Author: Richard Urban

Learn more about Wayne Clark and his views on COVID rules, school choice and much more.

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Wayne Clark Interview Excerpts

Wayne Clark: Good morning everybody, my name is Wayne Clark on running for House of Delegates. District 65 here in Jefferson County. I am a small business owner in Jefferson County, most known as the owner of Locust Hill Golf Course. I am a pro-family, pro-life and pro Second Amendment. And I look forward to your questions.

Richard: What do you think is in the district or maybe statewide, what do you think the biggest issue is right now?

Wayne Clark: It’s COVID. It’s the biggest issue nationwide. What COVID has done to small businesses and what it’s about to do. And what I mean by about to do as a prime example, myself. As a golf course, during the summer time, we’re busy, but in the winter time is when we rely a lot on our social environment. We rely on hosting Christmas parties, we rely on live music nights. We rely on our restaurant sales. Our restaurant sales are about to take a massive hit. Because the current COVID restrictions that are put on restaurants, ____ and entertainment venues like myself that are about to come out with 25 people gathering, no buffets, no live music inside. So a lot of small business owners are starting to see that type of thing. And other things such as your PPE protection stuff, the Plexiglas the gloves. We’ve got to use Styrofoam plates, we can’t use glass plates. All those additional expenses are going to really start to get more strict as we’re going into the winter months and that’s going to put a big strain on a lot of small businesses.

Richard: Yes, I hear what you’re saying. Already, we know many restaurants have closed. And I saw there was something that said, was it 25% of restaurants are to close permanently? Maybe in New York City, it’s more than that. What do you think, has the governor overstepped his bounds? Is this really all crazy? Now, studies have shown, although at first we didn’t know, there’s really not concerned about touching services; that’s not how it’s spread, so why are we doing all this crazy stuff? Do you have any comments on that?

Wayne Clark: Let’s go back to March when the governor issued the state-wide shut down. And many other governments followed suit. We had no idea what this virus was going to do. We had no idea how the virus was going to affect us. But we do know now. We do know that it’s very hard to get COVID from touch surfaces. It’s very hard, if you’re maintaining your social distance, it’s very hard to get it from just talking to someone. So at this point now, what we know, we should now start opening up some of the restrictions, allowing businesses to maintain themselves. Allowing businesses to do what they have to do. Sure, we have to have smaller staff and all that because we have less customers, but no customers that doesn’t work. Less customers, that does work, and we need to open up their restrictions so that we can at least have less customers.

Richard: I’ll agree with you on that. A lot of it, I think, is posturing. So you go to a restaurant and say, Okay, wear a mask. And then, obviously, when you’re sitting at your table eating, you’re not wearing a mask it’s just like appearances and it’s very damaging, and honestly, it’s not very pleasant for me. People like myself, we don’t really feel like going out and eating so much. I mean, occasionally I may. It doesn’t make a lot of sense. So one question is, in the House of Delegates, will you vote to modify the emergency powers? Because now they’re going on and on. Would you want to restrict them in time to maybe 30 days and then the legislature has to come back?

Wayne Clark: I do agree we have to make some sort of adjustments to the emergency powers act. It’s not just my opinion, it’s others who are running also agree. To take one person to get to have full authority for this long. Or to bypass, as an example, back in April, when the Governor issued additional powers to Dr. Reidy of the health department here in Jefferson County. Those types of things should be looked at and revised in this setting, and you hear it all the time. Let me make my choice of what I feel is best for me and my family. Don’t dictate my choice from someone else.

Richard: I agree. I agree with that. Individual responsibility. If you feel personally that you are at great risk, then avoid going to, say any event or restaurant or whatever. But to say that everybody has to follow these very dubious guidelines, about all the mask wearing and distancing and all those things. I think it is very questionable. Let the people decide themselves.

Wayne Clark: Correct.

Richard: I know that Governor Justice is supposedly is a Republican. I know he changed parties. Do you think the response is muted from some legislators or people more because he’s supposedly a Republican? Honestly, myself, I like S Marshall Wilson for governor. I am going to write him in. But what do you think? Is there a little of that good old boy politics going on? Are people a little reluctant to push back, the Republicans, because of that fact?

Wayne Clark: I don’t necessarily want to speak about that. I don’t know. I’m not in the room while these decisions are going. I too have listened to Mr. Wilson, and I believe, as well, that he would be a strong candidate for governor. I can’t answer that because I’m not there, I don’t know…

Richard: When do you think life begins?

