Herman Otten appointed to Lincoln County Commission District 2 seat

[Editor’s Note: Following the interviews detailed in the story below, the Lincoln County Board of Commissioners met on Tuesday, July 7, to fill the vacant District 2 commissioner seat. After voting by paper ballot, former state legislator and Tea mayor Herman Otten was selected to serve as the District 2 representative. Otten received votes from Commissioners Tiffani Landeen, Jim Schmidt, and Sheri Lund. Duane Carlson received votes from Commissioner Doug Putnam and Commissioner Joel Arends. Otten will serve the remainder of Betty Otten’s term who recently stepped down due to health concerns. A complete recap of the July 7 meeting will be featured in next week’s paper.]

The Lincoln County Board of Commissioners met Tuesday, June 30. Members heard agenda items including an agreement between Axon Inc and the Sheriff department, post-election audit results, and interviews of candidates for Commissioner District 2 vacancy.

Commissioner Doug Putnam requested commission discussion regarding the Lincoln County Justice Center be moved.  

“I’m going to table this for another time, we have things to do,” Putnam said. 

“Is that a motion you would like to make?” asked Chairwoman Tiffani Landeen. 

“I just want to withdraw it then,” Putnam responded. 

Motion to remove the discussion from Putnam, seconded by Joel Arends, motion carried. 

Sheriff Steve Swenson requested a motion to approve and authorize the chair to execute an agreement with Axon Inc for a five-year term in the amount of $192,013.41. 

“This contract is for our tasers. Currently, we have several contracts for our 36 tasers, 12 of which are expired, so they’re out of warranty. This contract won’t be costing us any more, it’s just that the parts are separate from the contract that we are paying,” Sheriff Swenson said describing the five-year contract. 

Motion was made to approve from Jim Schmidt, seconded by Arends, motion carried. 

Auditor Sherri Lund was present to give a presentation from the Auditor regarding the post-election audit results. 

“Lincoln County’s post-election audit was held on June 16 at 10 a.m. We had two boards of five members each and the audit took four hours to complete. Overall, the post-election audit went very well. The primary election had a total of 14,117 ballots cast. The audited ballots totaled 1,343 which would be around 9.51% of the total ballots,” Lund said. 

The team also audited Sioux Falls 114, United States Representative and Sioux Falls Charter Amendment B, Sioux Falls 210. One unstamped ballot was reported in the Sioux Falls 114 which was not counted. No action was needed on Lund’s report. 

Interviews of candidates for Commissioner District 2 vacancy were held. Applicants included Brandon Maddox, Madeline Voegeli, Linda Montgomery, Duane Carlson, Herman Otten, Eric Eneboe, James Kats, Nicholas Abbas, Chad Skiles, and Sara Steever. 

Brandon Maddox: “I’ve lived in the county a little over 20 years, started my business here, Silencer Central, from my house in Lincoln County,  raised our daughters here, and called Lincoln County home for over 20 years. Why now is the question I get asked and at Silencer Central over the last 24 months, we’ve transitioned our leadership team. I’m the CEO which transitioned me to more of a non-involvement in daily activities so my role is as a visionary in the organization and we’ve done that transition in the last 24 months. The goal was if a public opportunity position opened, that’s what I had interest in, that’s why I was the first to submit interest in this,” Maddox said. “My goal would be to bring a completely different perspective, to compliment the current commissioners and bring what I feel would be a different perspective,” he continued. 

Commissioner Arends asked Maddox how he feels about dairies, hyper scale data centers, and the prison.

 “Being a resident of Lincoln County, I was pleased to see the prison is not coming to Lincoln County, it’s actually going closer towards my business, which I’m fine with. As far as the process the county and the state went though, as an outsider, I felt like it was being pushed down Lincoln County’s throat by previous Governor Noem, and when they were met with resistance, they were looking for a way to get it through. I don’t have a lot of comment on the process, but I’m very pleased with the outcome and I applaud Lincoln County coming together and putting together a force so that it didn’t come to Lincoln County because I don’t think it was the best place. I don’t have a ton of insight on dairies, I can tell you when I was a kid I raised dairy cattle, but I’m not an expert. I’m not a complete expert in data centers. I think that if something was trying to come to Lincoln County we would have to assess it on a situational basis, but I think there’s probably better places in the state than Lincoln County. I do see needs for data centers, but not necessarily in Lincoln County,” Maddox added. 

Madeline Voegeli: “My husband and I are lifelong residents of District 2 in Lincoln County. I serve as a small business owner in the county, I serve as a mother, and I serve as an educator. Professionally, my husband and I own a small concrete business that serves Lincoln County. I serve as a professor of education at the University of Sioux Falls to teach educators how to teach, and I also serve as the director of the education specialist programs at the University of Sioux Falls,” she said.  

Commissioner Putnam asked Voegeli how often she attends commissioner meetings or views them online. 

“Multiple, I would say over 10 for sure, I can’t count them on both hands, Doug,” she responded. 

Commissioner Schmidt asked how Voegeli plans to motivate staff members for the work they do. 

