KZMU Candidate Forum – September 28, 2026

KZMU hosts a candidate forum with candidates from the 5 contested races in this November’s Grand County elections. These include races for Grand County Sheriff, Clerk/Auditor, and Grand County Commission races for District 4 and 5 as well as the At-Large Grand County Commission race.

Transcript:

Note: Transcript prepared by Moab Sun News. Please check the audio before quoting.

[00:00:00] CELIA ALARIO: It is 4:00 and we’re live here high atop Rocky Road. You are listening to KZMU. We are at 90.1, 90.7, and one zero six point seven on your FM dial. Welcome if you’re joining us from kzmu.org. Our translator IDs are K294BL and K214EG.

[00:00:20] MARGARET OSBORNE: Welcome to KZMU’s Candidate Forum. I’m Margaret Osborne, KZMU’s new news and public affairs director. I’m here with co moderator Celia Alario, host of This Week in Moab on KZMU. This forum is part of our fall Radiothon. Here at KZMU, we care about civic engagement, and if you do too, donate to the station. Your donation will help us put on more events like this one. If you wanna donate or buy merch and premiums, you can go to kzmu.org. Thank you to Tim Payne of Wells Fargo Advisors and the Synergy Company for sponsoring this forum. Today, we’ll be talking to the two candidates for each contested race in our local government. We’ll start with Grand County Sheriff, then move on to Grand County Commission, District four, followed by District five, and At Large. Then we’ll close-up with the clerk auditor.

[00:01:10] CELIA ALARIO: Hi, this is Celia Alario. Good to be with you on a Monday and sometimes I’m here for This Week in Moab. Today, each candidate will have a chance to answer three questions and each will have the same amount of time to answer each question. To ensure fairness, each candidate will get to be the first to answer at least once. We’re using a coin flip up here. And for the third and final question, we’ll be using that coin to see who answers first. After answering three questions, each candidate will have two minutes to make closing remarks.

[00:01:36] MARGARET OSBORNE: So to kick off the forum, we have sheriff Jamison Wiggins and Jim Winder, candidates for Grand County sheriff. We’ll start with sheriff Wiggins. You will each have three minutes to answer the following. Immigration and customs enforcement was in Moab last week. What is your plan to reach and protect vulnerable members of our community who might be afraid to work… Go to work, school, or engage with law enforcement?

[00:02:09] JAMISON WIGGINS: So that’s that’s a great question. We have a really good working relationship with, Multicultural Center, Rhiana. We work with Moab Indivisible as well. We’ve decided not to join the 287(g) program, which deputizes local law enforcement officers to enforce federal immigration laws. With that being said, law enforcement has a job to do and same with federal law enforcement. We have a good working with the federal government. They’re supposed to let us know when they come into town if they’re planning on doing an operation recently. They did an operation in Moab. They didn’t let myself know. They thought by contacting dispatch and requesting, to talk to a city officer was sufficient enough. And later after that whole incident happened, I had to call and speak with the supervisor and the supervisor apologized and said that that wouldn’t happen again. So, yeah, we we have a good working relationship with them. We’re not gonna go door to door looking for women and children. That’s just not our job. If they need help with something like an officer down type of situation, we’ll always go and help them with something like that. But our job’s to focus on Utah laws and not federal immigration laws.

[00:03:22] MARGARET OSBORNE: Excellent. Thank you. And over to you, Jim Winder.

[00:03:22] JIM WINDER: Yeah. I’m, thrilled to hear the the sheriff’s answer and would agree almost wholeheartedly in in many of his statements in terms of, the enforcement responsibilities. I think what I’ve been really trying to, to communicate over the course the last several months, both here in Moab and and frankly elsewhere in the state of Utah, is that local law enforcement leaders need to do more to ensure that their rank and file officers understand the unique elements associated with federal law enforcement approaches. It’s not enough to… Anymore to say that, having a working relationship at the administrative level with immigration officials is, is gonna prevent conflict and and miscoordination at the local level. All it… All you need to look is anywhere in the country where, Ogden here recently, an Ogden officer waved over by an ICE, immigration enforcement officer and asked to conduct an arrest for him. And the officers heard on his radio to dispatch asking specifically, what do I do? That’s a classic example of why administrations need to formulate specific plans and policies and ensure that every officer knows it. And then to go even beyond that, it’s not enough to just have relationships with individual organizations. A sheriff has to get out into the community and communicate with the the the individual business owners and even, to a large extent, with individual groups of migrants to ensure that the fear factor is reduced and that their understanding of what their roles and responsibilities and requirements are. So that when a situation occurs where an ICE agent suddenly shows up unmarked and is asserting certain authorizations and a local officer arrives on scene that there isn’t conflict. Because that’s when the community watches that miscommunication, and it can escalate very, very quickly. So my approach is to ensure that the officers understand what their responsibilities are.

[00:05:12] CELIA ALARIO: Thank you. Our next question will go to Jim Winder first for this question. You each have up to two minutes to answer. And here’s the question. Under Utah state law, deputies cannot run automatic license plate readers, ALPR, data prior to or during a traffic stop unless reasonable suspicion can be articulated for an active criminal investigation. As sheriff, how would you enforce proper use of these tools among your deputies? And what would you say to residents who have privacy concerns surrounding these license plate readers?

[00:05:43] JIM WINDER: This is one of the most common questions I receive going door to door. I’ve knocked almost a thousand doors in this county, and probably the number two question I received is on so called flock cameras. And and here’s what I would say. It’s it’s a dual edged sword. These cameras provide some of the most incredible, enforcement opportunity that we have. And and technology is only as good as its users. Cell phones can be misused. Flock cameras can be misused. It’s that simple. What it, relates to is what does the administration of any organization implement in terms of a check and balance to ensure that officers are not using these inappropriately. Recently, the the Grand County Sheriff’s Office was audited, and it was determined that a practice that they utilized in terms of using a single case number over the course of one year violated those audit principles, and it’s a classic example. When an officer is gonna use a a data mine or to use these, the data from this, these cameras, what they’re supposed to do is obtain an individual case number that specifies specifically what they are responsible and what they’re doing with that data. And then the agency has to be looking on a regular basis to ensure that what that officer is putting in their report is appropriate for that particular utilization. So the public can only be assured that their privacy is maintained and managed if the administration of every organization that utilizes flock or data mining type operations is monitoring and managing their membership to ensure that the the protections that are in place are being adhered to. If they’re not, then it’s just like anything else. Anybody can misuse a a a cell phone. So, from my standpoint, that’s a critical factor.

[00:07:25] JAMISON WIGGINS: First of all, we were not audited by another county. That’s not how that works, Tim. But what I would say is we take every complaint serious. Administration has to hold staff accountable. Moab and Grand County Sheriff’s Office do not use flock cameras. License plate reader cameras are a fantastic tool if used appropriately. If you had to pick a a license plate reader, the choice to pick is Motorola. Motorola, you cannot share your, data unless you have a written agreement with another law enforcement agency. So you can kinda share that, how you feel is appropriate. Whereas flock cameras, they can just sell that data without your permission. There’s also state laws that are put into place such as retaining the data for two hundred and forty days, and it needs to be deleted after that. Yearly checks, anytime a a citizen comes in and complains, the county attorney’s office complains, a defense attorney complains, then our office takes all complaints serious, and we will run an audit on whatever officer or case number that they… They’re looking into, and then we’ll follow-up on it.

[00:08:34] MARGARET OSBORNE: Thank you. I’m gonna flip a coin to see who will answer this question first. Does anyone want to call heads? Sure. Heads. Okay.

[00:08:43] JIM WINDER: Heads. You got it. They know you’re really flipping a coin now.

[00:08:43] MARGARET OSBORNE: The sound is captured, Okay. So you will have… Each have two minutes… Up to two minutes to answer this question. Working in law enforcement can be a high stakes and dangerous job. If elected, what specific protections will you put in place so a deputy can raise concerns without fear of retaliation, and who outside the chain of command reviews it?

[00:09:09] JAMISON WIGGINS: No. I’m going first. I thought I’d won. Re… What… Just repeat that question again. Sorry. Wasn’t paying attention.