Wayne Clark: Life begins at conception. It’s clear. My wife and I, unfortunately had two miscarriages before we had our twins, and I have an older daughter, she’s 26 now, who has two daughters herself. And I had her at a young age and there was no thought process, it was, Okay, here we go. We’re going from college to parents right away. So conception starts life.

Richard: I’ve been working on in the legislature over several years now, the health freedom issue, or often called vaccination choice. In West Virginia, we have this mandate, No vaccination, No school. Do you think there should be religious or conscientious objections to vaccinations or like it is now is okay?

Wayne Clark: Interesting question. My personal beliefs, my daughters have been vaccinated for many things. My daughters have not been vaccinated for some things. It is a religious belief on what should be, and if you choose not to have your child vaccinated for something… Let’s go way back. So let’s go back to polio. Okay, if you chose not to have your child vaccinated for polio, but at the same time, the school says, Okay, well you can’t come to school because you did not get that vaccination, then you have no choice but to homeschool your kid. That is the way the law is written. And that is what it is.

Richard: In our state and a few other states, but most states have exemptions, still.

Wayne Clark: Correct, most states do have exemptions for that. I don’t know if that’s something that a first year delegate should attack. So, I’ll leave my answer to the way it is…

Wayne Clark: There’s no doubt that there is an unbalance between the administrative and the numbers of students in many of the counties throughout the state. West Virginia is one of the highest states in the country to educate kids, we spend nearly $12000 per student to educate them. That’s a lot of money, and there’s a lot of positions that, and I don’t want anybody to lose their job or anything like that, but there’s a lot of positions that we need to really look in the budget and say, Okay, do we need this? Do we need this position? My wife’s a teacher and she teaches in Loudon County, and she wanted to come over to Jefferson County. But our family just can’t take that hit from the difference in Loudon County to Jefferson County in salary. And until Jefferson County can figure out a way to balance that difference, many of our teachers are going to travel out of state. And $250,000 in raises back in June for the administrative. We could have put every teacher in Jefferson County, we could have given them a $500 COVID bonus. It would not have made a huge difference to their financials, but it would help some.

Richard: I read today that they’re doing that but that they are using the CARES money, I don’t know how they figured that out. I think a lot of it is deceptive because people are saying, and some teachers have commented on my editorial, that, Oh, we’ll be cut a lot because of the excess levy if it’s not passed. But something like 2%, 2%, not 20%, 2% of that excess levy goes to teacher and service personnel salaries. So just a lot, a lot, a lot of waste, a lot of administrative bloat. If taxpayers kept their money and if the school wants a librarian and the state doesn’t pay for it, the parents would have $500 each in their pocket and fund it themselves.

Wayne Clark: You look at some other states that are around us, Pennsylvania is a prime example, your property tax stays in the county and funds schools. So each county has its own funding program. West Virginia forever, it’s all state funded. Everything goes down to Kanawha County, goes down to the capital and then it’s distributed out. When you look at the median income, individual median income for the state of West Virginia, you’re somewhere just at 40,000. Well, in some counties where the median income is 32, your teachers are making 42, but then you look at some of your counties where the median income is in the 50s and 60s and 70s, like Jefferson County, and they’re only making 42, 47 with locality and bonuses and all the other, but it should be more of a county-based, not a state based.

Richard: I would like to see if the school board wants to argue strongly for the Levy, I would like to see them make a clear breakdown. Honestly, I think they’re afraid to because people would see, oh, we spent, I don’t know the exact figure. 13 million for the administration, or whatever is. Five million. Oh, we only gave the teachers one million and I don’t know, it’s totally unclear. It says, okay, the levy is for $17 million plus for salaries. Well, that’s not good enough. Whose salaries? How much? That’s not appropriate. I don’t feel that’s an appropriate way to be accountable to taxpayers. And also they spend almost a million dollars for this EPIC place, which is some kind of inter-county organization. And they also pay the lawyer from that, Ms. Sutton. It’s impossible to know how much they spend on the lawyer. That’s a lot of money to give that organization a million dollars, which includes a lawyer, so they’ve obfuscated that, because the lawyer position is open. There are just so many things. If it was your personal money, would you just give it to somebody like, Okay, here’s $10000 and they don’t even account for it? I’m sorry. That’s just not right.

Wayne Clark: I’ve got so many things I could do with $10000, and not just give it away.

