The present Otter Tail County (Minn.) Board is trying to govern as if we had a 2 million-plus population. We are over-regulated and over-taxed. The board has relinquished 90 percent of its duties to the coordinator and all the experts and specialists it has hired.
The secretary to the board must be installed by referendum, but the board calls him a coordinator to get around this. They should eliminate the coordinator and the office and give it back to the auditor, where it belongs. They should eliminate all experts and specialists and give their duties back to the departments, where they belong. Here are the salaries and budgets for these experts:
Larry Krohn, coordinator - $78,900; $366,677.
Tim Brand, Management Info. systems - $66,288; $681,848.
Tiny Holm, Safety and Emergency Services - $39,996; $79,016.
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Mike Hanan, Solid Waste director - $72,588; $3,817,961. (Included in Hanan's operating budget is $808,902 for the Fergus Falls incinerator.)
Rick Systma, planner for county building - $67,850; $1,349,780.
All the major cities in the United States use landfills. Why does Fergus Falls need a high cost incinerator, with high maintenance and high dumping fees? Solid waste? It has been proven without a doubt that the only recycling that pays is iron, and free enterprise gets most of that.
This county board is the biggest and wildest spending Otter Tail County has ever had - and to top it off, they pay themselves $25,000 a year plus expenses and benefits.
Something should be done with that insult to the tax-payers on the Regional Treatment grounds. Either open the north side to the public, or make more entrances on the other side.
Andy Leitch
Underwood, Minn.