[00:09:19] MARGARET OSBORNE: Working in law enforcement can be a high stakes and dangerous job. If elected, what specific protections will you put in place so a deputy can raise concerns without fear of retaliation, and who outside the chain of command reviews it?

[00:09:19] JAMISON WIGGINS: So we already have protections put in place with our Lexipol policy. It’s called chain of command. If they… Let’s say a deputy has an issue with another deputy. They take that issue to their supervisor who is usually a sergeant. That sergeant can review that. If the sergeant feels it’s appropriate, he can either squash it right then or he can raise it to the level of the lieutenant. The lieutenant looks at it. The level can then go on to the chief deputy and then on to the sheriff. That’s how it currently is set up within our office. Whether that’s on the patrol side or in the jail side, like I said, we take all complaints serious.

[00:10:12] MODERATOR: Thank you. Over to you.

[00:10:12] JIM WINDER: Agree again with the sheriff on this. There certainly are policy state law federal laws that dictate how, any public employee should be able to be protected when they raise these kinds of concerns. My opinion is they are not being adhered to in Grand County, and it’s a it’s a significant concern. And so if those policies, laws, and internal practices were adhered to, I think we’d be good to go. One of the things that I’m specifically recommending is an analysis of a potential merit service commission. They are right now mandated in the state of Utah for counties that service over 20,000 population, but they can be adopted by any community. What a merit commission does is essentially it has a… It can be up to a three to a five person board that is utilized on a ad hoc basis that is in fact separate from the organization, and it reviews issues like hiring complaints, promotion complaints, transfer complaints, termination, etcetera. And so the… One of the values of doing that is is that the employees are assured that if the internal discipline grievance process is not functioning correctly, there is an entity to go to. Theoretically, in Grand County, the HR department would be responsible for that. But there is a ongoing dispute inside of Grand County right now by the human resources division as to whether human resources policies at the county level apply to county sheriffs. I happen to believe that the county’s policies supersede except in terms of law enforcement operations for a disciplined grievance, and other employee rights. But that’s a that’s a conflict that’s going on inside the county and an issue that I wanna get to the bottom of if… Should I be elected? Employees have to have an opportunity to speak openly and not fear retaliation. That is one of the fundamental concepts of law enforcement… Effective law enforcement.

[00:12:09] MODERATOR: Alright. Thanks to both of you. We now have two minutes each for closing statements starting with you, Jim Winder.

[00:12:09] JIM WINDER: Thank you very much. I just wanna thank you very much for the opportunity to be here today and for all the citizens listening in. This is a very important race, for a variety of reasons. Grand County is going through a real transition, and and you’re gonna hear it from every candidate that comes after us today. The… There are a lot of headwinds that are facing this community. They range from financial. They range from… To cultural. They… There there are just a lot of issues that are on the, on on the go right now. One one in particular is the the, there’s a structural imbalance in the county’s, finances right now. That means that we’re more than likely gonna be facing either a tax increase or cut in services come ’20, 2027. Why do I mention that? This is gonna take administrative, acumen that has a history of being able to manage these kinds of headwinds in other organizations to navigate these particular complexities. And I would hope that the citizens would look at this like any other job application. Look at the experience, look at the, the skills and abilities, and I hope that they will select a candidate that is prepared to navigate what are very complex issues moving forward in a community that is, you know, on the precipice of these unique influences. Thank you very much for your time.

[00:13:31] JAMISON WIGGINS: So, yeah, thank you guys for for hosting this. I think this is great, and I also appreciate the citizens listening. I’ve spent my entire law enforcement career here in Grand County. I already know what our issues are. I don’t need a six month study to to understand what the issues are. I already know what the issues are. I inherited a stagnant sheriff’s office. We’ve rebuilt the department. We’re fully staffed. I’ve got a stack of applications that want a job. We’ve implemented proactiveness, accountability, and transparency. A lot of politicians use the word transparency. We actually have delivered on the transparency note. We let the public know what we’re doing every month. We share press statements. We’re always out in the community working. We’ve implemented community based policing. I’m proud of what we’ve accomplished. We have a lot more to accomplish. And, yeah, I’m I’m planning on being here. I’ve got two little girls that I’m raising in the school district system. My wife and I both graduated from Grand County High. We don’t have any plans on leaving anytime soon, and I would just say that this isn’t a job for me. This is my career. This is my lifestyle. I eat, sleep, and breathe, sheriff’s office 247365. And like I said, we’re… We’ve accomplished a lot of great things, and we have a lot more plans that we want to implement and accomplish. And that takes another four years to get done. So I’m looking forward to it.

[00:14:47] MARGARET OSBORNE: Thank you so much. That was sheriff Jamison Wiggins and Jim Winder, our two candidates for Grand County Sheriff. Thanks so much for joining us. Next, we’ll have our candidates for Grand County Commission District four, Shalee Holland and Diego Velasquez. Welcome again to our candidate forum. This forum is sponsored by Tim Payne and Wells Fargo Investors along with the Synergy Company. I’m Margaret Osborne, the new news and public affairs director here at KZMU. You just heard from sheriff Jamison Wiggins and Jim Winder, our two candidates for Grand County Sheriff. Next, we’ll have our candidates for Grand County Commission District four, Shalee Holland and Diego Velasquez. Welcome both of you to the studio. We’ll start with Diego Velasquez. You each… Will each have two minutes… Sorry, three minutes to respond to this question. High housing high housing and cost of living in Moab is a topic of discussion year after year. Why do we keep returning to this discussion, and what would you do to address these issues?

[00:16:02] DIEGO VELASQUEZ: Yeah. Thanks for having us. Yeah. Housing is at the crux of so many of the community challenges that we face. It comes back to us in terms of making sure that our seniors within the community can afford to stay here. It comes back to us in terms of making sure that we can hire on and retain working individuals. It comes back to us when we’re talking about the feasibility of building a life a family here. To me, housing has been at the core of my platform as I’ve developed one over the course of this race. It is something that keeps coming back into community vernacular when I go out and knock doors. I think that the community has come together in an incredible way over the past couple of years. When I first moved to town six years ago, there wasn’t a single house built up over at Arroyo Crossing. And now when I drive by that community, it is a true joy to watch kids play out in the streets, ride their surround bikes, up and down the roads, have neighborhood backyard barbecues, and so on and so forth. I think that the state of housing has changed, and it is the role of both local elected leaders and local community participants and advocates within the housing space to meet the needs of our changing demographics and changing populations. So two areas that I see for future growth are moderate income housing. That’s 120% AMI, or area median income. We’ve done a fantastic job in providing affordable housing. I think the next step is attainable. And then also, I’d like to see some efforts spent on providing housing and care for aging seniors within the population.

[00:17:44] MARGARET OSBORNE: Thank you. Thank you.

[00:17:54] SHALEE HOLLAND: For me, housing has been such a near and dear problem to be working on solving for many years, Having been on the chamber board for many years and being the chamber president, I’ve had to deal very closely with a lot of business owners that can’t find ways to employ their stores or their businesses because people can’t afford houses. I mean, it’s time and time again that you see the hospital can’t keep a nurse or a good new doctor because they can’t find housing that is sustainable. When I first moved here, I ended up actually living in a hotel for almost a year simply because I couldn’t find a house that worked for my family, that was within something I could afford. So this is something that impacted me personally, and I’ve watched it impact so many friends and family. I have children that are growing up in this beautiful community, and I am genuinely concerned about that they’re not going to have a place to live, and that that will be the choice that they make is they have to leave, not simply because they don’t want to live here and they don’t want to grow up here and have their families here, but because they can’t afford it. I haven’t been on the EOAB board. I can’t tell you how many times people are coming to ask for grants for housing issues. And as I’ve done a lot of research in our country, not just in our community, but in our country when the housing crisis is happening so many different places and so many different towns, trying to figure out the answers, and there’s a lot of projects that happen that label themselves as affordable. And what I’m finding is that affordability only has to last for a certain amount of time unless they’re making a longer plan. So a lot of things like Give does a lot of great projects that they’re a one hundred year plan instead of it being, oh, in ten years this housing no longer has to be in the affordable range. And also being on the MACLT board, the Moab area Community Land Trust board, one of the things and I love that Diego said attainable, because we spent a lot of hours in board meetings trying to come up with that verbiage, and it’s so beautiful because affordable means something so different to everybody. And so I would like our community to be something that our young people can thrive in and that our seniors, as Diego so eloquently brought up, can also afford here. I have a lot of clients that they literally get priced out of their homes just with the taxes. And so we need to make sure that we’re talking about this in long term ways, not just how do we fix it this year, how do we work on it this year. We need to make sure that while we’re scratching the surface that we’re digging a little bit deeper too.

