Reconvened at 4:07 p.m.
INTERVIEW: CHARLES MAJOR
Slockett explained that in this interview he would be asking the questions and that Supervisor candidate Charles Major could begin his opening statement.
Major said that he is 49 and he has lived in the Iowa City area off and on since 1972. Major said he has also lived in Lexington Kentucky, Florida and Virginia. Major said he went to Drake University. He said he liked Iowa City and has been with the Veteran's Administration for about 28 years and has a lot of government experience. Major said if he gets the Supervisor job he will retire and that he is able to do that because they had 25 years any age rules. Major said he was on the Mental Health/Developmental Disabilities Board as an ex-officio member for about a year. Major said he is now on the Iowa City Human Rights Commission. Major said he liked the Planning Council and met all of the Supervisors and learned a lot about County Government.
Slockett asked Major what are County Government's strengths and weaknesses and how would he enhance the strengths and address the weaknesses. Major said the County Government's strengths are it's people and also the involvement of the community. Major said this area was very community oriented. Major said this was a strength. Major said the employees in County Government are good employees and put in a hard days work. Major said a weakness was that not all county offices are open long enough. Major said also that when you sell your car it's hard to do it because you have to have an odometer statement and this could be handled by sending something out to everybody. Major said the Auditor's Office was smart by staying open until 6:00. Major said the other interfaces with the people are good. Major said that Johnson County's growth was both a plus and a minus. Major said to enhance the strengths he would push for more training. He said at the VA they've committed themselves to spending more time on training. He said they are down to 20 hours and are going to soon start requiring 40 hours a year per employee on training and he suggested this for the County. Major said to address the weaknesses he would just expand some of the operation hours. He said there aren't too many weaknesses. Major said there was a problem with Iowa City and a problem with parochialism between Coralville and Iowa City and everybody should work together. Major said Lexington, Kentucky was all one local government. Major suggested this to think about in Johnson County.
Slockett asked if Major was in favor of restructuring County Government and/or hiring a County manager. Major said he would be in favor of restructuring County Government. He said eventually he would like to drastically restructure Johnson County. He said he would like to do something like what they do in Lexington, Kentucky. Major said he wasn't in favor of laying off people or taking them off the job. Major said he didn't know about hiring a County Manager, but right now he would say no. He said he likes how things are going and how things operate. Major said he didn't like how the City of Iowa City City Manager runs everything. Major said the City Manager tells the City Council more than he likes. Major stated it wold cost a lot to get a County Manager and he wasn't sure if they would get that much.
Slockett asked if Major feels the County has additional space needs and if so how would he address them? Major said the County does have space needs. He said when he was involved in the Planning Council the meetings were very cramped. He said DHS needs more space and there was no doubt they needed more space. He said he didn't know if he was sold on them moving some of their staff to Eastdale Mall. He suggested they look into moving into the VA Hospital. He said there are also other spaces in the County to look at. Major said the jail also needs expanded. He said the VA has a psyche area that is fairly secure and they could put some people there. Major said the Administration Building is utilized fairly reasonably and is customer friendly.
Slockett asked how Major would go about selecting from a pool of applicants to serve on various boards and commissions? Major said he would look over the applications, and talk it over with fellow Supervisors. Major said how they do it now is OK and there is enough knowledge from other Supervisors and enough information that they can make good people. Major said sometimes citizen parts are hard to fill but as far as he knows it is fairly done. Major said he would rank the applicants by what they're going to be doing on the board.
Slockett asked what Major's long range vision is for Johnson County? Major replied his long range vision would be similar to Fayette County in Kentucky where they would have only one local government. He said if that wasn't feasible he would beef up JCCOG and give it a little more teeth. Major said less parochialism and a lot more working together and the computer will be involved. He suggested in the future they sign up for license plates by computer and have them mailed out. Major said he wished there was same day voter registration here in Iowa and also if they voted on a different day of the week than Tuesday.
Slockett asked what criteria Major would use in making land use decisions. He then asked on what basis would Major make decisions concerning road improvements, maintenance, construction and roadside weed eradication. Major said on all of these decisions he would just gather as much data as he could by talking to staff and also talk among the Supervisors and the public. He said there would always be conflicts with land use. Major said he wasn't razor sharp on land use and feels much more comfortable with Mental Health. Major said they should do what's right and make the right decision. He said he didn't like the pollution from Roadside Weed Eradication. Major encouraged having an employee suggestion box to encourage innovation.
Slockett asked what Major thinks should be the County's role in protecting the environment. Major said the County should be the steward and if they don't protect it who else is going to. Major said it's the County's role to protect the environment. Major said the County Engineer and that department should protect the environment. He said he didn't want to make a vote as a Supervisors that harms the environment. Major said he has gotten a lot of information from Environmental Advocates. he said they should watch the areas around County Parks and that Kent Park is a treasure and should be treated that way.
