 Welcome to Sheboygan County Government. Working for you my name is Adam Payne, County Administrator and co-host of this program and you may be able to tell that to my left your right is not my fearless leader, the County Board Chairman Roger Distruty. Instead he's a cross for me today. Today is somewhat of a bittersweet program for us because we always have the pleasure of generally interviewing a department head or one of their key staff but this will be the conclusion as Roger Distruty's term as County Board Chairman. He has served in that capacity now for four years, 32 years on the County Board and this could potentially be the last TVA program we do together. So as I said it's bittersweet yet at the same time we've really got some wonderful accomplishments to talk about. So Roger welcome to the program. Thank you. Please begin by sharing a little bit about your background. When you first started on the County Board and a little bit about your family. Sure I grew up three miles west of Cedar Grove on a family farm. The first of my generation settled there in the 1840s and cleared the land and now my I helped on the family farm growing up and now my nephew is on the farm and he's the seventh generation living on the family farm so it's it's nice that we were able to keep it in the family and that was that was real good thing and I grew up went to church right in town in Cedar Grove and Cedar Grove High School and growing up my family always had a little interest in government my actually my great grandfather served on the town board as chairman in the 1800s and the 1900s and at that time when you were chairman of a township you automatically were a supervisor of that area on the County Board so he served on the County Board in the 1800s and the 1900s and I had the privilege of serving in that same district in the 1900s and now into the 2000s so kind of neat that we kept that going so tremendous tremendous history what a nice snapshot and Lord knows your family has to be proud that you've kept that tradition going so it's been 32 years now on the County Board what was it initially that inspired you to run was it that family history or something I always had an interest in in a local government and I did I was serving on the town board and my I think I was in my second term and then a gentleman that had the position before me Ernie Lamers was stepping off the board I think he had been on close to 20 years I believe and I knew him well and he he said I'm I'm not running would you be interested and then ended up that there were three people that ran and I was able to make it and some of the issues at that time or the county or some people in the county were considering countywide zoning and having served on the local zoning committee with being on the board it's hard to imagine that we could have countywide zoning for the variety of villages and towns and along the lake and the cattle marine everything is different it would be hard to have countywide zoning in control and as it turned out never really really even came to a vote because it got pushed back before that but that was one of the concerns I had at that time and I think that's been one of the strong suits of our county board even today we have some county board supervisors that also serve on town boards so they bring even more local flavor and a better appreciation of their particular community's needs and interests right so you started on the board 32 years ago obviously times flown and we'll talk about a number of things but what were or what are some of the standing committees that you served on during your tenure my first committee assignment was the resource committee now it's called a break break committee with a little variety of other things in with it but I was on there enjoyed that that was when the our committee took over the airport at that time it was not really part of the county and we brought it in as a committee assignment and then we had we hired Chuck Meyer as a manager and that really helped us coordinate things and help that airport grow after that I also served on the law committee or the two committees at once and then after that I was elected to the executive committee and then later along the way I served on HR and also finance and I was fortunate enough to get elected chairman of the resource the law committee and the finance committee and the executive committee as chairman so I was quite an honor with the people in your committee I want you to serve as their chairman so I was honored to have that opportunity well the executive committee is really I look at as the key leadership committee because it's established or elected by your peers so obviously your county board chairman now but you've been on the executive committee as long as I've been in this position which is close to 18 years now you perhaps were on it prior to that as well but the executive committee is elected by the their peers on the county board the chair the vice chair and you know I think that's the leadership committee of course the finance committee is holds the purse strings and has tremendous responsibility so you've really served on some of the more active committees you mentioned resources when you're on it now Precom which is planning resources agricultural extension so a lot going on with these committees you've been on so over your course of your tenure on the board thus far what do you see as some of the biggest challenges that you've been a part of working on problem-solving well on the law committee we had several issues going on when I was serving we had the overcrowding of the jail that led to the building of the first section the first phase of the jail and then the second and now it's sort of leveled off on how many people we need to incarcerate with some of the the bracelets and a few other things that we're able to do but that was quite a challenge those building projects and then also we had when I was serving on the law committee we had we were one of the first counties in the state to have enhanced 911 