Richard: It’s huge, it’s 40% increase, the excess levy. The school bond would increase it even more. But the excess levy increases the Property tax 40%. So that’s, on a $225,000 house, for renters. It would be like $100 per month assuming the landlord will pass that on and for home owners $50 per month. That’s a lot.

Wayne Clark: That is.

Richard: With the education overall, I know that we had an education choice bill. I think Senator Rucker worked on that a lot. There are now a few, I don’t know that there’s any in the works, but something like three charter schools are authorized, or is it five, which isn’t a lot, but are you for more school choice or do you like the system as is now, where everything goes to public education pretty much?

Wayne Clark: Well. I grew up in Baltimore, and I chose to go to a different high school than my brother and my family. Because of the curriculum that they had. And school choice, and… Yes, Baltimore city schools are really, really bad. But some of them are really, really good. School choice can help. And what have we done in the last 15 years to improve anything? Has anything worked? Let’s let charter schools go, see if they work. And at least we have something. So I agree with school choice, I agree with the charter schools, it’s only three, let’s see how they work, give us a five-ten year process to see how they work before we start going crazy and building charter schools all through the state. And you see if the test scores go up, see if our kids are more proficient. More kids are earning their promise scholarships, are going out of state to major universities, that kind of stuff. Let’s see what happens with it.

Richard: I think more choice is good or if parents want to choose to homeschool or hire teachers on small groups, I forget… I don’t know what the technical name is, I guess it’s a part of home schooling, sometimes they hire a teacher to teach physics or something. Well, that’s their choice. Right now, that’s not funded, but I think those kind of things, some of those king of things almost passed. Choice is good. I think that’s good. I think we should have different choices.

And on the pro-life issue I want to mention that our organization deals with sexual health education. I think that’s more at the county level, but what the policy is, but I think also regarding that issue of life, if you take it a step back, it’s good to encourage school age youth not to have sex before marriage. In my experience, I work with that issue in our non-profit, can be very contentious. But, I believe that should be the standard for school age children. Do you have any opinion about that?

Wayne Clark: Well, as a father of three girls, I’m trying to teach them that very concept, and that kind of teaching starts at home, and should be reiterated in school, but it’s got to start at home. The parents need to be teaching that as a basis and the reasons why abstinence at a young age is important and having it reiterated in school, yes. But it’s not the school’s main and responsibility, it’s the parent’s responsibility.

Richard: Pretty much every county and jurisdiction has some kind of AIDS prevention education, so those topics inevitably come up.

Wayne Clark: Right.

Richard: Are there any other issues you’d like to address or any closing statement about why the voters should vote for you.

Wayne Clark: The thing about myself is, I’m a common sense guy. I’m going to do what’s going to be best for Jefferson County, I am going to do what’s best for the state of West Virginia. And I’m not someone who going to get pushed around. When I make my decision, my decision is what it is. I stand behind my decision, obviously, yes, someone can have a constructive conversation with me to change my opinion, and providing they have factual backing for that, correct, but I’m going to stay strong with my convictions in regards to what the state needs, what Jefferson County needs and what our kids need. One of the important things to understand is that any decisions that we make now are going to affect those in the future. And we need to make sure that we’re making the right decisions now, so that the state continues to grow and the county continues to grow and improve. And I’ll leave it at that. I hope I get everybody’s vote on November 3rd, Wayne Clark, House of Delegates, District 65.

Richard Urban Show #54
Learn about Mary Ann Claytor, her accounting experience and her take on improving how the Auditor’s office oversees expenditures of your tax dollars.

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Excerpts from the Mary Ann Claytor Interview

Mary Ann Claytor Article

Mary Ann Claytor: Well, my name is Mary Ann Claytor, and I’m the Democratic candidate for West Virginia state auditor and happen to be the only candidate running for state auditor that actually has an accounting degree. Twenty two years of experience as a real auditor and have years of experience in governmental accounting. And I’m just so happy that you’ve asked me to come on so that everybody can get to know our candidates.

Richard Urban: Absolutely. So did you work for the State Auditor’s office or where did you get your experience?

Mary Ann Claytor: I worked for the West Virginia State Auditor’s office. I resigned in 2014 because my son became paralyzed from the neck down. I made the decision to take off so that I could take care of him. And during that time though, I started my own business doing financial statements for local governments. But he passed away in January after a long battle. But we were able to take care of him at home. And that’s something I’m very proud that the Lord gave us that ability and the knowledge that we needed under the circumstances, so that we could spend as much quality time as we could, and not have to put them in a facility. That was the main reason I left the Auditor’s Office, because I didn’t want to place him into a Facility.

