Letter

To the Editor:

The Edmunds County proposed Sheriff's Office, Jail, and Dispatch building project is ultimately the Edmunds County voters decision, although as a concerned citizen and as one of your Edmunds County Commissioners, I am interested to continue the conversation about a county issue that affects all of Edmunds County residents as well as all the travelers through Edmunds County.

The Commissioners along with the Edmunds County Sheriff Office is focused on serving Edmunds County through professional emergency protection services keeping this area a safe, enjoyable, economical place to live and raise a family.

I would like to start this conversation to why the need for asking our property tax payers to assist in funding a project such as this?

For starters all of Edmunds County department operations are funded from only about 27 cents of every property tax dollar received. When thinking about our Highway Department, Sheriff's Office, Emergency Manager Department, All the Administrative Departments, etc. being funded by 27%. Edmunds County actually does a lot from the limited resources received.

The continued challenge to balance financial inflows with outflows through the budgeting process has been interesting through the inflation increases every year. It just costs more to finance County operation costs every year.

“For every action there is an equal or greater reaction”.

The action to close Edmunds County Jail, decided by Edmunds County Commissioners, was to reduce liability exposure risk from a failing, unsafe, non-compliant infrastructure. The reaction resulted in the need to transport the incarcerated to other available jails, sometimes many hours and miles away from Edmunds County. This situation pulls a deputy away from Edmunds County and is in some instances a second Sheriff's Office Employee is required to assist with the transport.

This extra expense of transport plus the per day per inmate rate has increased the Sheriff’s budget to an excessive burden status upon Edmunds County property tax payers.

My thought process is to resolve an issue:

-one must first be aware of the problem.

-identify the need.

-reinforce the need with why this is needed?

-plan a solution to resolve the need.

-create the needed logistics to accomplish the plan.

-carry out operations action to effectively, efficiently accomplish the need.

-finance the plan, the logistics, and operations of said need.

What is this need?

For me I have identified as two parts:

1-keeping Edmunds County a safe, economical, enjoyable community to live and raise a family.

2-an opportunity to create a secondary revenue stream.

The proposed jail project is able to accommodate Edmunds County inmates as well as other incarcerations.

The vision is to eventually reduce the burden to Edmunds County Property tax payers and create a needed secondary inflation adjusting revenue source.

“Short term contribution for long term return to the future of Edmunds County”

My focus was to create discussion, one must communicate, adapt, and take knowledgeable action to thrive in an ever changing world. I encourage everyone to vote on March 12th equipped with your best informed decision at the current moment in time. Please reach out to me for further conversation.

Thank you for your time and attention,

Chad Preszler

Edmunds County Commissioner

[email protected]

605-380-2613