[00:20:37] MARGARET OSBORNE: Thank you so much. Okay.

[00:20:37] CELIA ALARIO: So for our next question, we’ll start with Shalee Holland. You each have two minutes to answer this one. The Grand County Commission approved using $500,000 of county funding for the Arches National Park shuttle. Do you agree with this decision? Why or why not?

[00:20:48] SHALEE HOLLAND: Oh, you guys are going for some hard ones. I definitely have a lot of feelings around this one. For me, I want to be extremely fiscally conservative as a Commissioner, making sure that we’re talking about how we’re spending money, how the income is coming in, and how that gets impacted in a long term way. I was part of developing the pilot program for the timed entry and I can honestly tell you like while I don’t think it was perfect, that’s what a pilot program is, is it it’s not supposed to be perfect. You put it out there and then you tweak it. And I think we didn’t give it enough time to see if it could work, but I do believe that it was actually increasing the quality of the visits at the park. But people didn’t understand it yet. I think it was a bit of a reaction to come up with the shuttle program, and it just felt like it was not thought out in a really long way. Having talked to many of the commissioners, I do think that there was a lot of conversations that were happening on it, but that the public is not being talked to about them. And so where’s the transparency? How do we have an understanding that halfway through a budget year we’re making a financial decision that big? And it wasn’t just a commitment of $500,000 I mean, it’s multiple millions of commitments, part of a Federal Park where, okay, where was the federal government in sending this money? Also, we have businesses in town that are shuttle businesses. So are we impacting them in a negative way and taking business away from them? Maybe. And I just I would have loved to have seen a lot more discussions, and again, sure that we’re spending money in a thoughtful way, an impactful way, and making sure that we’re really effective when we’re creating budgets and spending money.

[00:22:41] MARGARET OSBORNE: Thank you.

[00:22:41] DIEGO VELASQUEZ: Yeah, okay. Shuttle program. I don’t I don’t view this as a tough question. I view this as a reflection of how our county has considered budgeting and communication with the general public. I think that county budgeting really should come down to common sense decision making. We shouldn’t spend money that we might not receive, and we shouldn’t spend local taxpayer dollars on projects that don’t benefit the local community, full stop. I work over at the museum. I’ve been a director of the museum for the past four years, and it’s my job to listen to the stories, conduct oral histories, and truly get a sense of where we’ve been to inform decision making for the future. And the museum was one of those organizations whose budget got put on the chopping block in exchange for $500,000 dedicated to the shuttle. My problems with the shuttle I laid out in June 2026 when the first RFP was launched. And at the time, the the county commission had given folks seven weeks from RFP launch to project implementation. I think that it is our role as commissioners to be facilitators for better ideas and for better governance and to facilitate community input. We have so many intelligent and hardworking folks within this community who should have been at the table in that decision making process. The shuttle has been an idea that’s been kicked around for a really long time. And it’s a project that should be done right. We should, I think County Commission should stay in our lane protecting and promoting the resources that we have in this community that benefit the material needs of Grand County residents first and foremost and when we receive a windfall, then that money should go back into projects that make life better for the surrounding community.

[00:24:38] MARGARET OSBORNE: Thank you so much to you both. We have our final question, and I’m going to flip this coin to see who goes first. I will call Diego. I will call you heads. If I flip heads, you will go first. Okay. Heads it is. And it is heads. You will have to each have two minutes to answer this question. Water issues are becoming more pressing day by day. What would you do as Commissioner to help prepare the county for a drier future?

[00:25:01] DIEGO VELASQUEZ: Yeah, I love this question. A drier future is one that we will have. It’s what the data says. I’m a data oriented person, and just like the shuttle program, I think that it is important for us to listen to studies that we pay for. Kem Gardner was something that we should have paid attention to from the beginning, And so too should we be looking at the well water data that informs our ability to live and make life work in this community and in this valley. I think of water in two ways. The first is the water that is under our feet. The Glen Canyon Aquifer is this beautiful pristine body of water from which we source all of our drinking water. Well water data tells us that groundwater levels have been going down in recent years. And while this isn’t like totally all encompassing, yes, we are in a water crisis data. I think that we should view our aquifers like a bank account. It’s important for us to understand what goes in and what goes out. Before we make commitments to expenditures, I. E. Development in our valley, that draw upon those resources. So what do we do next? Well, I think the answer is simple. The answer is to implement USGS water monitoring sites higher up in the La Sal Mountains so that we have a checkpoint at the top of this bathtub to let us know when we’re in crisis of mining our aquifer. And really, water is the most critical resource that we have in this valley. I don’t think that we should take it lightly, and I think it should be of concern to everyone who lives here. The second way that I think about water is in floodwater mitigation. And this current county commission has drawn down, it has literally drained the storm water mitigation fund that we have to pay for infrastructure repairs when flooding happens. And thank goodness 2026 was a year light on flooding. Who knows what was happening with the Super El Nino. It is a prerogative to put money back into that fund to pay for the ramifications of the next one hundred or five hundred year flood.

[00:27:13] MARGARET OSBORNE: Perfect timing. Thank you so much. Turning it over to you.

[00:27:13] SHALEE HOLLAND: Perfect. This is definitely a topic that I’ve been doing a lot of research on, and luckily we’ve had great partnership with GWSSA that they were able to do a really great presentation for us and be able to help show us some of the data that Diego is talking about, because I do find this to be so important. Wasting water is literally like throwing money out the window and lighting it on fire. I think it’s definitely something that we need to be paying attention to because while I don’t know that we necessarily have an issue today, that doesn’t mean we can’t be forward thinking. We’re supposed to be forward thinking in everything that we’re doing because we’re not just building a community for today, for next year. We’re building a community for our families for years and generations to come, and if our water goes, then we no longer have a place to live. It doesn’t make sense. I do love that we’re working on programs to incentivize people to do more of like zero escaping. You know, we need to make sure that we’re talking about the impact of what that looks like, and I love that they’re putting hours on when we can water our lawns. I also think we really need to be partnering with the city when we’re talking about many of these topics because, you know, we have something as great as Ken’s Lake that has the opportunity to use some of the runoff water to be able to do some of those things like water our lawns, but not everybody has access to it. So we’re using normal city water that people use potable water to water our lawn, and I just don’t think that’s necessarily a great use of our water. I also think that taking care of flooding, like Diego was saying, having had my office flooded in that one hundred year flood, it was it’s devastating, and we need to make sure that we’re planning for that future, talking with our partners at the city, making sure that we’re prepared, and when things do go wrong, that we have a plan.

[00:29:06] MARGARET OSBORNE: Thank you very much. Okay.

[00:29:06] CELIA ALARIO: Now our candidates for District 4, Grand County, Utah, will each have two minutes for their closing statements, and we’ll start first with you, Shalee Holland.

[00:29:22] SHALEE HOLLAND: I decided to run because for me, this is my home where I’m raising my family, and we’re running our two businesses, and I want to make sure that for my client’s sake, for my children’s sake, for my friends and family, my neighbors, that our town stops having the toxicity that we’re creating. The cancel culture for me, we need to be thrown out the window. It’s so beautiful when we’re talking about the flood that everyone showed up to help when those damages happened and whenever, you know, you had cars floating down Main Street. Everyone was there to help. We weren’t sitting there going, Oh, well, how do you feel about our stormwater medication in the middle of that? So for me, I want to make sure that that cancel culture is taken off the table, making sure that it’s okay that we disagree. In fact, it’s awesome that we disagree. That’s what makes us human. How do we shake hands, hug it out, and then find ways to solve the problems that are coming up? We have to come to the table to solve. We fight to solve, not fight to win. And that I think has become a really hard thing in our county is that everyone just wants to be right. You know, people will literally vote against something simply because of who put it on the agenda or we’re pissing people off in these meetings. We’re not trusting our employees. We have awesome, awesome county employees. We need to make sure that we’re trusting them. We have awesome advisory boards where people are volunteering their time and energy, and those are emotionally draining boards to be on. And we need to make sure that we’re listening to their recommendations and not being wasteful of their time. So that’s one of my biggest parts of why I wanted to run is I wanted to make sure that we’re a community that doesn’t always agree, but that we can come together and make things better for all of our futures.