“The most important thing that you will build around that are the relationships. You come before meetings you stay after meetings, you know the staff, and I think that’s incredibly important and that’s something that I strive to do in my professional role as well,” she responded. 

Linda Montgomery: “I stand here before as a candidate for Betty Otten’s job. The most important things you need to know about me are that I believe in my Lord Jesus Christ and my commitment to him is to serve him and my fellow man. The next is I’m a retired Master Sergeant from the United States Army Reserve with 23 years of service and there my commitment was to serve and protect the constitution of the United States from enemies foreign and domestic. Very important to me, always have been. The other commitment I have is that I am a retired nurse practitioner. That encompassed my whole adult life basically was medicine. I always wasn’t a nurse practitioner, but one commitment there is to do no harm. My party affiliation is Republican, same as Commissioner Otten, and she won the general election which means she was competing against other parties,” she said. 

Commissioner Schmidt asked Montgomery what she feels the biggest challenge Lincoln County is facing. 

“I think one of our biggest challenges is that we have a comprehensive plan, but the difficulty will be staying within that comprehensive plan because it’s really easy to take one step out of that comprehensive plan and keep going because something sounds good for Lincoln County,” she responded.

Commissioner Schmidt asked Carlson what a burning issue for him is that has made him want to run for County Commissioner. 

“Personnel, I think you can have a system that works great for personnel that is a reward system where when that individual goes over and above what they are supposed to do that’s where you need to reward that individual. We have to have good employees in order to make things work right and the county needs people that understand that there are multiple sections here of development and agricultural land and we need people to distinguish between those and I feel that I am one of those people that can distinguish between those situations,” he said.

Herman Otten: “Everybody here knows me, my name is Herman, I’ve been a lifelong resident of the district and I’ve served in a lot of different capacities. Myself and my family are life long residents of Lincoln County with many of those years living in Tea, my father was born in a house that still stands in Tea. We now have lived twelve years on an acreage/hobby farm in-between Tea and Lennox where we raise chickens, horses, goats, mini cows, sweetcorn and a little aphala. My wife and I have a blended family with three awesome kids, Ally and Hayden graduated from Tea Area High School and Andi from Harrisburg High School. Ally graduated from SDSD, Andi attends SDSD and Hayden attends USD. Our roots run deep in Lincoln County,” he said. “I have always been a firm believer of good government and that takes people who are willing to give their time to serve. In 1996 at the age of 28 I was elected as Mayor of Tea during a very tough time for the city but with a lot of hard work we went from having a city hall packed with unhappy citizens every meeting to being lucky if anyone showed up to a meeting. During my years I have been elected to served on the City Council in Tea for nine years, eight years in the State House of Representatives and four years to the State Senate. Thirty years of that time I also served on the Tea Volunteer Fire Department holding the positions of president, captain and 1st assistant chief,” he continued. 

Commissioner Putnam asked what Otten’s thoughts are on the farming community in the southern portion of Lincoln County. 

“Lincoln County is still an agricultural county yet. If you could just get rid of the top ten miles of Lincoln County, I know it’s all corns and beans and hogs, and cattle and dairies. I live on an acreage between Tea and Lennox, the Poppens family has a cattle feed lot a mile north of me and another one three miles south of me and I don’t have a problem with it and I don’t think anyone else does. I think those are important components of the agricultural community,” he responded. 

Eric Eneboe: “I probably would not be here except for the requests and encouragements of my constituents urging me to interview for this position. Although I did have one friend say why would you do that, now you’re going to get all that hate mail,” he joked. “Many of you know I grew up in Highland Township on a family farm adjacent to where my great grandfather homesteaded in 1868. Times were tough back there and they were in 1980 so my dad encouraged me to stay in school and get one of those cushy office jobs where I didn’t need to work so hard and make a little bit of money. After my father died and 10 years in the aerospace industry, I decided I didn’t want to work for one company all my life and I felt the responsibilities of the farm and its conservation so I moved back to South Dakota to continue the farming operation. People in Utah thought that was a marvelous idea and the people here thought is he crazy? I’ve been at it now for over 30 years,” he continued. 

Eneboe has worked for the county as a part-time building inspector to enforce building codes. 

“As a leader, I have always felt that it’s my responsibility for the actions for the people in my department and the people working for me. As you know, we’ve never had a building official and as an inspector, I did my best to fill that position as well as my inspections. I was honored to be asked to serve on the township board a few years ago it has given me the opportunity to appreciate all of the hard work that the auditor does and the board of equalization. I firmly believe that agriculture is vital to our nation, our state, and Lincoln County,” he said. 

Commissioner Schmidt asked how Eneboe would go about recognizing the challenges that are facing the residents of Tea, Lennox or Harrisburg. 

“I’d ask a lot of questions because as of now I do not know all their issues that they’re facing and I realize that so I’d contact the planning and zoning and have them contact us as commissioners to do their best in order to answer their questions,” he said. 

