Barry Moehring, the 49-year-old District 15 justice of the peace on the Benton County Quorum Court, has campaigned for county judge vigorously on the proposition that county government needs a plan.
A plan for this. A plan for that.
Listen to him for very long and it's easy to start thinking he's more suited to be a city's mayor, or perhaps a top executive in a corporation. In both of those positions, it's far easier to develop five-year or 10-year plans for action than it is in county government.
In Arkansas, county leaders are elected every two years. By design, counties operate a bit more in the present than through long-term plans because very little can be locked into place to put a plan into action. Members of the Quorum Court, who allocate the funding, can shift every other year. They cannot commit future years' dollars, so it's unrealistic, for example, for a county judge to nail down the specifics of a plan that may not even be funded. Counties can't engage in long-term contracts. And quorum courts, such as Benton County's, are often reticent to spend significant sums of money on development of long-range plans that may be negated by an election six, 12 or 18 months away.
Bob Clinard, 65, who has been the county judge since 2011, knows how to look forward, even if he may not have a bunch of three-ring binders marked "Plan" on a shelf. Governing at the county level often requires consultation with multiple departments and sometimes multiple cities, with many moving parts that defy the establishment of a long-range plan. Clinard has shown an ability to do that.
Take, for example, the efforts to maintain a level of ambulance service in all rural areas of Benton County after Springdale announced its intention to withdraw and other municipal service providers laid out their expectations for reimbursement. The most sensible long-range plan was for the government to get into the ambulance business and cover the entire county, including the cities. But that wasn't politically realistic, so Clinard went to work to find some options. It was a convoluted and complex problem, but Clinard's steady leadership helped to ensure county residents have remained protected.
Does anyone get a sense that Benton County residents want dramatic change for county government? We sure don't see that. Clinard's time in office has been marked by steady progress where changes needed to be made, addressing the challenges as needed.
Clinard has valuable commercial construction experience that serves him well in the role of county judge. County judges carry the responsibility of building and maintaining county roads. Benton County has about 1,500 miles of county roads, and the Road Department can take care of as much as the Quorum Court decides to fund. Clinard has done well in his management of the county's road demands, even though someone can always differ on where the money gets spent. That will still be true if someone else is county judge.
We believe Bob Clinard is more in tune with the rural needs that a county judge must be responsive to and he appreciates the challenges facing other local governments that affect how they interact with the county.
As a result, we recommend a vote for him in the March 1 primary. The winner will face Libertarian Ronnie L. Smith and write-in candidate Jeff Broadston in November.
Commentary on 02/14/2016