By Traci Chapman
Published on July 24, 2008

Five candidates will square off Tuesday as voters decide who will serve as District 2 County Commissioner.

The five — David Anderson, Richard Engle, Scott Gibson, Monty Keely and Theresa Ramsey — are competing for the chance to succeed Commissioner Don Young, who announced in May he would not seek re-election. The new Commissioner will take office Jan. 2.

While it is possible one of the five Republicans could emerge victorious Tuesday, Election Board secretary Dorothy Riley said in June such an occurrence would be “extremely unusual” because that candidate would need to garner 51 percent of the vote to do it.

“I don’t recall seeing something like that happen, especially when you have such a large field of candidates,” she said. “We just usually don’t see people do that in a field of five.”

A runoff election if needed would be held Aug. 26.

The five contenders for the job spoke about their views this week on a variety of issues, from safety and roads to the future of the county jail and working with cities within the district to “better serve” residents.

Road repair
and maintenance

All five candidates said one of the top concerns of residents are road repairs and the state of roads across the district. County staff said in early July, current District 2 County Commissioner Don Young received 66 complaint calls from residents in the last six months.

Anderson is a “lifelong Mustang resident” and owner of Dave Anderson Construction, which he has operated since 1981. He said the company primarily performs infrastructure construction for communities and developments, particularly working on sewer and water projects for a variety of entities.

Assessing the roads would be his top priority, Anderson said, and he would base his “to do” list on safety issues and the “number of citizens affected” by particular roads.

“One of the first things I would need to do is evaluate all of the roads to see what we have to work with,” he said.

Richard Engle is the president of Bellwest America, a directory publishing company. Before starting the company in 2000, he was publisher of Mid-Del and Harrah News. Now a Mustang resident, he served two terms as a Bethany City Councilman.

Engle said an “untapped resource” that could assist county officials with road and bridge repairs is federal grant money.

“We need to make full and best use of transportation grant programs,” he said. “If we don’t go for them, they’ll go to some mass transit program somewhere else. Those could really benefit the county.”

Engle said there is a particular stretch of road that needs immediate attention — Sara Road running north from state Highway 152 to “at least 15th” street.

“Because of the growth and development of that area, we need to fix that road. There are serious safety concerns,” he said. “As development continues — and since Mustang has developed a retail hub at Sara Road and state Highway 152 — we need to focus on that area.”

Gibson has lived in Mustang since 1988 and has served on the City Council for nearly 10 years, he said. Before that, the Hoidale salesman — who said he would scale back his full-time position to handling just one major customer — served on Mustang Planning Commission for about nine years.

Gibson said he would “just start fresh” with the roads, looking at each individually and listening to residents about their concerns.

“We need to base things on population count and how those roads are used,” he said. “I don’t plan to go in with any preconceptions.”

Keely, a Mustang contractor, was District 2 Commissioner from 1997 to 2001 and served as a City Councilman for two terms.

Keely said District 2’s roads need “immediate attention before a bad situation gets worse,” and he would work with other officials to stop the disintegration of roads that are being broken down by overweight trucks.

“Airport Road (in El Reno) is compromised now because of the improper base that was laid on it — we need to get on top of that right away because it will only get progressively worse,” he said.

Ramsey has served as a deputy clerk for County Commissioners for 22 years. In that time, she said she has fielded many of the calls coming in to Commissioners, from requests for help to complaints.

Ramsey said she would have to assess all of District 2’s roads before determining a priority list, but “I do think bridges and roads that our school buses travel should be one of the top priorities.”

District 2 foreman

District 2 has been functioning without a foreman since Larry Orr’s death in January, with Young taking on the role. All five candidates said the right foreman is necessary for the Commissioner to be able to fulfill all of his duties.

Anderson said his experience in construction gives him an advantage during the interim time between taking office and finding a foreman.

“I don’t want to make a mistake with this position — it’s too important. I could address this uniquely with my construction experience so I wouldn’t be forced to make a rush decision about someone,” he said. “I do think the district needs a foreman because the Commissioner can’t function fulfilling that role with all of the other responsibilities.”