Richard: Okay, wow, that’s beautiful. You could care for him like that. You mentioned you’ve been an auditor for a while. Do you have other qualifications you want to talk about?

Mary Ann Claytor: I have characteristics that really don’t have anything to do with being an auditor. I’m a preacher. I do prison ministry and nursing home ministry, which I haven’t been able to do at this time. I have a Bachelor of Science and Business Administration with a concentration in accounting. And I have a Master’s degree in religion.

Richard: Those are important things. You need a lot of integrity as auditor, right?

Mary Ann Claytor: Yes, you do.

Richard: I was looking into some of the things preparing for the program about some of the West Virginia programs, like the Mountaineer and the WV Checkbook. Things I hadn’t really paid attention to, which I need to. And also the purchasing card program, I noticed that was on the state and auditor’s site. What’s the purpose of that? Is that a good program? The purchasing card program.

Mary Ann Claytor: So Mr. Gainer, who was the former auditor, he started. So we have the state program, and we also have a local government program, and it has cut down on paperwork because they’re able to make their purchases instead of issuing checks, but you have got to make sure you have controls and you have got to make sure you have oversight in those areas. A part of our fraud section, what they used to do was to do audits of those P-card transactions. We have oversight within the office where they’re just kind of looking at those things, but it’s different than when you actually go out to look at the back up that is associated with a transaction that came through. Because Walmart; you might see a transaction comes through for a Walmart. Well, that may be an okay transaction, maybe they had to get some supplies or something, but if you actually go and you look at the invoice, then you would see that oh, they didn’t really buy supplies, they bought something else. So you still need those eyes on actual supporting documentation. I haven’t been able to find, since I left, on the website, we used to always post those audits of those P-card transactions online. I’m a type of person that I won’t say, Oh, this is definitely not been done, and I’m not attacking. I have to look at myself in the mirror. I lay out the facts and deficiencies. That’s the type of person that I am. And that’s the way I run my campaign. That’s the way that I would like to see everybody across West Virginia, United States, run their campaign. So we can really talk about the issues and talk about deficiencies that are going on in our government. But I’m not attacking a person’s character.

Richard: With the purchasing card, or you call it a P-card, are you saying that if you use the check system, then they would automatically see the invoice or not necessarily, whereas with a purchasing card, you might just see, Oh, Walmart $200 or… That’s not true? Is there more detail with the old system or is something lacking with the new system, or what?

Mary Ann Claytor: As far as transparency and knowing what people spent money for and actually seeing an invoice, we are still lacking in that. And that is something that I would like to institute. We shouldn’t have to have our citizens do FOIAs to see what an actual expenditure consisted of, other than, you can see the description. And plus, we spent hundreds of millions of dollars on the West Virginia Oasis program, and we need to hold those companies accountable for products that our citizens are purchasing. Because this is what we have to realize as citizens. It is that we are purchasing these products, even though we haven’t gave the approval for purchasing these products, but it is our money, so we have a right to know. So one of the things I would like to do within the West Virginia OASIS is try to combine some of the attributes of the Checkbook with the OASIS, because it is better if we have centralized accounting systems and that we are able to use the source information system to the best of its ability instead of extracting data and putting it into another program for people to see.

Richard: It sounds like that’s what the Checkbook thing is, right?

Mary Ann Claytor: Yes, it kind of extracts the data.

Richard: What is the OASIS?

Mary Ann Claytor: I was already gone when they really got it going. Some people may have known, before we had this Vista program where you can go and look up the expenditures, and then they decided, we had all these different financial accounting systems that different organization agencies were using, so they decided they wanted to do something centralized, which I believe is a positive move. We just need to go further with it and making it more transparent…

Richard: I was reading up about the Mountaineer and the WV Checkbook. One thing I noticed, because I’m interested in local issues, I’m over here in Jefferson County. And they’re not yet on this system. The county says it’s “awaiting data” for the Checkbook program [on the website]. Do you know anything about that? I see 12 counties are online and the rest aren’t. It says Jefferson County is “awaiting data”. Can you give us any insight into what that means?

