The Griswold Community Center was the site for a candidate forum that lasted slightly more than 90-minutes, Thursday night. Persons running for the County Board of Supervisors offices in Cass County were on-hand to introduce themselves, their position on certain issues, and to answer questions from the audience, in advance of the June 7^th Primary.

Among those candidates running for a seat on the Cass County Board of Supervisors, are: District 1: Republicans – Steve Green, Dave Jones, and Dale Retallic; District 4: Democrat – Dana Kunze, and Republicans – Rocky Anderson, Ryan Askeland, Steve Baier, Todd Hansen, Nick Hensley, and Barry Moore; District 5: Republicans – J. Ford Lillard, Bernard Pettinger, and Frank Waters.

There were only a few questions asked from the audience. They covered topics that included grants for County improvements, fracking and the impact on water quality, and what the candidates thought were their top issues of concern.

With regard to the latter, candidates for the Board of Supervisors in District 1 were the first to respond. Steve Green said his main focus would be to make sure the County entities (Cities/governments), work together toward a common goal of solving issues. He said often times, the individual cities are in the “What’s In It For Me?” mindset. He said “We need to pull together, and we need to roll-up our sleeves, innovate, think outside the box, and come up with solutions to our county-wide issues. All of them.”

Dave Jones said from what he’s gathered, the top issue is infrastructure, especially with regard to the condition of county roads and the damage caused by heavily loaded semi’s. Dale Retallic said “We need business. We need jobs. We need young people to stay in Cass County…to come into [the County]. I’ve seen it many times, where we are in a slow death because we are turning into a retirement village/retirement county. We need young people to make this county work.” The rest he said, will fall into place.

District 5 candidates’ responses include: From Bernard Pettinger, who suggested running tile lines across the soft spots on county gravel roads to eliminate “soft spots.” J. Ford Lillard agreed with Dale Retallic, that roads are a problem, but bringing young people into the county and retaining them, is key to building the base for investments in roads and other issues.

Among the District 4 candidates….Ryan Askeland said jobs is one of the reasons he’s running. “I’m scared to death in the next 10-to 20-years we might lose our school district….we need to develop the jobs to keep the enrollment up for us to keep the smaller and bigger schools going.” Barry Moore and Steve Baier both said economic development is important, but finding ways to stop “exporting” our young people after they graduate, is vital. Baier said creating a new means to incubate start-up entrepreneurs in the County will bring technologically minded young people here.

Rocky Anderson said “Quality, affordable housing,” will bring and keep people …especially young people…in the county. Todd Hansen said economic development is a good way to start, to circulate money and grow the communities, which will in-turn sustain the infrastructure. Nick Hensley said lower taxes will be his focus.

And, Dana Kunze said what’s needed is a consortium of nearby counties to get students trained nearby in vocational areas. He said the schools themselves don’t have enough political pull with colleges like Iowa Western to make them want to partner with local schools under “Our terms, because it’s our tax money that makes that entity work. When they don’t want to partner with us, there’s something wrong.”