and in order to do that we had to give a number to each rural home before they had each township was numbered it was very hard to get any organization and where things were for the fire departments and then with the enhanced 911 you get the phone and you have the location even if person making the call falls down and it's not able to talk they know the location but to do that we had to have the entire grid of the county put on numbering system so it all matched up that was met with a little resistance but we talked to the towns and they understood and we had the support of the fire departments because they knew what was very important the ambulance and everything so that happened and at that time that was it was a little hard for its people to change you mean I have to change my my checks I have to put a different address on there and there are all kinds of things but I think everybody realized it was for the better that we did that and when I was on the HR committee we had always things going on with the different unions that we had to negotiate with we we kind of streamlined the process so we offered the chance to each committee to have some flexibility and management could move things around if they could do it with less less money with changing positions and duties and I think that was very helpful on the executive committee we had a chance to we we came up with the thought of only borrowing four million a year because there were so many needs but we had a prioritize and just had to live within that budget and we we had done that for the for the whole time until just this past year we finally bumped it up with the inflation factor to five point five that's allowed us to stay very steady on the growth of of the bonding and actually able to decrease the total cost because we leveled off those high years now so that was helpful and I think the very best thing I was ever involved with was on the executive committee when we hired you as the administrative coordinator and that led into you being administrator and we felt that the most important thing to have was such a large organization as we are or a business we need someone a CEO looking over everything we're part time people we can't be there all the time you have the ability of talking to people and understanding the entire entire situation the entire county and another thing I think that's been very helpful is the leadership forum that we have that allows the entire group to on one afternoon into the evening talk about all the things in the county everyone has their committee assignments and they get to the point where they say my committee and they know that committee functions very well sometimes they don't understand the big picture and there are priorities within the organization and sometimes things need to be spent more this year on one thing then you got to cut back on something else and there I think there's a better understanding of the whole group what is the the entire needs of the entire county all the departments I think those are some of the things that I'm very glad that I've been a part of so well thank you for the compliment and I'm impressed with your recollection there you didn't look down at your notes once to know I'll recollect some off track here but no I'm impressed with your recollection not only all the things you mentioned there but as you know you let a an organizational change with the executive committee to reduce the size of the board from 35 34 to 25 and for our viewers who may not be aware of it though we're very proud of our collective accomplishments our team County Board Department heads all staff we're a leaner organization during Rogers tenure on finance and executive and HR we've now reduce our staffing from about 1,350 employees to closer to 810 so we're a leaner organization a lot of things that you can touch on and you certainly raised a number of them give the our viewers a flavor for how you take action you mentioned you know we've got 25 board members we have these standing committees we have 19 departments 810 staff as I mentioned all these programs and services how does the board you know in a in a thimble how does the board take action to create programs or add or reduce staff or you know take action on the budget how does that happen sure each committee initiates what action they feel is necessary to enhance their department or a particular part of that their operation and then say if the highway committee feels that it's necessary to spend some money on a several roads that are are in need of repair they initiate that and send that resolution to the generally that referral would go to the finance committee because it takes dollars to make that happen then the finance committee looks at their proposal asks some questions gets a few answers looks things over might make some adjustments then when the second committee gets good look at it then it goes to the full board with two committees looking at it very carefully then some of the details have been worked out so when it gets to the full board then we have a better understanding a lot of those questions have been answered so then the whole board has a good feeling that some of those questions that they might have asked are asked there's always a few more that are asked but we have several eyes looking at it in a couple different angles and not just the committee that feels the importance of that program going forward if anybody's writing a paper on local government or how county government operates this would be a good program to to watch you've you've given a little history now of a number of the accomplishments that you and board members have been a part of over your tenure and you've talked a little bit about the organizational structure and how decisions are made let's just focus in now on some key initiatives key initiatives that you specifically take pride in because you know you helped lead that change well I mentioned the rural numbering system and I was chairman of the law committee at that time and being on the