[00:31:05] CELIA ALARIO: Thank you. Thank you. Go ahead, Diego.

[00:31:05] DIEGO VELASQUEZ: Thank you for having us. I’m going plug Radiothon real quick. It goes on through October 2. I’ve got my socks on. Yeah, I hope that you now have a bit more clarity on where these two candidates stand on the ongoing issues in our community and to the level and depth to which each of them are prepared to speak. I think that it should be the priority of each candidate running for commission to be ready to hit the ground running in January 2027. I decided to run for commission early this year and since February and well before, I’ve been doing the homework. I’ve been talking to staff, to our local advisory boards, to folks who have been within the county past and present. And I’ve been learning where the friction points are for local residents and for local government. And in my time knocking on four twenty out of the six eighty six voting doors in our district, a number which joyfully goes up every day. I’ve developed a much clearer sense of what folks are talking about at the kitchen table. And what I’m hearing is that it’s not cancel culture. It is that the material needs of Grand County residents should come first and foremost. And to that end, the platform that we have built, which you can find online at diegoforgrand.com, it lists out all the thoughts that I’m thinking. This platform has been built by the voices of local voters. And as a reminder, top of that queue, I’ll just list a couple for you now. Infrastructure for all, collaboration with the city of Moab and getting more bang for our buck via public private partnerships and supporting future housing needs, including workforce, moderate income, and senior housing to reflect our changing demographics. I firmly believe that it is the role of our local commissioners to be facilitators, to be conveners, and to be conduits for more informed conversation and decision making. It’s through collaboration that we can all make this place one that we want to call home and one that we can afford to stay in. My name is Diego Velasquez, and I look forward to you seeing my name on the ballot, October 15. Thank you.

[00:33:05] CELIA ALARIO: Alright. And I wanna thank you both District 4 candidates, Shalee Holland and Diego Velasquez for joining us. Next up, we’ll hear from candidates for District 5 Of Grand County. That’s Everett Hildenbrandt and Mike McCurdy. You’re with KZMU ninety point one, ninety point seven, and one zero six point seven, kzmu.org on our Radiothon political forum… Candidates forum during this special fall fund drive. We’ll be back in just a few minutes.

[00:33:37] MARGARET OSBORNE: We want to thank Tim Payne of Wells Fargo Advisors and the Synergy Company for sponsoring this forum, which is part of our fall Radiothon. You can donate and buy our merch and premiums at kzmu.org. Next up, we want to welcome Everett Hildenbrandt and Mike McCurdy running for District 5. Our first question starts with Everett Hildenbrandt. You each have three minutes to respond. The Grand County Commission approved a 180 temporary land use regulation pausing new data center applications in July. This type of development is not yet regulated in the county’s land use code. As Commissioner, what approach would you take to developing permanent standards for data centers, and what issues should they address?

[00:34:25] EVERETT HILDENBRANDT: Yeah. Thanks for the question. I think this is, you know, all the data I’ve seen, least this is not very controversial. People don’t want data centers in, you know, hot desert area of Utah. I think the thing that I’m, I guess, a little bit disappointed in is I haven’t heard much about what’s next for… You know, there’s a six month moratorium, and that was passed in order to find out what, you know, we can do to decide what level of data center is acceptable here in Grand County after that pause. And we haven’t really seen a lot of progress, I think, on getting, you know, the next step in the land use code to understand what type of distinctions we wanna make between different sizes of data centers, whether someone’s, you know, home server office in their basement is acceptable, or if it’s something to do with the amount of power draw or the amount of water usage that determines whether we find a data center acceptable. And then that six month moratorium is gonna lapse, And if we don’t have a plan in place, we could see people starting to make applications at that point. So I guess that’s what I would like to see happen is to see more movement on actually making a, you know, definition of what constitutes a big data center or a small data center or something that’s acceptable or not so we can get community input on. I think that process needed to start pretty much immediately after the moratorium went into place because it takes a while to get community input. That’s something that I think the Commission can do a lot better is as soon as there’s an idea of something, it should go immediately to community input, even in informal ways at events and stuff like that going even here on KZMU on the radio so that people have a chance to voice what their needs are and what their desires are for the county and the land use. And then following that, you know, the the public hearing is kind of a lot of the time. The first place a lot of people hear about these land use regulations and changes, and that should not be the first time people should already be aware of kind of what’s coming down the pipe at that point. So that’s something that I think could really change with the commission is we need to get engaged with the community a lot earlier in these land use decisions. And I understand also that this current land use rewrite happening right now, the… And that I’m looking forward to. I I… As as someone who has… Owns property here in the valley, I, had to navigate the land use code myself, and it is a mess. And I’m really grateful that the commission is finally pushing forward with the land use code rewrite. I just think that we need to be making decisions about what we wanna prioritize with data centers a little bit sooner before waiting for that to be finished because they are moving forward. There’s some being built in other counties here in Utah. And, you know, there… I think there’s a lot of people here who would not like to see one here. I don’t think that it would do good for the tourism business. I don’t think it would do good for, you know, visitors or residents in terms of water usage. So

[00:37:07] MARGARET OSBORNE: thank you. Thanks so much. And Mike McCurdy, over to you.

[00:37:07] MIKE MCCURDY: Right now, there is the current moratorium that I I I do believe we voted, as the incumbent, we already have voted seven o against current data centers going in. And when we speak of data centers, there needs to be some clarifications on server in the basement versus versus the large in the news size data centers that are heavy power consumers, heavy water consumers. We all are in agreements that we don’t want that within Grand County. They’re Right now during the transition as we are doing with the land use plan update, the public engagement has been asked. It is more pointed right now upon data centers as it has been the big thing within Utah. But we already are part… Taking part in public input within our new general plan, and I I love that I love that we’re getting done on a general plan. We’ve been talking about it for almost four years as I’ve been on the commission, and we’re finally coming towards those end steps. We need we need we need to reach to the end of this so it’s not an impossibility of navigation of property rights with… And and what you can and can’t do with your own private land within our county. There is a current plan out there. Again, I’ll agree with Everett here. It is a mess. It has been a mess for years. There’s huge open gaps within it and we’ve taken steps to mitigate and to fix those. And we need to continue doing that and that’s why I’m… As I’m currently sitting on the commission, we are working towards that and like to continue.

[00:39:07] CELIA ALARIO: Thanks. For our next question, we’ll start with Mike McCurdy, and you each have two minutes to respond to the following question. What will your approach be to working with members of the community who have conflicting needs and interests?

[00:39:22] MIKE MCCURDY: That’s your average day politics, to be honest. Conflicting needs and interests… There’s no one in this valley that has exactly the same needs, exactly the same interest. That’s what makes our community so great, actually. In conflicting points, I really, really already take steps just putting those same people in the room. Just because I said that we we all have different opinions and different conflicts and interests, It doesn’t mean that a majority of them don’t align. And when we put two people in a room or we put the conversation in a joint text, a joint conversation, people find out that no matter their stance on a lot of subjects, there probably is a lot more that they have in common, talking about a subject, than against each other. If it comes down to downright against, it is good to start a dialect with, people, but already myself included just speaking with people and being more being more personable, taking taking the Facebook rants out of it and coming to… Honestly, coming to a a room, coming to a meal, man, conversations go better over food. But putting two people in the room, they find out that they have a lot more together than they do apart.

[00:40:42] MODERATOR: Okay. Go ahead, Everett.