Slockett asked Major to describe his approach to balancing economic and business interests with interests in the health and well-being of citizens, and environmental concerns. Major said there isn't any balance. He said the health of citizens is the most important. Major said it is a balancing act when you get to everything else. He said you have to balance how you grow and what you provide. He said the county is an optimum place to live because of lower taxes. Major said water is a concern also. Major said he is a stickler on health.
Slockett asked what Major's opinion of the Johnson County Comprehensive Land Use Plan is. Major said the only thing he knows about is what he ahs read in the paper. He said when they get outside the plan and run into problems that is not the way to go. Major said he would rather build on a plan than do violations to the plan.
Slockett asked what Major knows about, and what is his opinion regarding the impact and incidence of Johnson County taxes. Major said he knows about property taxes from paying them. He said that people have been telling him that taxes need to stay the same or lower but he tells them that they want a lot of services so that isn't reasonable. Major said the impact of sales taxes bothers him. Major said a fair assessment is important too. Major said he isn't sold they need to raise taxes and that the County is doing good.
Slockett asked Major how he weighs requests for spending which require tax dollars versus increasing taxes. Major said he would weigh them but he is biased to raising taxes because he doesn't agree with it. Major said he doesn't mind the request for spending but he doesn't want to increase taxes unless a good case can be made.
Slockett asked what, if anything, should be done about the nature of County tax options. Major said this was a tough one and asked what tax options meant. Major said he liked how they tax now and doesn't want to change something that works OK.
Slockett asked if Major is in favor of implementing a local option sales tax and if so for what use. Major said he was against the local option sales tax. He said he doesn't think they should do this. He said they don't really need this and he isn't sold on it. Major said the library could be built different other than another tax. Slockett said he hasn't talked to anybody in the public who is for it. Major said that Ernie Lehman is for it. Major said a lot of his union friends are against the tax. He said he will probably have more arguments against the tax by March 30th.
Slockett asked if Major had any experience putting budgets together and how he feels about performance based budgeting. Major said when he was a Supervisor for a small VA Department they had to budget once a year. He said they had to try to live in that budget but usually didn't but they could go and ask for more money. He said he has worked with budgets in the range of $100,000 to $150,000. He said he isn't very aware of performance based budgeting. He said that new ways of budgeting go around in circles. He said he wasn't really sold on it. Slockett said over the years there have been many new types of budgeting and they are all good if they give you a new perspective but none of them is the end all and be all of budgets. Major said they try different types of budgeting at the VA about every 4 years.
Slockett asked if Major was appointed and an election is called, would he seek his party's nomination? Major said he could get is nomination from his party very easy because there is not many in his party from Johnson County. He said there was a problem with the Hatch Act. He said the Hatch Act says he can't run in a partisan election and it penalizes him if he does. Would he run for reelection if appointed? Major said yes. He said that he would run another one or 2 terms. If he is not appointed, would he petition or would he run as the nominee in an election that was petitioned for? Major said he wouldn't petition if he didn't get the job and he didn't know if he would run as the nominee in an election that was petitioned for. Slockett asked if there would be a problem with Major serving if he was appointed. Major said he would have to retire from the VA.
Slockett asked Major if he was appointed when he could begin. Major said he could adjust his schedule and do things the next day. He said he would probably resign from his other job in two weeks or a month.
Slockett asked if Major had any questions of the Board Appointment Committee. Major confirmed that the job pays $31,900. He asked if there was medical insurance available. Slockett said there was healthcare for single or family that is paid entirely by the County. Slockett said there was also a term life policy and a state retirement. Major asked if the job was a full time job and if it was possible to do something else. Kriz said that question had come up from a number of the applicants and it depended on how he scheduled his things and how efficient he is at what he does. Kriz said he has talked to people who have spent 60 or 70 hours at the job and some have spent less than that. Slockett said they have had Supervisors in the past who have other jobs but most Supervisors would tell him that they spend more than 40 hours a week at their job. Major asked if he would have to drop his union activities. Slockett said that would be a call he would have to discuss with the County Attorney.
Major thanked the committee for the opportunity and said the questions were good. He said he liked the web site and was glad that the Committee interviewed everybody. Major said he liked Johnson County and growth would be a thing they would be battling with for years. He said if you don't keep up on it it's going to get out of control. He said he would really have to be sold to raise taxes. Major said he was used to negotiating with doctors and he liked the Supervisors that he has met and they would be good models for him. He said he would also like to talk to County employees and try to push a suggestion program.
Slockett thanked Major for interviewing and said it was admirable that he was willing to consider retiring early. Kriz thanked Major for his comments on Motor Vehicle. Painter thanked him for his ideas. Major asked him when they were going to make a decision. Slockett said they would probably make a decision the next day.
Recessed at 5:07 p.m.; reconvened at 5:10 p.m.