Gibson said filling the position was “one of the top three” of his priorities.
“If I even make it to the runoff, people can start sending me their resumes,” he said.

Engle said filling the position was a “very high priority” because the district could not be served “completely” by a commissioner tackling both his own job and the foreman’s duties.

“The premise that you can be both foreman and Commissioner is wrong,” he said. “Most of the work of the Commissioner must be governing the county — you can’t do that if you’re overseeing a road crew every day.”

Ramsey said hiring a foreman would be one of her top priorities.

“All the other districts have a foreman. If for some reason the Commissioner isn’t around to make a decision, then the foreman would be able to make the decision,” she said. “I would promote an existing employee to the position.”

Roads Scholar Program

Oklahoma State University’s Local Technical Assistance Program conducts a nine-course “roads scholar” series, which has trained hundreds of county officials and employees in road construction and maintenance, director Douglas Wright said.
District 1 Commissioner Phil Carson and his full-time employees have
all graduated from the program, and District 3 Commissioner Grant Hedrick’s crew are road scholars. Hedrick has attended “many” of the classes under the program, but he has not yet completed the class.

Young said in June the LTAP classes are “irrelevant,” and neither Young nor any of his staff have attended the program during his tenure as Commissioner. The candidates running for the District 2 seat had a different view of the LTAP program.

Anderson said the program is a “very valuable tool,” something he said all Commissioners and their staff should attend.

“I would become a roads scholar as quickly as possible,” he said. I am very familiar with some of the aspects of the program in my continuing education as a contractor, and I think the crossover knowledge would be a big benefit. It’s a great program.”

Engle said the program benefits district staff from “the top” down to the road crew.
“It is a very valuable program because it teaches the optimal way of doing things,” he said. “While some of our rural roads might not need that level of sophistication in road preparation, it’s always better to have a better foundation than needed.”

Gibson said he has passed “roughly half” of the program on his own, and he plans to finish it “and then some.”

“I’d not only finish it, I think I’d take some of these classes two or three times, and I’d want all of the employees to take it,” he said. “It’s a huge benefit, and the class is free. The only investment you have is the travel and the time, and to make sure the roads are done right the first time, it certainly is worth it.”

Keely completed the roads scholar program when he served as Commissioner, and the District 2 employees employed with the county who are roads scholars undertook the training during his tenure.

“We have $600 to $700 million frittered away across the state by Commissioners because they wouldn’t take this training and have laid roads with insufficient base stabilization and drainage systems. We have $1.5 million just these last few months in this county,” he said.

Ramsey said the program is a very good one.

“I will most definitely become a roads scholar,” Ramsey said.

County jail

After a bond issue for a proposed $24.8 million county jail was rejected by voters, county officials said they must “go back to square one” to find an option to repair the existing facility and ease overcrowding issues. As a committee appointed by the current Commissioners is studying the issue, candidates said they have spoken to residents during the campaign about the problem.

Anderson, Engle and Gibson all said they are considering the option of remodeling and repairing the current facility to house “high security prisoners” and building a smaller, less expensive dormitory-type jail on the adjacent land for the majority of inmates.

“I would like to see the county start with something — to go from a 70 something bed facility to a 260-plus bed facility is a big step. I just don’t think the county voters are that confident in those numbers. There’s been a lot of talk about building something that could be expanded and try to stay away from an increase in taxes,” Anderson said. “If it costs $250,000 to fix the jail, let’s fix the jail because this new jail is not going to happen overnight.”

“We certainly need to upgrade and expand our county jail,” Engle said. “We need something that is cost efficient and which isn’t going to raise taxes, as the voters are obviously not willing to do that.”

“I think we need to also look at using more anklets and other devices to get inmates out earning money — they should be producing taxes not consuming them,” Gibson said.
Keely questioned not only the plan proposed to voters, but the location of the existing jail.

“I think the area they’re looking at is a bad location because you have no real opportunity to expand. People want a jail that’s out away from them,” he said. “I think it’s possible to use a bivouac environment between April and October, like Arizona does.”

Ramsey said she didn’t have an answer on how to move forward with a county jail now.
“I know we need a new jail — I just don’t think ad valorem is the way to go,” she said.