Weber County Commissioner Sharon Bolos is touting accomplishments such as consolidating redundant departments and bringing the county’s public relations in-house as she seeks another term on the Weber County Commission.

Bolos, who is the Weber County Seat B incumbent, is running for a second term on the commission. She is being challeneged by former Plain City Mayor Jon Beesley in the June primary election.

Recently, Bolos sat down with the Standard-Examiner editorial board to discuss her campaign, why she’s running for a second term on the Weber County Commission and her goals if elected.

Working well with others

Ryan Comer, Standard-Examiner

Bolos said she’s seeking a second term because she feels that much was achieved during her first term.

“I am really proud of what I’ve accomplished,” she said. “I work well with the other commissioners. I work really well with the department heads.”

She said she has forged a great relationship with those who work behind the scenes in the county.

“That administrative piece is really important, and I’ve always been very supportive of them, and they have of me,” she said. “We work well together and I just I really enjoy the challenge, especially the budget challenges of saying, ‘Let’s find out where else we can we can help the taxpayers.’ It’s pretty incredible to know that we haven’t had a tax increase in three years, and yet, prices for everything is continuing to go up.”

Experiences

Bolos said before she ascended to the Weber County Commission, other experiences helped prepare her for the role.

“I was the mayor of West Haven for eight years, so I have the experience  on the city level and I have a background in accounting,” she said. “I have a bachelor’s degree in accounting. I have a master’s degree in public administration. So that kind of makes me a unique candidate where the county commissioners here in Weber County are also the county administrators. So all of that stuff I brought to the office the first time, six-and-a-half years of experience as a city manager because we didn’t have a city manager in West Haven. So during my second term, we hired our first ever city manager and those duties of mine went away and it just became kind of the figurehead. So at that point, I figured, ‘Well, I’ve been managing a city now for six and a half years.’ That’s really part of what I love, so that’s when I went back and got my master’s degree.”

Since taking a position on the County Commission, she said that one major accomplishment she helped bring about was the hiring of a full-time PR manager.

“My first year in office, I was successful in moving our PR in-house, which was a huge step for the county,” she said. “We had an expired contract with a firm for years that was out of state. They started local and then they moved out of state, and we were still using them. And I just didn’t feel like it was very effective, and it was also a lot of money.”

Bolos added she’s had experience consolidating redundant departments and positions.

“Another budget item that I was able to tackle was we had a department in the county that was serving the same purposes as some of the people at the health department, and we actually eliminated that department, eliminating a manager and assistant manager position, and moving all of the frontline workers over to the health department along with their grant money,” she said. “Eliminating those additional tiers of management was really important. Again, another savings during that time.”

Challenges

Bolos said some of the biggest challenges facing Weber County are ones that municipalities, big and small at all levels, are facing across the country.

“One is the need for housing, and that, of course, is related to growth,” she said. “Growth is important to understand because a lot of property owners are getting to the point where they want to sell their property, and a lot of them own farms. They’re not farming anymore. Their kids don’t want to farm anymore.”

She said there’s a need for collaboration between the county and the cities within on housing solutions.

“Having a plan in place is really important,” she said. “The county only oversees the unincorporated parts as far as land use goes,  and then if it’s an incorporated city, of course, they control that land use. But it’s important for us to work together in the housing crisis that we have. I’m actually a member of the housing subcommittee for WACOG (Weber Area Council of Governments) and we’re working right now on a master plan of the whole county.”

Bolos cited an up-to-date general plan as being important for tackling some of the challenges with growth and development, noting that efforts are now underway to update it.

“We’ve asked the Planning Commission to go back and revisit the general plan,” she said. “They’ll get to all of it, but they’re going to target some of the bigger areas in smaller chunks. I want to make sure that that is what we want, because it was adopted shortly before I took office. I think it’s been a good plan. We’ve allowed landowners to develop according to that plan, but it’s been four years, so it’s time to just refresh maybe — and maybe nothing will change — but at least look at it and say, ‘You know, here are some things that some landowners have wanted to do. We haven’t allowed that because it doesn’t match the general plan. Does it make sense or not?'”

Positives

Bolos said that one of the things the county has been doing right over the last few years that she’d aim to continue to build upon if reelected is a culture of fiscal responsibility.

“We don’t have debts,” she said. “We pay for projects. We save to pay.”

She used an example of a project that the county is pursuing that was originally presented to the voters of Weber County.

“The project that we’re working on that comes to mind right now is the medical and mental health wing at the jail,” she said. “That’s something that was put on the ballot three years ago. The voters voted against it. It was a large building, including administrative offices right out on 12th street, and it failed. We need to go back now and look at, ‘OK, how do we recreate that? How do we provide the medical and mental health services that we need?’ Well, we have a plan working with a former chief who’s no longer at the sheriff’s office in incorporating the mental health and medical part of that and expanding the jail. We’re able to do that for far less money — a third of the cost. We have that in our capital projects fund. Continuing to save for projects instead of borrowing for projects is really important moving forward.”

From the voters

With multiple municipalities around Weber County considering high-profile tax hikes, Bolos said over the course of her campaign, she’s seen voters asking if Weber County will be among them.

“One of the biggest things that I hear from voters is about tax increases,” she said. “There’s an education piece there as far as who collects the taxes and who’s imposing the taxes. Some of the entities last year adopted fairly large tax increases. As we know, most of those were not certified by the tax commission because of different legalities that weren’t met by entities. But when they see their tax bill — as I’ve met voters and residents — usually it’s, ‘Why are my taxes going up?’ And then we have to talk through which entities are increasing and how that’s all billed by the county, collected by the county, but how that’s distributed. So that’s a hot topic.”

She noted that the last tax increase imposed by Weber County was three years ago.

“It was just over 7%,” she said. “It was for employee salaries. If that’s something that you try to absorb for too many years, then you get into a position where you’re having a huge tax increase, and that’s hard for taxpayers to swallow when you kick the can down the road.”

Bolos said that she favors smaller adjustments over waiting until a large spike is necessary.

“I prefer small incremental ones,” she said. “And to be clear, I don’t mean every year. Some cities do that every year. It’s very, very small, and they do it every single year. And no one comes to their taxation hearings. They just expect a teeny little increase, and they stay up. So I don’t mean every year, but I mean rather than waiting until it’s uncontrollable and the (county’s) in dire straits, I would much rather have small increments when they’re needed.”

Responsiveness

Bolos said that when someone tries to communicate with her, she does her best to stay on top of it, and she would continue to do the same in a second term, if reelected.

“I’m diligent about responding to emails and phone calls because whenever the public wants to reach out for whatever, I take that as an opportunity that might not come in the future,” she said. “Even if they missed it in the past, I want to make sure they have that opportunity right now. That’s really important to me, and I think continuing to be open and accessible is effective.”

For more on Sharon Bolos and her campaign, visit ElectSharonBolos.com.