[00:40:42] EVERETT HILDENBRANDT: Okay. Yeah. I mean, I can’t agree more that we’ve gotta get people off Facebook and to talking to each other in person because, man, it gets nasty on Facebook. I personally am not on Facebook. I have someone managing a page for me there to get my content out there, I guess. But I I really… I can’t second that enough. I do think that the the current commission, is not doing a great job listening to conflicting viewpoints, and I think it has led to some of that Facebook vitriol coming into the commission chambers a bit because people are not feeling like they’re heard. That is something that can be fixed by meeting people where they’re at rather than waiting again for the public hearing or for the public comment period when… By the time that it gets the public hearing, the public comment, the decision is usually already made at that point for most of the commissioners. They’re not, you know, actually, you know, they’re… The things are going to the public record, but they’re not actually gonna use that for making a decision. So I really think that engaging earlier. An example of this is, you know, the shuttle project, You know, come to find out that they’ve been working on this for a long time in meetings that the public wasn’t invited to before even the Kem Gardner Institute study came out. So the study that we paid for as a public didn’t even come out with the results yet, and the shuttle meetings are already going on to determine that that’s going to happen. I think this is something we can take, you know, notes from the city of Moab on. You know, I was just down at the Arts And Ab Market. They have a booth there, and they’re talking about projects they’re thinking about in a year from now or in two years from now, rather than waiting until it comes to public hearing, you know, comment period for people to voice their opinions. And so I think people feel a lot more heard when they actually have a chance to influence the decision or direction that something is going rather than waiting until the very end. So so I think this is something that we can structurally do a lot better as a commission, and that’s just with a bit more for planning and actually engaging the public ahead of time. And then people will just feel a lot more hurt. And so they’ll be able to talk to each other instead of being, you know, at each other’s throats on Facebook.

[00:42:49] MARGARET OSBORNE: Thank you very much. And I’m gonna flip a coin to see who will answer the next question. Everett, I’m gonna give you heads. Okay. Mike, I’m gonna give you tails. If your heads or tails is called, then you will go first. Tails. That means you will go first, Mike. You will each have two minutes to answer this question. Last year, 13 people filed a legal claim alleging systemic harassment, discrimination, and retaliation on the basis of sex and sexual orientation in the county government. The Utah Anti Discrimination and Labor Division dismissed some of the complaints, but further investigations are still ongoing. Without commenting on ongoing litigation and regardless of the outcome, what would you do as Commissioner to make sure the county government is a safe work environment for all employees regardless of sex or sexual orientation?

[00:43:43] MIKE MCCURDY: Tricky question to ask without stepping into litigation, which I I cannot do as a sitting Commissioner. I’d would like to say that I would follow almost the same path as I have been following. Not named within this litigation or these within this has has been a good thing to me. I I do actually talk to our employees. I I I go out in offices quite often, and I’d I’d like to keep that dialogue going with both commit… I… As a Commissioner, I don’t ever direct staff in hand. We commit… Direct staff within body’s choice. The commission is a body, not just a single person. We direct staff through administration’s office, on subjects, but that dialogue still needs to exist. We do live in a small town. We all talk to each other. I mean, we we see each other consistently downtown, be it my work, be it City Market. You’re gonna run into someone, that you know and someone from a different thought process than this, but I I actually would like to tout that I was never part of this and like to remain… I I like remaining on the outside of this argument right now. If if that is the best way I can answer that without pending litigation.

[00:45:16] MODERATOR: Thank you very much. And, Everett, over to you.

[00:45:16] EVERETT HILDENBRANDT: Okay. Thank you. Yeah. I mean, I think the… I think it’s clear to a lot of the community. There’s an issue at the commission whether it has to do with this lawsuit or whether it has to do with, the high turnover that we’ve seen in staff and the inability to retain staff. I think it’s abundantly clear. There’s some sort of cultural workplace issue going on at the commission right now that needs to be fixed in order to in order to literally just save people money. Because when we’re spending all of our our time training new people and we’re having to hire out engineering services to third parties, we’re wasting taxpayer dollars. And so we need to figure out what this cultural thing is. And I believe that the top sets the tone in this regard, and that means that our commissioners are responsible for any of the behavior of other commissioners as well. Should be something where there is, you know, a culture of accountability. And also there should be a culture of of working with people and saying like, hey, like, you know, admitting that when you’ve done wrong, that you have done wrong, going through them saying, I messed up and I apologize. I’m going try not to treat you in that way in the past. So I think that’s really important. That’s how I run my own company. If I and when I don’t agree with my employees, I state my reasons. But if they disagree with me and they overrule me, then I go with what they’ve said because I’m one person and they’re many and they probably have a better idea of what’s going on than me. So I think it really does come down to we need better leadership to step in that is willing to acknowledge that there is a problem and then do something about it, whether that means, you know, talking to other commissioners or making sure that it’s addressed with the the workplace culture itself because it’s costing people money right now when we’re having to outsource services and when we’re having to perpetually train people. People. And, you know, I’ve I’ve experienced this firsthand again. I’ve worked with the building departments on two building permits now, and I’ve worked with different… Completely different people both times, and that’s very frustrating. So thank you.

[00:47:03] CELIA ALARIO: Alright. Thanks to you both. Okay. We’re gonna hear closing statements now for these District 5 candidates starting with two minutes each for you and starting with you, Everett Hildenbrandt.

[00:47:23] EVERETT HILDENBRANDT: Okay. Thank you. Yeah. I’ll close with asking… You know, why am I asking for your vote? I I love this place. I wanna see it flourish. I wanna see it flourish for the people who live here. I’m excited to bring civility to the county commission. I’ve done that at my own company. I know what it takes to actually make it so that an organization this size runs smoothly. We can disagree without it getting personal and can move forward with whatever solution is decide. I’m ready to bring stability to county staff. I think that that is one of the most important things for the long term planning of this Commission is that we have people on staff who know how to do their job and they stick in the role for a long period of time. That’s not what we’re getting right now, and it’s costing us tax dollars. I’m ready to bring efficiency again by building up our planning, building permitting and enforcement departments, and also by prioritizing local developers, local businesses when they want to apply for building permits or development. I think that’s really important, And I’m ready to bring wealth to Grand County and to keep it here. That means focusing on homes residents here can afford to own. And we need to be prioritizing development that meets the needs of local demand, not just prioritizing development that is luxury or speculative investment or whatever is going to make the developer the most money. So you know, the the current Commission has approved several loans and other programs to developers that are outside of this county that don’t they’re they’re not they’re pulling wealth just directly out of this county via rental income and I think we gotta stop doing that and finally, we gotta prioritize making it easy for people to start local businesses here. That means making building permits easier to get, making it easier with zoning for people to start a new industrial business, for example, and partnering with our… You know, with USU has programs to partner with, and the state has programs that we can be taking advantage of within the governor’s office to do this as well. So I don’t have all the answers. I’ll tell people when I don’t. I’ll definitely listen, and I’m I’m excited to try to try to get this team going.

[00:49:27] CELIA ALARIO: Thank you for that. And to you, two minutes, Mike McCurdy.

[00:49:38] MIKE MCCURDY: Again, I’m your current county Commissioner district five incumbent. And in in saying this and in the last four years of being a Commissioner, I have learned to put my wants aside and represent my constituency and their wants. The people of District 5 are in current times working several jobs to put through to put their families through current economic conditions. I… I’m happy to report this year we are… In in our sales tax revenue, we are over 25% up, and that comes directly from the work that I’ve done on the commission By prioritizing our one and only economic driver right now, being tourism, it has been it has been a joy to see that our, the current work is actually panning out in a in a timely manner. Government is not fast at anything, and this has happened within a one year span of of changing tactics, and we’re actually doing better in our local economy. And with that, I like to take my constituencies wants and needs, within District 5, bring their bring their voices to the table. If you don’t have my phone number, it’s, pretty easy to get. It’s on all of my advertising. You’re more than willing to knock on my front door, or you’re… If you’re more than willing to come and talk to me face to face, that is the best way. Again, I work at True Value Lumberyard. Come on in. Talk to me. If you have anything that needs a county Commissioner to look at, I’ve always had an open door, and I want to remain that same way. And I wanna put your your wants first above my biases in District 5.

[00:51:28] MARGARET OSBORNE: Thank you so much. That was Everett Hildenbrandt and Mike McCurdy running for District 5.