Nicholas Abbas: “I’ve lived here my entire life, I grew up on a farm and the only time I was gone was four years of college before moving back onto the family farm and right after college, I started a business from nothing and I’ve been doing that for the past 21 years. I am a fourth generation farmer and on Planning and Zoning for Worthing as well as the Lennox Area Community Fund Board. I’ve been involved with the town, other organizations, other committees, and involved with a lot of things around,” he said. 

Commissioner Landeen stated that public safety is the number one job of the county commission to provide for its constituents and asked how Abbas would go about digging into the rural ambulance issues Lincoln County is currently facing. 

“That’s one that at the moment I don’t have the perfect answer for. It’s a tough issue because serving a rural community is tough and expensive but in order to stop doing it or providing it we need to do something, so I think potentially it would just have to start with getting a committee together to start looking at stuff, getting experts in, without us just saying what we’re going to do, getting outside opinions, getting the community involved,” he said. 

James Kats: “I was born and raised just West of Hudson on the family farm where my parents have been farming my whole life. I went off to college in Sioux County where I got my bachelor’s in finance and accounting. I love number crunching, looking at statistics and spreadsheets. I love finding the story behind the numbers as well. Any time there is a number there’s a story as to why it is that way. I graduated college in 2008 when nobody was hiring finance and accounting people, so I tried all the small areas and couldn’t land a job and so I moved up to Sioux Falls as most of the people in my class did, lived up there for quite a while, got married and had kids and wanted to get back to the agricultural community that I grew up on, we purchased an acreage just north of Canton and moved there a few years back,” he said. 

Commissioner Schmidt asked Kats what the biggest attribute he would bring to the commission. 

“I enjoy numbers quite a bit, I enjoy spreadsheets or anything you can dump into Excel and look at, I’ll look at for hours. But mostly, I enjoy people, I enjoy getting to know the stories of people and understanding them. Anytime there’s some of my employees that I don’t see regularly, I love stopping in and see how things are going and knowing how things are going with their families, what’s concerning with them, and I believe in getting to know the employees of the county and getting to know what struggles they’re facing with as far as the county is concerned because they interact with it day to day and helping to plan ways to assist in those areas,” Kats responded. 

Chad Skiles: “I reside here in Canton, I have been a resident of Lincoln County for 50 years since my family moved to Canton as a young child. And I grew up, went to school, and have worked my entire life here in Canton and Lincoln County. My primary background is in public service. I have been an EMT in Canton, Lennox, Lincoln County, State of South Dakota, for 42 years. So public safety and healthcare is in my blood. But I also have a background in other areas of public safety. Back in the 1990’s when Lincoln County was ten times smaller than it is today, I was a 911 dispatcher, worked my way up and became the 911 director and was also the emergency management director, so I have a lot of ties to Lincoln County. Lincoln County is my home. Along with myself, my family all still reside in Lincoln County,” he said. 

Commissioner Schmidt asked Skiles what he thinks the largest role of a commissioner is. 

“I think the biggest thing is being open and transparent with the citizens and interacting with the citizens. I think it’s really important that we utilize the opinions, the facts, the research, the homework that the citizens do when they come to the commission and to keep an open ear and an open mind to involving the citizens during discussions or debate when there is a big issue on the plate,” he responded. 

Sara Steever: “My husband and I live in Perry Township, and I grew up on a farm like many of the people who’ve interviewed here tonight and I married into a family who lives on the farm that’s been there since 1892. My son and his wife, along with my husband and myself have two houses on the quarter section that we live on will be the sixth John Steever to live on that farm,” she said. “I graduated from USD and was an artist, and I started at an agency in Sioux Falls and I ended up being on their leadership team as a part owner for the last 30 of the 34 years I worked there, I just recently retired. I was the president of the company for seven years so I am very familiar with what it takes to hire people and not hire just people, but the families that come with them and how important that is to have relationships with them and see them beyond just their roles. My husband and I have also run a bed and breakfast for the last 29 years and have agritourism, we run some cattle, some sheep, some chickens, and some bees,” she continued. 

Commissioner Arends was the first to ask Steever a question. “As you brought up, and I’ll put it in my words, God’s not making more land and the issues that folks in Southern Lincoln County are grappling with is how the government regulate and treats what’s going to go on the land and what’s not going to go on the land, what are your thoughts on the rules of the comprehensive plan and the dairies?” 

“I think livestock is essential to keeping agriculture alive in rural Lincoln County. Because there is no more land and you want to bring your family back into the operation, often times that’s through livestock development I think where it gets dicey is when things just get too big, too many head, too many animal units, and we overwhelm environmentally the system. So that’s where it’s a challenge and I think you can have two similarly sized  places and have one with really good practices and one with not really good practices and you end up with a good neighbor and a bad neighbor. The bad neighbor is where we run into issues. Larger dairies have their own challenges environmentally, but they also have challenges for the dairy operator in terms of profitability and so that’s really the challenge is what’s the size of the operation that’s actually profitable and can run and still not overwhelm the area around it with the practices just by virtue of the fact that they’ve got so many animal units,” she responded. 

Chairwoman Landeen thanked each of the candidates for coming. The balloting along with commission discussion will happen at the next Commission meeting scheduled July 7.