towns association and you mentioned the the correlation between the local board and the county board I'm at well I was and I still am active with the towns association they meet quarterly and that was an opportunity I asked sheriff spells house to attend the meeting explain what we're doing and and then everybody throughout the county that was affected by it their leaders had a listen of it what was going on and it was a much easier sell when those chairman and those other supervisors knew what was happening they talked to their neighbors and their friends and say yeah I know it's a little inconvenient but it's a good thing and and another thing I'm very proud of is the one I was chair of the law committee we also had a need to have a separate location for juveniles and we we had the the situation where we needed to at that time we were very crowded and what can we do and then the option was one of the options was to have a standalone juvenile detention center had a find a location property build a standalone that would have cost 2.7 million dollars at that time we're talking in the I'm thinking the late 80s or early 90s then the reason we first considered building on the existing jail and law center but we couldn't build up because that was only constructed for two stories well what can we do now there's not enough room we got the parking lot we got this the the street and what can we do and having a little background in construction I said well let's cantilever the building over the parking lot we can we can do that and let's have the architects check if that's possible and then ended up that we built extension of the jail right there the the first floor were used for extra office space which was actually needed at that time as well that ended up to be 400 thousand dollars no small amount but that eliminated the the fact of the the chance of us having to build the standalone at 2.7 which would have not only cost more by having it separate from the main location we would have had to staff that more heavily because you have to have backup and everything and then the food would have to be delivered there so I'm very proud that that saved us quite a few dollars just by asking that question and having a little knowledge of what could possibly be done so you know 2.7 million dollar cost to build a standalone facility which was seriously being contemplated versus a 400 thousand dollar addition it's worked very very well and that 2.3 million dollars in savings I think was more than enough to cover your per diems over the earth I mean what a savings it's a great example and it's it's a great example that if you're on the county board you know we always we were collectively the board takes actions collectively but as an individual you can't make a real difference you can make a significant difference whether it's a good idea a policy change or saving some significant dollars so I that's a great example so four years ago when you were elected county board chairman what changed how did your role change as a as a county board supervisor well having served at that time 28 years I believe it was then then then I thought I knew quite a bit about the county having served on a variety of committees I knew that some of the committees I hadn't served on and didn't get in the details I that was the part that was very surprising to me that even ever having having served a lot of years there were things that I just did not know very well at all and it was kind of surprising to attend some of these meetings more more often and get into the details and everything goes over over your desk and mine and then you get a little better flavor of that and one of the things well we we hadn't really had for very many years was the Economic Development Corporation I knew a little bit about it and I was supporting it as much as I could but having served on that committee I got to know all of the businesses and how we we work together we're blessed to have so many family-run businesses in our county that are have their roots there and they're not ever thinking about moving overseas and how just by having that that group work together we have created a lot of jobs and now we're fortunate actually to be in the position of the employers needing employees a few years ago it was not and that that has changed just in the four years that I've been able to serve as as chairman so that's a good story you know after 28 years you know you think you've been it done it all seen it all for the most part and then there's always so much to learn and new things going on and that's a great example of the Economic Development Corporation of course you're the first county board supervisor participating on that executive committee and the board and the counties it's a public-private partnership a lot of people don't know that but it's a public-private partnership and the county and the city help support it along with the private sector and it's making good things happen great example well we're starting to get a little closer to the end of the program and I know one thing that you wanted to talk about and something that's very near and dear to you and both your role as a county board chairperson but also working at the town level is transportation please talk a little bit about you know a key challenge ahead of this county and the state as a whole and and you know set the stage what are we up against here well as you mentioned we've we've made some great strides in streamlining and becoming leaner one thing we can't do is we can be lean in the transportation department but we still can't make those dollars stretch any farther the the tremendous increase in cost of transportation it has just escalated way beyond the normal inflation rate and we've balanced our budgets but sometimes it was by having to black top less miles of road we have 450 miles of road and with the average age of those roads the life of the road the black top is 15 years maybe a little less maybe more depending on the traffic but we should be black topping 30 miles