[00:51:38] CELIA ALARIO: You’re with KZMU here at 901, 106.7, and 907 on your FM dial or at kzmu.org. We’re live high atop Rocky Road, and we wanna give some very special thanks and shout outs to today’s Radiothon sponsors. We have two of them, The Synergy Company and Tom Payne and Wells Fargo Investors. Thanks to both of you for your support of Radiothon and your support of this candidates forum for Grand County candidates. Very important opportunity for us to bring to you the voices of your candidates. I wanna do a welcome now to Neal Herbert and Rory Paxman, who are candidates for the Grand County Commission at Large. Rory Paxman, we’re gonna start with you. And, first question is, as a Grand County Commissioner, you represent your constituents. How do you plan to reach out to them to understand their views? What will you do if they have conflicting views from your own? And you’ll each have two minutes for this question.

[00:52:36] RORY PAXMAN: Am I live? I can’t hear myself. But, anyways, it’s good to be here with the citizens of Grand County and and here with KZMU and also with Neal. That’s a good question. You know, I was on the council for two terms already, and I was really loved working with people. And most people could see how easy it was for me to work around with everyone, also to bring people together. My my record shows it, so I I mean, I… Pretty proud of it. But, anyways, I can work with people, and I can help with the conflicting issues that come about because my term… I mean, you can obviously see it it it works, so I can do it.

[00:53:30] MODERATOR: Thank you very much, and over to you.

[00:53:30] NEAL HERBERT: Alright. I wanna thank, KZMU for having me up here and, for everyone who’s out there listening for taking the time. I would say the differences of opinion makes us a stronger community. I’ve learned that it’s a lot better to listen than lecture. I’ve been knocking on doors. I’ve heard so many different ideas about Grand County and how we can move forward, and I think there’s a tremendous value in collecting that information. After election, I would hope to continue finding ways to talk to people one on one. I think for myself, I’ve really tried to put my campaign forward in a face to face manner. While I’m on Facebook and I’ve been posting some videos there, interacting with people on Facebook is not my favorite way to do it. Interacting through a screen period is not my favorite way to do I would like to talk to people face to face. I find that just that simple interaction tends to take the temperature down and gives people the feeling that they’ve been heard, is an important part of communication, is giving people the chance to feel like they’ve been heard. So to me, all those different opinions, putting them together, finding the best way forward, taking the best of all the ideas, That’s what it’s going to take to chart a course forward with this county. And I look forward to it. I really… I enjoy the diversity in this community, and I think it’s going to make us stronger.

[00:55:04] MARGARET OSBORNE: Thank you very much. Our next question is for Neal Herbert first. What actions will you take to ensure tourism in Moab can support our local businesses while also maintaining residents’ quality of life? You have three minutes to respond.

[00:55:24] NEAL HERBERT: Thank you. Good question. So tourism is the foundation of our economy, and I intend to protect that. We need to continue a steady spending of… On advertising within the community for… To draw tourists here. If you take your… If you pull back from that, it’s shown that there’s a dip that follows it. Every business owner I’ve talked to has said that we need to be consistent and steady in our spending on tourism. So I fully support that. As far as protecting quality of life, I understand that there are aspects of tourism that are frustrating to all of us who live here. I also think that tourists sort of experience those same frustrations. We all want more or less many of the same things. We want to have simple access to basic amenities. We want good roads. We want storm water to go to the places where it’s supposed to go and end up in the river and not in the streets and in the restaurants. We want to be able to get a table at a restaurant. We want to be able to make a left turn on Main Street. We want to not have to wait forever at a trailhead or not be able to find parking at a trailhead. So a lot of the spends that we can make to beef up our infrastructure that benefits, quality of life for locals, I think will… Can trickle down and benefit tourists as well.

[00:56:46] MARGARET OSBORNE: Over to you.

[00:56:46] RORY PAXMAN: Well, I believe that the tourism is what is funding Moab right now because we don’t really have much of anything else. We do have a little bit of industry, but it’d be really nice to be able to see a little bit more industry, making it easier for people to to get in here and do the things that they need to do. It’s also like the airport. I mean, we we just got rid of, Contour. We’re we’re, running back with SkyWest, which is a great deal. But, man, it would be so much better if we could have two airlines so we’d have more choices, forget industry, for people that are in industry can get in and out of Moab. It’s also be a good thing to work with the citizens to figure out what the frustrations are, and then try to make a plan and make sure we’re we’re making this a better place for everyone to be here, not just tourism, but our locals. Not only that, it’s… Has to do with bicycles. I mean, it’s so nice to have the bicycles in our community. That’s also another thing that kinda made Moab popular was our big bike trails. It’s great to have them, but it’s also in the town. It’s just we need to have more safety intersections, with our infrastructure. But tourism is, what started my family business. We’ve been here since 1963. I plan on being here another sixty years, so hopefully, that will continue. So we need to do some advertising with TRT. We don’t wanna do what happened with Aspen and Colorado. And when, they took away their skiing and, Utah decided to do a great campaign of ski Utah, which took away a lot of their business. We don’t wanna see that happen. We wanna make sure we’re we’re thriving with the rest of the state. Thank

[00:58:42] CELIA ALARIO: you. We’re gonna flip a coin to see who will answer this next question first. So I’m gonna go ahead and choose Neal Herbert to be heads, Rory Paxman, Tails. Whoever gets theirs chosen will answer first. So here comes the flip. Tails. And it’s Tails. Okay. So, Rory, you’ll go first. And you’ll have two minutes each for this question. The question is, what processes should the county follow when spending exceeds an approved budget?

[00:59:10] RORY PAXMAN: Well, we shouldn’t exceed our expending bay… Budget. That’s one thing that I wanna get in there and and create is we need to get with our department heads and work together and and get this county in line because we’re just way overspending. It’s just like the shuttle system. It’s it’s not a good economic driver. It’s just we could use that money for so many other things. And, anyways, I believe that we can get in there and work our our department heads and, create a situation where we’re not overspending and make sure that we’re getting all of our priorities and projects in line so we can fund those, especially like storm mitigation. We need to maybe look at maybe even also getting some grants where we can so we’re not overspending, but also making sure that those grants we can get, you know, so we don’t have to spend our money to get the tax so we don’t raise taxes on the citizens of this community.

[01:00:18] NEAL HERBERT: A cornerstone of my platform is that we save money for the future and reduce unplanned special interest spending of tax dollars. In order to spend tax dollars, the county really needs to demonstrate that we’re doing the right thing with it. And I’m also going to pick on the Arches shuttle since I didn’t get asked a question about it. But, I think a good example of unplanned spending in midyear pivots, that could go over budget is to take money that was sort of designated for trails and put it towards something like a bike shuttle. I would much rather we spent $500,000, try… Trying to take the project of a bike path on Spanish Valley Drive further down the road than we would shuttling empty buses, back and forth to, Delicate Arch. So I’m a big fan of planning in advance and being proactive with our processes. We need to sit down, map it all out, and make it a lot harder to spend money that comes up out of budget. One of the ideas that I’ve had to achieve that is to make it harder to vote, to spend money midyear out of budget. One currently requires just a simple majority. We could make that a simple… A super majority. That’s something we could just have a local policy. So you have to have a a stronger vote to… In order to spend money that wasn’t actually budgeted. I think steps like that and maybe a mandatory save for the future would be strong steps the county could take to to keep things on track.

[01:01:45] MARGARET OSBORNE: Thank you very much. And we’ll move on to your closing statements. Neal, we’ll start with you for your two minute closing statement.

