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When the Duck Pond project was originally approved on March 9, 2022, your county commissioners were Richard Howe,Travis Godon, Shane Bybee, Ian Bullis, and Laurie Carson. All but Ms Carson has disappeared, and she is serving an appointed position on the Hospital board. All insisted on giving JCR Development more time to finish what to anyone with a brain was a bungled project. Meanwhile, this current board continues to plead ignorance. They believe for their now-$33,000 a year paycheck they only have to show up at meetings. That’s not how this works. That’s not how any of this works. If you can’t do the job, if you can’t put in the time necessary to be educated before the meeting happens, you know what you have to do...resign. Because the people backing you aren’t the ones looking like buffoons, and you do.
Are animal rights activists watching the Duck Pond project? Doug Saunders writes in this week's edition of the Bristlecone Tribune that the insensitive comments made by County Commissioners Paula Carson and Hank Vogler regarding the handling of the ducks during the rebuilding of the botched project, including the possible harvesting of the ducks. Those comments attracted the attention of the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, who acknowledged the tasteless jokes made by the commissioners, and in a statement, the organization confirmed the attempt at humor and in a statement from Catie Cryar of Peta, “with a little ingenuity and kindness, a solution can always be found that shows compassion and respect for wildlife.”
One of the original reasons the project came about was massive water loss from the old pond. The first attempt at repairing the project led to as much or more water loss from the pond. The welfare of the ducks and the minimization of water loss will be the focus of the project. We hope.
Well, the White Pine County Commission, after weeks of kicking the can down the road, finally approved the contract with Reck Brothers for the Duck Pond project, yet these commissioners continue to plead ignorance.
County Commissioner Hank Vogler: We have been left in the dark for a very long time, and it seems like it should be up to these five people and that's why we have a County Commission is to oversee things. And then the bomb gets dropped on us at the last minute. And it's all based on something that happened before any of us got here.
Commissioner Vogler, however, has been on the commission for three years, including much of the Duck Pond project timeline. Commissioners are paid $24,000 a year, and in 2026, thanks to the Legislature, that pay will increase to $33,000 a year. Commissioners do not get paid that much for four hours of work.
The job is to investigate agenda items and know what is going on before walking into meetings. If the motivation is simply collecting a paycheck, then save taxpayers the money and resign—because right now, only one commissioner is actually doing their job.
Public Comment on the Duck Pond are already coming in. One was copied to KELY. Hopefully this Commission will understand the cost of not biting the bullet.