Mary Ann Claytor: And I would have taken a different approach on this too. So your information is only, the transparency that we’re seeing from local governments, it’s only as good as the accounting records that are underneath. And like I had told you before, everybody has their own accounting system in local governments. I’m not for sure in Jefferson, if they have CSSI, which is a company or our Software Systems. But mainly there’s those two primary ones. I would have probably taken taking a different approach in working with those software companies to say, ‘This is something that we would like to do, so that entities can put their information out on their websites. The West Virginia Association of Counties set up a basic website for each county, also, for those who don’t have that. It just had some basic information, contact information, but most counties that can’t afford a website, they have a website that they’re active with, and also they’re required to publish financial statements with the vendor information, so we already have some transparency at that level. It’s extra work for the county clerks to extract this data out of their system in order for them to upload that into the Mountaineer Checkbook. So that may be the issue that they’re having. Some decided that they left it up to their county clerks, where in a lot of places, they are already low on staff, so you’re thinking, Okay, anybody that wants this information, they will give it to them. And with West Virginia, everybody doesn’t have internet, so everybody’s not going to be able to access it anyway. That’s why they publish them in the newspapers that the local people generally use, so that they can see that information…

Richard: I looked at Berkley County, which is online, and I couldn’t find the Board of Education, is that a whole different thing than the county?

Mary Ann Claytor: That’s a separate entity. The Board of Education as their own system too. And the thing about the Board of Education is all Boards of Educations have the same system. So, in that capacity, we could have worked with them to develop something where they could publish online if we want it to be online.

Richard: So is there any plan to get that into the Checkbook or that’s just excluded, the Board of Education?

Mary Ann Claytor: So it’s up to each entity to provide that information. So people would have to talk to them. And like I said, I don’t know if it’s such a big concern for our citizens, I really don’t, because if you’re local to that area, you understand, every year they see that they’ve published the vendors….

Richard: As auditor, how would you encourage being less wasteful? One thing, someone was telling me, who is in the federal government, that he works in the patent office. Say they had a budget. Say it was $20 million and then the fiscal year is ending. He said, Well, you know, if they find out, Oh gosh, we’ve got $3 million left, instead of saying, Oh hey, why don’t we cut our budget $3 million, they’ll try to use it up for something, I mean, not maybe illegal, but it seems to be wasteful. How would you encourage, when the right thing to do, would be to say, oh gosh, we could save the taxpayers $3 million. Hey, we’ll tell them, we don’t need so much money next year. But apparently what happens, he tells me, and you would know this better, being auditor, they try to use it up or something so they’ll get the same amount next year. Could you talk about that kind of thing?

Mary Ann Claytor: Yes, they have a mindset, ‘But if I don’t spend it, that they’re not going to give it back to me next year. Yes, I’ve seen people, buy a whole bunch of pens and pencils, and it’s not illegal. I have always been a type of person when I audited, I would ask questions about things that I thought were unusual. Because it’s hard, everybody has a different definition of waste. So the auditor really doesn’t have power to stop waste in a sense of saying, ‘you can’t buy that’. Now, what they can do is shed a light. And that’s basically what we do. And so, as your next auditor, one of the approaches that I would take at the state level is a lot of times we don’t hear about things until something gets leaked. I think it’s the auditor’s responsibility, that if there is something that comes up a little extravagant, maybe not, don’t nitpick about things, but if it’s something that is like the couch thing.

Richard: Oh yeah, the Supreme Court justices, right.

Mary Ann Claytor: So things like that, I feel like we need to let the public be aware and leave it up to the public to have the outcry that we need to do, to get the changes made. Because I always told people when I was auditing, I would ask the question. So they were a little more wary about making certain purchases because I was asking and I would always say, ‘If you do not feel comfortable going in front of a public meeting and asking to purchase these items, let that be your litmus test to not purchase it or to purchase it’. If you feel comfortable that everybody is going to know about this purchase, then make it. But our hands are tied by the laws and regulations of the state of West Virginia and Federal, as far as our stopping a payment. You see, and this is one thing I will tell you, I will not lie to anybody to get their vote, to let them think that I have more power than I have to be able to stop a purchase, because the purchase is legal. Extravagant, yes. But it’s legal.

Richard: So more transparency would be, I think what you’re saying. ‘Hey, somebody purchased the couch for $20,000 the last week of the fiscal year or whatever, you know.