[01:01:55] NEAL HERBERT: Well, thanks again to KZMU for hosting this, inviting us up here, and for everyone out there listening. I appreciate everyone taking the time. Grand County has been my home since the early nineteen nineties. After I arrived, I built a career helping business and government and nonprofits serve people. I also ran my own business here. My business was devoted to helping other businesses do better. My roles involved strategic planning, system design and communications so I helped people figure out where they wanted to go, what they needed to get there and how they were going to tell people about it. I think the Grand County Commission needs a voice with that kind of experience. We’re hungry for young people to move here to create a business and to start a life. I’ve done those things and I want to help the next generation do it too. There are three things I’d like you to remember about me after this broadcast. First, I show up. I’m committed to the role of county Commissioner. I’ve already attended more than a year’s worth of meetings and I’m ready to work hard. Serving Grand County will be my only job. Second, I listen. Over the last year, I’ve talked to hundreds of people to understand the challenges we face as a community. I’ve heard a lot of really different and really great perspectives on how we can meet those challenges. And third, I will work for you. I built a thirty year career making systems work better for the people who depend on them both in and outside of government. I’m interested in solutions, not politics. I promise to stop treating broken as normal and start fixing what isn’t working for you. My name is Neal Herbert. I’m running for the at large seat on the Grand County Commission. I’m excited to bring these qualities to that seat, and I’d be honored to represent you.

[01:03:42] MARGARET OSBORNE: Thank you so much. And Rory Paxman, and over to you.

[01:03:42] RORY PAXMAN: Yes. Thank you, guys. Thanks so much for for letting us come out here and and talk to the community. This is a great way to do it. One of the best ways, though, is to go out and talk to them and let people come and talk to you. I… And you guys can go on my website and look it up. It’s Rory, vote Rory Paxman at Grand County, or Rory Paxman dot org. I’m sorry. Vote rorypaxman.org. But you can see a lot of my platform on there. I wish we had more time to discuss exactly what I’m… What I am. But, you know, I’m a local. I love this place. I wouldn’t wanna see this destroyed, but I do wanna see us thrive. Also, I don’t have things written down. I always swing by the hips. I don’t… I just ramble a lot, but I sure enjoy working for the community. I don’t have a full time job anymore, which I had before when I was running. My record last time was 85%, which was pretty good for owning a business. Also, running the county and also having four kids in this community went… That went to school here. Our schools are great. I’d love to see them even get better. So I’d love to help our schools. I’d love to help our community. And, if you go on my website, you can see that. I’m I’m all about community. I’m running by myself with my own money for my campaign, and I also, you’ll notice there’s a lot of nonprofits on there. I hope you guys will go to some of our local nonprofits and donate to my campaign, and that’s the way I want you to do it. Grand County, I’m here for you. I’m running for a Grand County Commissioner at large, and I would love to be on there for another four years. Thank you all so much, and thank you, Neal, for coming out and spending time with me a little bit and so we can see each other. That’s great. Appreciate it.

[01:05:48] CELIA ALARIO: Alright. I wanna thanks… Say thanks to both of you, Neal Herbert and Rory Paxman, the at-large candidates for Grand County Utah’s County Commission. And next, we’ll hear from our two final candidates, Gabriel Woytek and Kenneth Minor, who are running for Grand County Clerk and Auditor. You are listening to KZMU live high atop Rocky Road where we’re bringing you this special Radiothon programming of the candidates forum. We’ll be right back. Thank you for staying with us and, for making sure that you’re engaged in your community. We are back with the final segment of our candidates forum for Grand County, Utah clerk and auditor. Wanna welcome Gabriel Woytek and Kenneth Minor. Our first question will go out to Gabriel Woytek. You’ll have… Each have three minutes to respond. What should happen when individuals or departments exceed their approved budgets? How should that be reviewed and or communicated to the public?

[01:06:52] GABRIEL WOYTEK: Well, certainly we have to make sure that we’re tracking the budget as the budget year goes along. And we have to be working with all the clerk auditor’s office should absolutely be working with commission administration, which oversees all county staff. And so we’re regularly tracking and maintaining information through monthly reports to the commission about where expenses are at across departments. Certainly it’s inevitable that certain departments are going to have needs or unexpected costs that exceed budgets. And we just need to make sure that we’re encouraging and promoting an environment of open communication and transparency regarding any decisions that need to be made within budget, within or outside of budget. Ultimately, what I stress with department heads and other elected offices is that the county commission through adoption of a budget, that’s an important policy document where they’re making very clear choices about how the county’s funds should be allocated. And it’s very specific line to line. So a lot of times I’ll have a department head come to me and say, oh, I’m going to spend less on this line, and I want to spend more on that line. And one thing I’m constantly stressing is that that wasn’t the intent of the budget when it was approved. Certainly when we go through a budget amendment process, you might request a budget increase in a certain line and be able to justify that by reducing an expense in another line. But certainly, it’s important to stay faithful to the intent behind a final approved budget. A really important document. And tracking that as it goes along the year and maintaining open lines of communication with administration and leadership and setting clear expectations about communication about those budget practices is something that I’ve stressed and I will continue to take important.

[01:09:00] CELIA ALARIO: Thank you, Gabriel. To you, Kenneth Minor. All righty.

[01:09:00] KENNETH MINOR: Gabe got it right. The budgets are important. The budget is a very public process on setting that up. The state actually says you can’t spend money in in ways that exceed your budgetary… What you what you said you’re gonna And and and, yeah, things happen. I mean, price of gas goes to $9 a gallon. The departments… The road department’s gonna need some more money. They need some some heads up that they’re going to need that, and so that’s one of the things that we need to do is we need to make sure the county commission and the departments, they know where they’re sitting, as they go throughout the year on regular updates. So, you know, you’re getting close. Your your expenses are going here. And like Gabe said, it’s communication. You communicate with the department and say, they they they can see where their expenses are coming. They can see where the emergencies happen, where those emergency funds are gonna be needed. And they bring those back and say, okay. What are we gonna be be able to do? How are we approaching that budget, and are we going to need some changes? The process is built for changes. That’s why we have those amended budgets. They’re a public process, and it’s important to spend the money the way you’re gonna… The way you say you’re gonna spend the money. He… Really good point. It’s it’s… Line items are important. They’re important in the budget. It’s important in policy. It’s important to spend the money where you tell the public you’re going to spend the money. Keep it in the right category. Keep it in the right fund. Keep it in… Within the bounds that that budget sets. And when things happen, you go. You do the budget amendment. You you go to the commission and say, we’ve we’ve got a problem here. How do we wanna deal with it? Are you gonna come up with some money more here? Where is it gonna come from? And and how are you gonna balance it all? And so that budget process is really important on both ends, on the front end to be as accurate as possible, and on the back end to make sure that that’s really where the money’s going. Is it really coming out of the right budget item? Is it really coming out of the right line item? And and it’s keep… It’s keeping the accounting up to date, consistent, and feedback to both the departments and the commission so people know where they’re sitting. And and and that’s the import… That’s that’s the way you keep a budget. Life happens. Things get complicated, but there’s a process built for that. Primarily, you got those budget amendments, and you can go in. You make changes where you need to, but we need to stick to that. If a department is consistently going over budget, they got a problem. That problem may be they don’t know how to make a budget in the first place, But but it’s it’s it’s planning, and stick to where you where you spend… Where you say you’re gonna spend the money.

[01:11:36] MARGARET OSBORNE: Thank you very much. Now for our next question, we’ll start with Kenneth Minor. You have two minutes to answer the following question. The county’s ongoing internal audits have raised questions about priorities, public transparency, and this office’s workload. If elected, how would you work with the independent auditors and the commission to support timely, accurate audits while maintaining the office’s other functions?

[01:11:59] KENNETH MINOR: That’s a mouthful because that audit… That office is busy. It has a lot of things going on, but this is perhaps one of my biggest priorities. I speak the language. I have an understanding of accounting principles, of finance principles. I’ve been involved in the tax accounting world for twenty six years now, and and I speak the auditor’s language. This year, I was fortunate to be able to be involved in the audit of one of the special service districts. And the auditor came, and the next thing we knew, he’s dealing with me, the youngest member on that board. And I asked him, why are you talking to me? I’m not the treasurer. I’m not the the senior member of the board. This is my first year on this board. And he came and says, it’s because you speak my language. You understand what I’m asking, and that speeds up the process. It makes it faster. It makes it more accurate. And so that’s one of the things that I wanna do is bring my experience in accounting and accounting principles to help make that process faster and cleaner. Another big part of it is having the records ready when it’s time to start the audit. That was one of the things that they brought up is is the books weren’t ready to start the audit when it came time to start the audit, And and and a lot of that just takes experience. How do you how do you allocate things? How do you categorize things? There was some discrepancy and some and some questions about, is this a capital asset? Is this not a capital asset? And and and having them mixed together and having to sift through categories to pull out those capital assets that need to be written off over a longer period of time on some of the financial statements. And I’ve done that for years, and and that’s my thing. And so this is my field. I’m a numbers guy. I like numbers. They like me back. And this is… I am passionate about this audit process and making sure that it gets clean, fast, and rebuild our reputation with the state auditors and the internal auditors. Thanks.

