QUESTION: What are the reasons you are running for county commissioner?

JERRY JOHNSTON: Well I have three real good reasons: I have three granddaughters whom I'd like to see stay here in Butler County, and I'd like to see Butler County remain safe and strong and economically secure for their generation. So that we can keep young people here; keep the human resources as well as our fiscal resources invested in the county. That's one of the main reasons I'm running. The second reason is that I think that it's more than time to restore some respect and dignity and decorum to the county government once again, and that's probably the ultimate reason that I ran.

QUESTION: What services should Butler County provide its senior citizens? Should its 10 senior centers remain open or should some or all be closed or consolidated?

JERRY JOHNSTON: I can't honestly answer the question in good faith saying all 10 should stay open or should close. But what should happen is we should stop running around scaring the seniors, telling them all this stuff is going to happen without some sort of factual basis. What we should have done — and I don't know that it hasn't been done, but I'm guessing — is data hasn't been collected for years and years ongoing, and it should have been. We should know how many seniors we get at these centers every day, who they are, what they do and all of those things. We need to gather the facts. We need to have a factual premise on which to base anything that happens, whether we curtail the hours, whether we add new services. I mean, there has to be some sort of real premise that we work from instead of just some random survey and making things up.

QUESTION: What is your view about the county budget? Should revenue increase to meet rising costs or should expenses be cut? Explain your specific proposals.

JERRY JOHNSTON: Well, I think the county is in fairly good position in terms of finances. Obviously, we still need to work to bring down our debt. I've spoken to the county controller. He believes that there is a possibility that we could eliminate the county debt in 10 years if we do the right things. I'd be first in line to help him do that. One thing we can do is allocate the resources where they are necessary; where they do the most good. What good does it do you to hire a couple of sheriff's deputies to patrol the fifth floor when you have a caseworker in CYS or a juvenile probation officer that has a caseload that is unmanageable, and we could use some other person in those jobs. That's one of the things we can do; allocate the resources where they do the most good. The second thing is, all the departments, some departments live within their means and have two, three or for four percent growth in a year. But some departments, and some by necessity, have nine, 10, 11 percent and more growth for expenditures for a year, and I think that needs to be watched very, very carefully. Wherever those things can be reigned in, can be controlled, we need to do that. We need to control costs. We need to eliminate waste, overlap, all those things. If we have three or four agencies, or five agencies doing the same thing, and it's costing money, we need to stop it. Those are a few ideas.

QUESTION: How much should the county commissioners and county residents be allowed to talk at commissioners meetings?

JERRY JOHNSTON: I think at the very least, the commissioners ought to restore the previous protocol. I would say that giving residents, citizens five minutes to speak is not too much to ask. Three minutes, having been in radio and television for many years, is not a whole lot of time to express thoughts cohesively. So, I would say that's fine. I think the commissioners ought to be able to come in proceedings and to throw their two cents in on things that are going on, but I don't think we ought to unnecessarily politic and usurp the floor for some untenable idea. There has to be limits within reason, and there are a fairly good set of established rules. But I don't think it's too much to ask to have folks speak for five minutes or so.

QUESTION: Explain what you think should be the role of the county commissioners in their oversight of county agencies such as the county housing and redevelopment authority, the county industrial authority, the tourism bureau and the planning commission?

JERRY JOHNSTON: The commissioners have fiscal oversight of these agencies, although they are not directly regulated by the commissioners. The way it works, I think for the most part, the boards and the people who are in charge of the groups do a very good job. I think perhaps we should evaluate how people are appointed to the boards and why. There may be some level cronyism involved, there may not; that should be eliminated if it does exist. Secondly, for example, the tourism bureau brings a lot of revenue to the county. I don't think we should be raiding the tourism bureau to be taking revenue from them to put it some other place; that is not their responsibility. So I think the commissioners have a fiscal responsibility to these groups, but I don't think they have a responsibility to micromanage them.

QUESTION: What role do you think the commissioners should have in economic development in the county?

JERRY JOHNSTON: The premiere, primo role; that should be the number one issue that the commissioners are focused on. We have an economic plan that is being developed under the auspices of the community college, the CDC, Slippery Rock and a number of other groups. We ought to take it seriously. I heard one of the Republican candidates say that it's socialism, without having seen it, read it, know what's in it, understand the questions that were asked; of course, that's a ridiculous premise. We had such a plan that was developed almost nine years ago or more, which I was involved in helping to put together. It was an excellent plan, but it sat on the shelf over here somewhere and never got enacted. The key thing that the commissioners ought to be doing is staying in touch with existing businesses. Seventy-five percent of all business expansion anywhere in this country comes from businesses that are already there, and we need to be talking to these companies. We need to be talking to the people who have brought Westinghouse here, and who are growing, like MSA. We need to find out what it is they're needing, if they need anything. Who it is they can contact and talk with that perhaps might want to come to Butler County and bring their operations here. We need to be in touch with these folks on a regular, constant basis. To me, that's the number one job of the commissioners: to keep the economy going here in this county.

QUESTION: What role do you think the county commissioners should have in helping to coordinate with community services such as water and sewer authorities, emergency medical services and bus transportation?

JERRY JOHNSTON: The commissioners already are responsible for a number of those issues. We have to follow state law in terms of the sewer authority, rainwater and all those things. We should, in similar fashion, be in touch with all of them. One example is, I don't know if there's a huge number of the population, but there are a number of people who might be able to work, say, in Cranberry but don't have a way to get there. We need to work with the transportation authority to find out if we can get some bus service, can we get some other arrangement made that we can get transportation from point A to point B so people can get to work. When they are working, they are productive citizens, they are contributing and that's what we want. We have to lose this mentality of, somehow we're competing and we have to pick up the mentality of what can I do to help, how can we get involved and make this better, instead of pointing fingers and calling names.