Lewis 'Lewie' Rich

1. The current and previous boards have done several things creating terrible employee morale and many questions about possible illegal meetings.

2. I have experience operating a small business in Bonner County for almost 29 years. I have also been a Northside Fire Department commissioner for almost 12 years.

3. I believe the comp plan, which was developed while I was a county commissioner, to be a living document and should be reviewed at least every couple of years. This apparently has not happened, for what reason I don’t know. I be- lieve the plan developed a few years back headed us in the right direction.

4. Re- store em- ployee relations and use fair and common sensical processes to all aspects of county government.

5. Restore public trust by having transparency in the weekly meeting, including open discussion about topics other than regular business items.

6. Not keeping a sense of the history and community most long-termers have about living here.

7. Old-timers and long-termers acceptance of newbies as long as they don’t want to fix this beautiful place.

8. The county will most certainty lose the lawsuits already filed, with more to come, possibly rendering the county uninsurable.

9. Restoring employee relations like I had when I was a county commissioner. Restoring confidence in local government by exhibiting real conservatism, comment sense and non-extremist views.

11. My competition sees the current board actions as above criticism. He is also backed by a very extremist political faction representing themselves as Republicans.

12. I’ve been attacked in the Daily Bee, singularly, not including any other members of the boards on which I served. It has and always will require a two-thirds vote to get things passed by the board. Any questions about my decisions as a previous commissioner, ethics or morales will be dealt with open, honest and candid answers!

13. Having real experience, operating a small business in Bonner County for 29 years, gives one a real awareness of Bonner County economics.

Also my experience gained from 55 cumulative years of volunteer service has proven to be invaluable to me and given me a real sense of community.

14. Do you think the current board of commissioners are doing a good job managing our county business? What do you think of the current board’s actions regarding Priest Lake property assessments and also the same question regarding upper Pack River properties assessments? Do you think that taxes collected and placed in reserves for specific projects should only be spent on what they were collected for?