Mary Ann Claytor: We as citizens, we have the power. They may want to make us believe that we don’t, but we have the power through our votes and through our voices throughout the year because we tend to… I don’t know, we are also busy with our lives and the things that are going on our lives that we don’t always pay attention. But we have got to get to the point that we do pay more attention and try to get more involved in what’s going on in our government, so that we can stop it before it gets too out of hand.

Richard: I think so. I think this whole, like here, that’s a huge issue, the school tax thing, it was passed in December five years ago, like less than 2000 people [actually 4585] voted for this mega-tax, and it literally jacks up your property tax 40 percent. Say I owe to $1000 in property tax. Well, now, because of the school excess levy tax it’s almost $1700. So this year though, a lot of people will be voting, it will be on the November ballot. But I think that exemplifies the point, a lot of people were asleep at the wheel when that thing went through, but I think now they’re probably more awake with a huge tax bills we’ve been getting here in property tax in Jefferson County.

Mary Ann Claytor: Well, it’s the same thing with the road bond, because that was a very… I can’t remember the numbers, but it was very low voter turnout [122,419 votes statewide, total]. That’s what people have to understand, that you’re letting a small number of people determine the outcome of governments by your staying home and not voting. I wasn’t really for the road bond because I’m not for taxation that increases to our most vulnerable population, because the workers, they had to pay more, because West Virginia, our demographics, it’s different than other places. So, you have people that are making minimum wage, barely able to take care of their families, and now you’ve got to pay more to get to work. And then we saw, it was supposed to be at lightning speed. We need this bond so that we can get the roads fixed at lightning speed. And then we didn’t get lightning speed. And we’re using COVID money for that, which is suspect. Not really that we’re using the Bond money.

Richard: COVID money for what are you referring to?

Mary Ann Claytor: The governor decided, we have some COVID highways, and so he’s going to use the Cares Act money to fix the roads, which he’s already started in Greenbrier County.

Richard: Oh, Greenbrier! What a coincidence. With his resort there.

Mary Ann Claytor: When the band went through, he was a Democrat at that time, and I spoke out because I said, I’m not for regressive taxes, wand that’s what people need to know about me is that I’m not just talking about this COVID money because I’m a Democrat, and he’s now a Republican. I would have talked about it anyway. Because that’s the type of person I am. I don’t care who’s in power, wrong is wrong. Right is right, no matter who it is. Because I’m getting a little tired of we’re silent when it’s on our team, and we’re vocal when it’s not on our team…

Mary Ann Claytor: The auditor is the official bookkeeper for West Virginia and also the supervisor of public offices, and in that capacity, in the state level is where we are responsible for the expenditures that go out, making sure, they’re in compliance. And then the local governments, we’re responsible for audits of those local governments. So when we were talking about the School Board, County Commissions, all the elected officials within those offices. And we’re also responsible for approving the budgets of local governments. We have a lot more duties that we do in regards to local governments than we actually do with the state level, and currently the audits are further behind under the current auditor. When you compare when the former auditor went out, if you just look at the county government, it was 11% behind in 2016. If you look at 2014, he was about 11% behind. He always had a problem with the municipalities though. But with the current auditor, it is now about 45% behind in that one category.

Richard: The category being counties?

Mary Ann Claytor: In 2018, yes. And so if you look at the 2018, so we need to be able to get in there and get those audits done. I’m more proactive than I believe he is. And that’s the difference I want people to understand, because one of my goals is that I will have visited with, on my first four years, each entity that we audit to assess accounting needs. Because, getting full transparency, that’s only as good as the underlying records. So we to be able to go in there and talk to the entities based on the resources that they have available, so we can get everybody’s books up to par. And my having the knowledge that I have, I won’t have to send staff in to do that. I will be able to assess those needs and talk to people and understand what they’re talking about. I think that’s the big thing, is not to have to have somebody sitting beside you, as a staff member, because you don’t understand the Accounting Information, which is something that I’ve garnered over through my education and through all the experience that I have. And so that’s one of the main reasons that I’m running for auditor. Because it’s about fixing the things that I know that need to be improved so that we all can work efficiently for the citizens, because that is what it’s about. I’m a citizen.

Just because you run for office doesn’t make you no longer be a citizen and have concerns. And that people would be able to talk to me, express their concerns, and I’m the type of person that will follow up on the concerns of the citizens. Because it’s not about getting elected in the next four years, it’s about improving, and if you do a good job, that’s when we should re-elect people, when they do a good job, not just based on other issues. That’s just the way I feel.