Dan Holub doesn’t like unfinished business, particularly when he believes he’s the best candidate to follow through with it, which is why he filed for a fourth commission term.

First elected in 2004, Holub said a 20-year stint in the Navy instilled principles and practices that guide his work with the county. He also served on USD 408 school board and Kansas Grain Sorghum Commission.

Roads remain a priority for Holub. Slashing the time operators were pulled out of their sections to work on other road projects has helped to improve gravel and dirt roads, he said. A multi-year plan has been developed to fix major traffic arteries.

“I’d like to see that through,” Holub said.”

Holub said he would continue to fight against state policies that have taken money away from the county and shifted more tax burden locally.

“If we backed up to the way things were in 2003, we could drop the county mill levy 20 to 30 percent,” he said.

Government often isn’t as effective as business because bureaucrats just see budgets as “numbers on paper,” Holub said. “I see dollar bills. I’m there figuring out what the real costs are.”

Hiring a county administrator would have limited effectiveness, Holub said, because five departments are run by elected officials.

“Elected officials aren’t going to answer to an administrator,” he said.

Employee pay raises could be a thing of the past when the property tax cap goes into effect, Holub said.

“For a pay raise, we’ll have to pass a ballot issue,” he said. “It will never happen. People aren’t going to vote to raise their taxes.”

Holub said the county needs to develop a “resume” to market itself to prospective businesses, and he had a dozen examples of things to put on it, from highways, airports, and hospitals to schools and colleges.

He also said a small-town, country atmosphere just 45 minutes or less away from larger cities would be appealing to some businesses.

Restructuring EMS with more full-time responders would help to alleviate a shortage of part-time staff; however, the solution will be expensive.

“This ambulance thing is what makes me lose sleep,” he said.

If a solution to fix the erosion along 190th Rd. has too high a price tag, the road might have to be closed, as Holub was skeptical voters countywide would vote to be taxed for the cost.

Holub couldn’t name a project that he would ask voters to approve a property tax increase for.

“I’m not going to waste money on an election,” he said. “We’ve got what we’ve got. When that’s gone, we start cutting.”

Holub, 68, Marion, has four adult children and two stepchildren.