Commission votes Herman Otten into vacant District 2 seat

The Lincoln County Board of Commissioners met Tuesday, July 7.

The first order of business was to discuss and appoint a Commissioner to fill the District 2 vacancy held by Betty Otten. Candidates included Madeline Voegeli, Linda Montgomery, Duane Carlson, Herman Otten, Eric Eneboe, James Kats, Nicholas Abbas, Chad Skiles, and Sara Steever with Brandon Maddox voluntarily withdrawing his name from consideration. Chief Civil Deputy State’s Attorney, Drew DeGroot was present to review the rules and procedures for selecting the new county commissioner. 

Commissioner Doug Putnam asked for Auditor Sheri Lund to take a seat at the commission table as the Auditor is the acting commissioner for the fulfillment of the vacancy. The commission chose to nominate the new commissioner through the ballot process. Chairwoman Tiffani Landeen opened the meeting with public comment and Eric Scott was the first to speak. 

“I hope you all received the message that I sent and had a chance to read it. I thank you for those that responded to me. This is an interesting process that we’re in and I’ve spent a great deal of time thinking about this decision. My perspective comes from my own research as a lifelong resident of District 2, my time on the planning commission, my time as a supervisor in Highland Township and the many conversations that I’ve had with people in District 2. My time serving on the planning commission gave me a deep appreciation and understanding of the comprehensive plan and knowing that the goals, vision, and opportunities in District 2 are drastically different than those in District 1, 3, 4, and 5 and all more important that we have someone in this role that understands those differences and can represent the people from District 2,” he said. 

Eric Eneboe was next to speak. 

“During our meeting last week I thought this must be very difficult for you to choose one person. You all must have the one person in mind that you think would make a good new commissioner and at the same time you have all these candidates expressing interest. A few days ago, after much praying, the spirit reminded me this doesn’t need to be a difficult decision for you or for me. So even though you might all choose me, I am withdrawing my interest as serving as a commissioner and whole heartedly endorse Duane Carlson,” he said. 

Linda Montgomery also stood to withdraw her name. 

“I do want to put in a plug for two of the most qualified people who should be sitting in that seat. They’re both good, strong republicans and they know Lincoln County. Those two people are Duane Carlson and Sara Steever,” Montgomery said. 

In the first round of ballots, commissioners voted: Joel Arends voted for Duane Carlson, Tiffani Landeen voted for Herman Otten, Doug Putnam voted for Duane Carlson, Jim Schmidt voted for Herman Otten, and Sherri Lund voted for Herman Otten. 

Herman Otten was voted in 3 to 2. Otten was sworn in and took his seat at the desk.

Highway Superintendent, Terry Fluit was present for the budget work session. 

“In the budget sheets it shows $8.3 million in my project line item. After we had initially published this when we presented it in June, just because of the4 extreme number that we have for cash applied to the highway and I wanted to break it down better for you guys so we are having another account number for us, and that’s going to be our road and bridge materials for internal use. Anything that’s going in the budget except 4229. That is a line item that currently has everything in there. My idea it to break this out because right now some of the funds that are coming out of that line item are operating at a maintenance cost and I want to show you what we are spending on actual projects throughout the county,” Fluit said. 

Commissioner Putnam asked if the cost on the roundabout would be Lincoln County’s cost? 

“It will be our cost as we’re going to bill the other entities so we will end up expending that money, but I do have revenues in the revenue side to show revenues for that percentage to be paid back,” Fluit responded. 

With being a work session, no action was taken, the board thanked Fluit for his time.