It was disturbing to hear our county administrator Monday, April 1, on WTIP. The low point of the interview was when he absolved himself of all the decisions of the county board: “I’m not responsible for any of this.”
He basically told listeners that it was not his fault. That only the board is responsible for the questionable spending decisions made in the last four years.
After all, some of you passed the million-dollar salary increase in union contracts without reading them. Remember Chairwoman Storlie on January 23, 2018, when you questioned if you were being asked to approve the contracts before reading them? Jeff said he had the agreements in his hand if you wanted to see them, and you allowed the board to vote to approve them anyway.
In 2017, you bought into the idea that the budget was not balanced and the levy needed to be increased by 18.9 percent to bring everything in line. Now it appears Jeff needed those dollars to attempt to buy the loyalty of county workers.
You moved forward on the jail project without seeing all relevant financial data, viewing other jail projects for comparison, or even noticing that significant data was simply left out of the Wold study. You were ready to go ahead and bond for the project without financial justification based on Jeff’s advice, which later, during the WTIP interview he admitted, “I’m not going to be able to provide numbers that are going to satisfy people who are looking for numbers that say this makes sense.”
You have approved a Capital Improvement Plan Jeff now admits is nothing more than “bubble drawings.”
Yet, he is correct, it is you that voted to approve these ill-advised items. Was it because he did not provide you with all the information to make an informed decision, or because you did not question the advice he is giving and he recognizes this deficiency and uses it to his advantage?
Public confidence in you as a board and in Jeff’s performance is low and is on a downward trend as more and more factual data is revealed. You need to do the right thing now, and terminate Mr. Cadwell’s contract.
Perhaps you can regain public trust, but the window of opportunity is rapidly closing.
Bob Svaleson
Hovland
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