[01:13:39] MODERATOR: Thank you. Gabriel, over to you.

[01:13:39] GABRIEL WOYTEK: I also have a tremendous amount of experience in government accounting, specifically with Grand County’s books and Grand County’s finances. I’ve gone through several audit processes in my time here, And we’ve come back with clean audits. Are there audits with recommendations? Absolutely. Are there areas for improvement? Absolutely. And ultimately, that’s why the process of auditing when I stepped into this role, wasn’t sure, are these guys like, do I, how do I interact with these guys? Is this a tense situation? And one thing I’ve learned in working with auditors is that ultimately they’re there to look through the books, make sure that everything is operating in good faith, which under my leadership, it absolutely has. And to recognize areas for improvement for the office, because they provide a very specific forensic accounting role. They look through all the processes and they see where there are weaknesses. And in Grand County and in my office, certainly we’re operating with limited resources. That’s the fact, that’s the reality, and that’s not going to change. And the fact of the matter is I have a team that loves working for me. I have a great team. And they respond to the feedback that I need to give them about what processes we need to improve or change in order to manage the demand that we have and continue to implement improvements so any potential hiccups or problems can be caught before they happen.

[01:15:28] CELIA ALARIO: Thank you. We are going to flip a coin to see who answers this next question. So if it’s heads, Gabriel will answer first. And if it’s tails, Kenneth, you’ll answer first. You’ll have up to two minutes to answer the question. It’s tails. It’s tails. Okay. So, Kenneth, you’ll go first. And here’s the question. How would you make sure local elections remain secure while maintaining public confidence in the elections process?

[01:15:57] KENNETH MINOR: This is one thing that our office does really well. I remember years ago, I had some com… Some conversations with Gabe over the election process, and and it was a fun conversation because if if you wanna see something that he is really passionate about, it’s elections. So, yeah, I’m kinda stumping for Gabe on this particular topic because this is his gig. Okay? And and and it… It’s maintaining what we’ve already got. We’ve we’ve got staff there that know the process. This process of of of becoming a candidate, has been clear. I’ve gone into that office, and the deputy clerk was there to help me, walk me through stuff. And when deputy clerk isn’t there, somebody else steps in. The office works well together on this election process. There’s always questions. People are concerned about, are people really appropriately being registered to vote? What… And and those questions can be answered. I think Grand County is doing a good job with elections. That’s why we we do those… We do them well. And it’s just communication, and and where where people have concerns, answer the concerns best we can. All about communication on this one. But Grand County does elections really well.

[01:17:10] MARGARET OSBORNE: Over to you, Gabriel.

[01:17:10] GABRIEL WOYTEK: So, yeah, I… I’m really proud, as Ken mentioned, to to have established myself, in the… In a community of clerks in the state of Utah amongst 29 county clerks, and also in a national community of elections officials. It’s a really hard time for election officials. There’s people retiring, dropping out because of the abuse surrounding misinformation and conspiracy that surrounds elections. And we take that… I take very seriously standing up to that misinformation that’s being made in bad faith that’s never been presented with a shred of evidence. But also we have to take that hand in hand with our constant drive to improve and make more secure the integrity of our elections. And certainly that’s something that I’ve been identified in the state in regards to rural elections administration offices. I’ve been asked by the Lieutenant Governor’s Office, me and my team, to present to other rural counties on things like voter registration and ballot processing Because they see what we’re doing in Grand County and they really like what we’re able to do with the resources that we have. And I’m really proud of that. Ultimately, I’m here to protect vote by mail because I think that that’s a system that Utahns trust. And I think when we’re talking about maintaining the trust of the population, when we’re implementing all sorts of changes and we’re doing that without any real evidence, we’re fixing problems that don’t exist, it tends to start to compromise the trust of the public in the system when the system changes every election cycle. So we’re constantly trying to improve, and we’re also just making sure to push back on unnecessary legislation that changes the system and makes it confusing to voters.

[01:19:03] MARGARET OSBORNE: Thank you very much. And we will move on to our closing statements. Gabriel Woytek, we’ll have you go first.

[01:19:11] GABRIEL WOYTEK: Thanks. I’m really proud to serve as the Grand County Clerk Auditor. I’ve lived and served in this community for a very long time, including as a DJ into the… In this booth. I don’t know if any listeners remember or Latino or Hip Hop nine eleven or Manteca. But anyway, I’ve been active and involved in this community. I’ve been in county government for six years, including four and onetwo years as the clerk auditor. It’s a really broad and complex role. It’s so much more than just the accounting, the budget, the elections. It’s business licenses, it’s marriage licenses, it’s certified tax rates, property tax appeals, coordination with all the offices. It’s a really key administrative role. And I’ve built up a tremendous amount of institutional knowledge that’s extremely valuable to the county. And it’s really important that I stay in this role. I’m excited to do this role. It’s hard. It’s challenging. But I’m not backing down and I never have. This office had been a revolving door before I stepped into it. And so the stability that I’m going to bring by completing another term is really incredibly important. I serve with integrity and professionalism that residents can count on that they know me for. And I improved several functions that run through my office. And that’s what residents should expect. That’s what I’ve proven to do. Modernizing things like credit card payments and online notices and online applications, those simple things that do so much to boost efficiency and effectiveness in an office, I’m here to do that. I’m here to continue to do that. I’m aware of where all of those improvements can continue to be made. I’ve run eight clean elections and developed into a leader in elections administration. This is my calling. This is my career. I’m committed to continuing to dedicate my professional prime in this role. I love this job. I’ve developed my tight knit team, and I’ve built up a lot of great momentum that I’m excited to continue. Thank you.

[01:20:55] MODERATOR: And, Kenneth Minor, over to you.

[01:21:16] KENNETH MINOR: Alrighty. The clerk’s office does have a lot going on. It has a lot of very important features between… And I’m glad I’m glad it brought up the business licenses, marriage licenses, keeping track of records, the elections, the the the finance roles are varied, the property tax issues are complicated. I’ve got twenty six years of accounting experience and and and twenty six years of experience in Moab helping people from a wide variety of backgrounds, a wide variety of opinions, and and cultures. And and and I’ve got experience in things from construction to farming to to retail to restaurants, and I see what happens in this town. I see how people work in this town. And and part of what I wanna do is help people start businesses, help people with that business license process, make it easier to get into business, make it easier to succeed, to support your family. Golly. In the tax world, it’s like, okay. How many people in Moab have a side job? A lot. I caught the Moab thing. You gotta do that to survive in this town because it’s expensive. Gabe’s done a great job with elections. He has established great procedures in there. He’s also developed staff really well. The way the system’s designed is that institutional knowledge is held within those deputy clerks. They each have areas of primary responsibility, and they can do that. And I wanna continue to help re… Help support and build the strength and and and flexibility of that staff. I have spent years developing employees and teaching employees, and I love that process of helping people learn. But now is the time where I think our county really needs the focus on finance and accounting. We’ve been in the paper too many times. We don’t have a good reputation with the state auditors. We don’t have the reputation and name that we should have as Grand County at the state level. I will work on that. That will be my focus. I will support the entire staff. I’ll work with the entire staff. Continue the great things Gabe’s been doing. Thanks. I appreciate your support. Thank you so much.

[01:23:17] MARGARET OSBORNE: Thank you to our candidates, Gabriel Woytek and Kenneth Minor, And thank you for all of our candidates who joined us here today and everyone who tuned in on the radio or on kzmu.org. Reminder, election day is on November 3 here in Grand County.

[01:23:31] CELIA ALARIO: Yes. Indeed, listener. The deadline to register to vote online or by mail is October 23, but you can still register in person on election day in Grand County.