Former county commissioner Dianne Novak, unseated by Mike Beneke in the 2020 primary election, wants the position back again.

Beneke still wants the position, too. They will go head to head for the second time in Tuesday’s primary election.

Beneke was reluctant to file, he said, because he wasn’t sure he could convince two other commissioners to vote the way he voted.

“Basically, Hillsboro has three commissioners,” Beneke said.

Novak said she enjoyed being on the commission and long pondered running again.

Despite having been a proponent of a five-member commission, Novak now says it and having a county administrator are not good ideas.

“I’m not happy with the fact that this five-member commission hired an administrator after the people voted against it,” Novak said.

She went door to door to talk to people about expanding the commission because she thought the commission needed more ideas.

Now, she has changed her mind.

“I don’t think any of it is going to work — the administrator or the five members,” Novak said.

Beneke also is opposed to a county administrator. He contends that Tina Spencer is not qualified for the job despite knowing the county and being dependable.

The reason voters opposed hiring an administrator, he said, was because of the way the question was worded on ballots.

“There was no salary, no job description,” Beneke said. “I voted against it. When we were discussing five commissioners, I thought we’d do better with an administrator. But then it was on the ballot the way it was.”

He wants the commission to stay with five members but redistrict with the original three commissioner districts plus two overlapping districts that would divide the county east and west. That way, any given county resident would have two commissioners.

Novak agreed redistricting was needed to eliminate the north half of Marion being attached like an island to a northern district.

Novak also wants to change the county’s hiring practices.

“We don’t vet employees,” she said. “We don’t even do a background check.”

She said it was fine to hire local — if applicants were qualified for the job. As a commissioner, she got tired of seeing people with great resumes get passed over because they were from out of town. Commissioners should look at an applicant’s qualifications instead of their address, she said.

If she had to cut 10% of the budget, Novak would first look at what things were actually needed vs. what’s merely wanted.

“We’re so spoiled in the county,” she said. “We’re just spoiled rotten — we’ve got this mentality.”

She was surprised commissioners plan a revenue-neutral budget for 2025.

Beneke said there are myriad places to cut costs.

The transfer station has a pickup truck with a gas tank to fuel equipment. He estimates one employee spends 20 eight-hour days getting gas for the operation.

“It would be better to put a gas tank there,” he said.

He added that the transfer station building was “just about already destroyed.”

“I think that roof will fall off the building some day and end up on Main St.,” Beneke said.

Novak said ambulance service needed to be provided to Peabody.

“When you have a stroke or a heart attack, those are life and death situation,” she said. “You need somebody there quickly. Why can’t we just get a plan?”

Beneke pointed to his instrumental role in getting an ambulance station in Marion.

“I got plenty of criticism, mainly

Novak said her first term taught her how to run a county smoothly. Now she can bring that knowledge to the task, Novak said.

Beneke said the county isn’t always run in a fiscally sound way. When a contractor was hired to replace a destroyed dock at the county lake a few years ago, then didn’t complete the work, the county finally went to retrieve what the dock builder had done before stopping.

Beneke offered to go get the parts so the county wouldn’t have to hire someone else to get the parts.

“(Commissioner) David Crofoot called me and told me to keep my nose out of it,” Beneke said. “All we got back was angle iron, and guess where it sits. It sits at my house.”

Beneke said commissioners are making decisions they don’t know how to make. His experience as a business and equipment owner makes him better qualified.

Novak said her own business experience qualifies her as well. She formerly operated a retail store, then ran a business department.

Beneke predicts a new health department building under construction is going to be a problem because it has only 10 feet between the building and the property line. To address that, an agreement was reached with the school district office to allow traffic through the district parking lot.

“What’s going to happen in 20 years,” Beneke asked.

The county’s biggest challenges are high taxes, dwindling services, and wasteful spending, Novak said.

Commissioners should not have agreed to pay Commissioner Jonah Gehring $1,500 a month rent for storage space in the former Building Center at Hillsboro.

“I think that’s a conflict of interest,” Novak said.