of road a year to keep up with that pace we're spending the same amount of dollars but instead of that 30 miles a year it's been 10 12 15 the last couple years that works for a couple of years but we're getting behind and we have to think about either borrowing more money or figuring some way to keep up with those roads because just like the commercial that used to be on about the filters you can pay me now or you can pay me more later you got to maintain your roads to keep up the pace to keep them up to a par that they don't deteriorate and have to cost more to rebuild that is the biggest challenge i feel we have going forward and if memory serves i think the cost of just one mile of overlay is about what 120 thousand dollars yes but if you don't keep up with it and you have to pulverize and pave then you're looking at about 250 thousand dollars and if you don't keep up with that and really kick the can down the road for that same one mile to completely rebuild it you're looking at 1.2 million amazing yeah it is amazing and if we're going to be fiscally responsible as you said we've got to do something about it we can't continue to just ignore it or hope it gets better that's not magically going to happen here that's right we've got a big challenge ahead of us and you uh chair right now a group called the heads of local government yes you get together quarterly with this group across the county i've been hearing what you're hearing it seems like taking care of our roads is becoming a priority or a key concern of all levels of government would you agree yes we uh we meet quarterly at least unless there's a very pressing topic but we have common problems there should be common solutions we talked everyone around the table we asked them what is your biggest challenge going forward everyone around the table said transportation keeping up with their road projects and that was their biggest challenge and i really think that we're all in this together we all see this so everyone in the community shaboy in county community has a challenge keeping up with their road projects and we heard that loud and clear from every one of the village presidents the city mayors and the town chairman that was their biggest need now the question is do we have the political will to do something about it and i anticipate the board's going to be focusing on this very closely and your leadership as well as the new county board chairperson here soon yes we only have a couple of minutes left and as i reflect and think about your track record and the county's track record the last three decades and certainly your track record last four i don't know if there's a more successful county board chairperson in the state if you just look at the last 10 years the county board has raised property taxes on average less than one percent a year has been very frugal lots of consolidation streamlining as you said we've got some big challenges ahead but i think we've got good people and a good team in place to to take them on what what's been most rewarding for you roger serving as county board chair well i believe some of those same things you mentioned we've got a great fiscally sound track record here and what was near and dear to my heart is something in my town of holland area that i represent as well is the village of cedar grove we were able to make happen the amsterdam dunes project and i knew that area well my my great uncle actually farmed that 300 some acres and knew it well as a youngster one of my buddies lived right along the lake and was there different times and we had an opportunity to buy that when it was near foreclosure state so we purchased that 7.4 million dollars of value property for 4.2 and usually i'm not in favor of buying private property to make it public because we take it off the tax rolls that area was not heavily taxed at all that value was only taxed just over two thousand dollars because that was in the woodland tax credit which it never should have been but it was but we were able to get that at a very reduced price and also not only preserve the area what we have going forward is the wetland mitigation bank that we're proposing to start which allows some of that acreage to be sold or the credits to be sold to a company in our area that needs to expand if they need to expand their their footprint of their building and it's right next to the wetlands they couldn't do it unless they have that credit so the business community and the environmentalists were both in favor of that a large purchase like that at 4.2 million got unanimous support on the board and that was that was something that i'll always be proud of that i was a part of that as you should be i think it was the icing on the cake of four very effective years as county board chairperson i have learned from you i have appreciated your guidance your leadership and i'm gonna miss working with you as county board chair but i'm thankful that you're going to continue as a county board supervisor and continue to help make good things happen so roger thank you for sharing a little snapshot today of of your time as chair and your 32 years as a whole on the county board thank you for the kind words and i appreciate working with you and thank you for joining us if you want to learn more about county government or learn more about roger distruity and some of the accomplishments or initiatives that we've been involved in or you want to talk about roads and transportation and the challenges we have and your ideas to help solve them don't hesitate to contact county board chairman distruity or myself or your county board supervisor april 5th our elections we're anticipating to have a very similar group back on the county board we don't have i don't think there's any competition right now of any of the county board supervisors and i think in part it's largely due to their excellent track record so thank you for joining us next month erin brelt will be here from our planning and conservation department and until then again thanks for joining us