I attended the Butler County commissioner candidates debate April 1 at Butler County Community College and was puzzled by the question allegedly submitted by BC3 students.

The question asked essentially how the candidates would promote better communication and harmony with their fellow commissioners and employees. With the exception of Jim Eckstein, their answers were all similar and talked about restoring dignity and cooperation to the office — all very admirable aspirations. Of course only Eckstein could be accused of not having the qualities cited in the question. Eckstein explained that he was in favor of open and transparent government and a lot of the disharmony was due to the majority commissioners trying to silence him. My observation is that if you are a team player on a bad team you are part of the problem not the solution. The old adage about “killing the messenger” may be in effect; if there are issues not being brought to light the motivation may be there to discredit the messenger. Eckstein's delivery is sometimes strident and hostile, but one must remember that even a friendly dog will bite if you mistreat it long enough.

On the Republican side, in my opinion the only candidate with a solid plan for action was Jim Keffalas. He proposed that a study be done to evaluate (not eliminate) the social services programs and make sure we are getting value for our spending. His concern is that we are enabling a culture of entitlements and not encouraging self reliance, with spiraling costs like a new multimillion-dollar building to administer the social services staff.

Jeff Smith and Larry Thompson both have a long history in government and appeared to be very knowledgeable of the system.

The low point of the night was the obvious public pandering, “I am against reassessment” statement by Lisa Metcalf, along with some reference to Allegheny County's troubles with its recent reassessment. The public needs to be informed as do the candidates on the status of our current assessment in Butler County. The error rate (coefficient of dispersion, or C.O.D.) of the assessment in Butler County is more than 30 percent. The Commonwealth Court has ruled that a C.O.D. of more than 15 percent is unconstitutional. All the candidates must face the truth, not the political safety of saying no to reassessment.

Too many people in Butler County are paying more than their fair share of the burden of government and too many are paying less than their fair share. It is the county Commissioners' duty to make sure we obey the state constitution. Saying that reassessment is a bad thing is a lie or stupid.