in the county? Probably so. But what I would say is it would be minimal. There’s nothing wrong with telling a lot of these groups that they need to tighten the belt. You need to work more efficiently. You need to spend less money. If you don’t need to spend it, don’t spend it. The old days where you had a budget, you said, I’m going to spend it all, or else I won’t get that next year. So they just blow the money. Those days are over. We need to be tight. Residential property tax initiative is a good thing. We got 29% of the people in this county over 65. I would say most of them are probably on fixed income. This will help them tremendously. We’ll still get our roads plowed. We’ll still have our police department. We’ll still have the sheriff. We’ll have all the amenities. But yes they will have to pay more attention to how they spend their money, how they do business. We all need to do that nowadays. We all need to be smarter.”

Mike Chimenti replied, “I feel kind of the same way.  I think that I am for it because there’s a tax reduction. We’re going to have to tighten our belts. When I talk about budgets. That’s what I said, that’s what I mean. We’ve got to tighten our belts and that means everybody. And by tightening our belts, that tax reduction is going to help our senior citizens and our people who live on fixed income in our county. And that’s why I’m going to run for this office, because I want to help people in this community get along with what we have. So a reduction in that tax is going to help our community. We’re going to have to tighten our belts a little bit, to make it work. But I think we all have to do that. Times aren’t like they used to be. We don’t have all the minerals and oilfield stuff like when I first came here. This town was booming when I first came here. We don’t have that anymore. We got agriculture. We got some oilfield people. But we don’t have that boom that we had once before. So we’re going to have to tighten our belts to figure out where this much money comes from and how to spend it, and spend it wisely.”

Skelton then said, “The last question for this series of questions. Currently a hot topic in Hot Springs County is property rights. The Fifth amendment of our Constitution specifies that the government cannot seize private property for public use without providing fair compensation. Additionally, the 14th Amendment states that nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. How do you see the regulations around private property changing over the next few years in Hot Springs County?”

Phil Scheel replied, “In Hot Springs County we have adopted a land use plan and regulation. That is the governing document that we use for changing classifications of land from agriculture to commercial. Ultimately, it is a form of zoning. And as a red blooded, freedom loving Wyomingite, I don’t really love the idea of calling it zoning, as in, only this can be built here, only that can be built here. We have the land use plan, which is a very appropriate document that we have adopted in the late 70s that it’s been modified only once or twice, to my knowledge. I don’t think that private property rights in the future are going to get squished by any means. I believe what the Constitution says, both the United States Constitution and Wyoming’s Constitution. I took an oath to uphold when I became a county commissioner. We have a plan, and we use that plan to regulate use. There is obviously a situation that I think we’re probably all aware of. A land use change that wasn’t approved. And, the individuals who owned that land and operated that business, and have been called illegal continue outside of the plan because they didn’t think it was legal. So, they took it to the judge and the judge said, well, yes, that is a legal plan under Wyoming state statute and that the county has an opportunity to regulate that land. And their plan was legal. And, the folks that were upset with that decision decided to sue us and said that we were arbitrary and capricious. The judge went to do a bunch of work on that and came back and said, no, I uphold their decision that they made. They weren’t arbitrary and capricious. That’s an ongoing lawsuit, and that’s about the 1% I mentioned, my job as county commissioner has not been enjoyable. It’s  dealing with that one issue. I don’t think it’s a private property rights issue. I think it’s a following the rules issue. We have rules. And we’re trying to just uphold our rules.”

Bob Aguair replied, “I think that we need to go back to our Constitution. Part of our constitution is we have a right to own property. We have a right to try to support and feed our family. Well, we have a lot of ranchers here. If we came and told you couldn’t raise, you couldn’t grow hay anymore because we didn’t like it. We have a right as county commissioners. No we don’t. You have a right under the Constitution to try to have a business on your property, to try to earn a living, to support your family. And I think the laws have changed to the point where we’re infringing on that right now. And I think it’s going to get worse if we don’t step in and take a stand. We do have a right as individuals. We do have individual property rights.”

Mike Chimenti replied, “I think we have individual property rights that the constitution exactly claims. Government can’t take it away from you unless you go through the proper procedures. They can’t tell you what you can do with that property unless you go through the proper procedures.  And I think the county planning has some faults and it needs to be updated, and we need to go through that and figure out where those faults are and where the problems are …so that people understand it. So that we’re not confusing people by a bunch of legal gibberish, so that when we communicate with people on what they want to do with a property an explain to them that this is what the plan says, they understand that so that we’re not getting into the same situation that the county is in right now. Because I think that…I’m not really familiar with what’s going on there, but I think the fact that it could have been settled and that the commissioners and those folks come to the table and sit down and say, ‘what do we need to do and how do we need to do it?’ [applause] I think that could have been settled far beyond where we’re at now with that. Because those folks own property and they can make sure we have a plan on what they like to see done with some of the property. [applause]”

Joe Martinez replied, “The changes in property use for the next four years is really going to be determined by the commissioners that are in place and if you really want change, then you’re going to have to vote in that change. And you have to be willing to be open minded. Take a look at each individual situation. And yes, there are processes that people should go through… The whole reasoning for determining whether land is agricultural, commercial and residential is strictly for property tax purposes, because you’re taxed based on what you’re doing. So commercial property is going to be taxed more than ag property and residential property. That’s how the counties are going to, or in the towns itself, there’s restrictions in town. There’s certain areas that are residential and if you want to operate a business outside or out of your home in that residential areas, you have to go through the application process in order to get it approved, because that gives those close neighbors, and the benefit of being outside of town, that you don’t have that close of a  neighbor. Those close neighbors can say, I don’t approve of this and it’s essentially the same process. People have to have the opportunity to do the same whether or not they approve of the business. We’ve had Airbnb issues over the past few years where that’s kind of where this lawsuit kind of extends. It’s included the Airbnb process or businesses and restricting those. I mean, why should we be restricting business? We need to be promoting business growth in our community. Because that’s what’s going to help us continue to grow and thrive. I mean, otherwise, we’re going to continue to shrink and shrink. We’re losing population in Hot Springs County and it’s slow, but we’re losing it. We don’t have the businesses that we need…It’ll have a negative effect... Work with our citizens in order to try and do what’s best for our community and for the people involved in those businesses.”