Web exclusive: Vernon Berens county commission candidate
By KALEY LYON klyon@dailynews.net
HDN: What is your stance on the proposed Ellis County wind farm projects? What benefits or concerns do you foresee?
VB: "My stance on the wind farm is, as usual, I'm for the wind farm. We need to look into the future for additional revenues down the pipe.
"If we would take the oil out of Ellis County we would know what Ellis County would be like, as far as mill levy and so on. This is an added revenue for this county. I see it as beneficial, maybe.
"Maybe the location is always a question a little bit wherever we would place them. You'd always have somebody against it.
"Even when we put Commerce Parkway in or Interstate 70, there were people against that.
"But my stance is I'm for the wind farm, I'm for alternate energy.
"If we don't want the wind farm, we don't want the coal and we don't want nuclear -- it's not going to fall out of the sky.
"I am supportive of it."
When the wind farm came before county commissioners last September, Berens voted in favor of the issuing the conditional use permit.
HDN: What are your thoughts on the current county-wide zoning process?
VB: "I was 100 percent against county-wide zoning when I first ran in '96.
"But when the landfill wanted to come in north of Hays and take all of our trash on 183 and so on, which we had no control over, then I was convinced that zoning at this point and time is necessary in Ellis County.
"So I am for zoning.
"If we did not have zoning, the wind farm, they could put it in. We would have no control over anything. And we have commissioners that are calling us for the wind farm."
HDN: What do you perceive the relationship between the county commission and the planning commission to be? Any changes you would propose?
VB: "The only thing with this process, it's going go take time to make some changes in the zoning regulations and so on and there are people that would want it done overnight.
"And that's not going to happen. Nor are we ever going to have a complete set of regulations that would be perfect. It will not meet, satisfy every person.
"I think the attempts are here and with a slow process, I think we will make some gains."
HDN: What are your thoughts on space needs issues, and of the proposed Hadley Center relocation?
VB: "Whether it's the best option or not, it's an option. If it is protested down and is put to the vote of the people the people will decide whether we go there or not. "And that's the democratic process and that's good. And we will then proceed some other avenue.
"As far as having to do something, yes. This courthouse is going to have to be locked up because of safety issues.
"There isn't any question other counties are much more secure than ours. "Anybody could walk in with a weapon, a knife, which has happened in recent months.
"We've had a shooting in Hays, and so on.
"Even our space needs has grown also with computers and so on, and we do need to do something with that.
"Whether this happens at Hadley or not will remain to be seen. It will take its way through the process."
HDN: How do you view relations between Ellis County and the communities within? Do you believe anything could be done to improve city/county relations?
VB: "I think we've made some progress.
"Whether it's adequate or not, I would have to say no, I think there's some roadways to be opened yet and definitely to make some progress in that direction.
"I feel that we've made progress and we need to continue to work on that relationship between the cities and the community because Ellis County is a very nice place to live."
HDN: With taxes on the rise from last year to this year, and local property values also increasing, how does this affect the local budget? What are your thoughts about the current finance formula?
VB: "With the oil and the current increase in valuation, of course we also have increase and we also have extra needs, such as fuel and salaries and purchase of equipment.
"How the increase in valuation and all of this fixes into the mill levy will remain to be seen until we get it back from the auditors and we will take a very good look.
"If we have to make some cuts, we will make some cuts. We're not going to have this mill levy jump out of proportion."
"We've done that in the past, we've made cuts.
"We sit here with a 37 mill and the other counties surrounding us are sitting here with 68, 70 and 80 mill levies.
"We're lucky, because of the oil.
HDN: Should the mill levy be reduced to compensate for increased valuation?
VB: "If we could reduce the price of fuel from four dollars to two dollars a gallon for fuel, and reduce our grader from 200 and some thousand to 100 and some thousand, what it was three years ago, and salaries -- these are all increases.
"We have to understand that our utilities and software and computers all cost in increases.
"Where is this increase to come from? If we have a valuation increase and oil production increase this is good. This will offset that.
But that we can take all of that and subtract off the mill levy totally and keep subtracting, someplace you'll keep subtracting until you get to zero. And we know that doesn't work."
HDN: Why did you decide to run for office?
VB: "I decided to run for another term of office because of public request. I have an interest in public office since 1973, at which I ran for the first time for public office.
"I've enjoyed it. I enjoy working with people and I try to use good common sense in the judgement of whatever needs to be done."
HDN: Any other issue you would like to address?
VB: "One thing we didn't talk about, and that's the landfill issue. We definitely have a need.
"We need to look at, with the fuel costs, of how we can solve our landfill issue. And that will definitely be in the next four years. That was one of the reasons, also that I ran."