Editor's Note: We continue our election coverage with a profile of Richard Primmer, Republican candidate for Benton County Supervisor. As with all of our profiles, we offer you this information in the candidate's own words.
Background/experience:
Richard A. Primmer, a lifelong resident of Benton County, born and raised in Vinton. Graduated from Vinton Community Schools in 1969, attended UNI and received a degree in marketing from Kirkwood Community College. He married Pamela Travis in 1971. They have three grown children, Thomas and his wife, Diane, with son, Sam, Ankeny, James, with his children, Bastian, Katelyn and Myah, Urbana, and daughter, Julie, and her husband, Kevin Haefner, with children, George, Payton and Ella of Walker.
Primmer has been self-employed for 43 years, the last 27 years in the interstate trucking business, B.J. Primmer Inc. Pamela (who is a retired school teacher) and he also own and operate P.A.M.S. Inc. with five locations of mini storage, two apartment houses, two rental homes and three commercial locations.
Along with 43 years of business experience, he served for 20 years on the Advisory Board at Hawkeye Community College, been on the Board of Trustees and currently serving on the Staff Parish Relations Committee for Wesley United Methodist Church in Vinton. He has been on the City of Vinton City Council, was a member of the City of Vinton Police Department, was the night manager for North Benton Ambulance Service for many years as an EMT-1 and was also a member of the Vinton Fire Department.
Statement:
I feel that I bring with me my 43 years of business experience coupled with the different organizations and committees that I have been on. I have always been a positive "can do" type person. I have worked city budgets, worked with human resources in company and nonprofit organizations. I have strong customer relationship skills and get along well with people.
I do not have any "axes" to grind, and I do not have a personal agenda, I am not out to try and change something because I feel I have been cheated. But what I am after is prosperity! Benton County is a wonderful place to live and work. We are in the northern half of the economic corridor, Black Hawk, Benton, Linn and Johnson Counties. We need to sell ourselves to prospective businesses and industries, it is a known fact that every dollar that comes into a community turns at least seven times. We need economic development.
As a small manufacturer comes into a community they hire employees who in turn have money to buy or rent homes, money to shop in the retail shops on main street, money to pay utilities, money to pay for insurance from local agents, money to hire plumbers and electricians, money to pay carpenters to remodel or repair, money to send their children to school in our communities and money to pay property taxes, local and state sales tax, state and federal income tax. Since property taxes, local option sales taxes, state and federal funds are where we get our operating capital to run the county, I have yet to find something wrong with economic growth. We are falling behind our neighboring counties, yes this is a nice sleepy county, but we need to wake up and smell the growth around us and capitalize on development, sell ourselves on what a nice place Benton County is to live and work. Once we do that, we will have the money for road improvements, more county operated agencies and more services to offer our county residents.
As voters, we elect our officials to office, we do so on faith, trust and experience. We know the duties of each official, the term they serve and how they are compensated, (wages are posted in the paper every year) could you imagine the chaos it would create if we as voters would try to micro manage each and every elected official, their duties and set compensation by open ballets. That is why we have people that we know and trust elected to make those decisions for us, based on the responsibility, and experience for each office.
As far as currentissues in Benton County, I would have to say by far it is the letter that all commercial property owners received in August, a copy of which is attached. Most of the commercial owners that I spoke with were confused as to what the county was trying to do. In short with my back ground in business it was plain to see that since the State of Iowa did the roll back on commercial taxes the county is trying to make up the difference and then some by having a reappraisal of ALL commercial and industrial property. They are requiring ALL commercial property owners to show their income and fixed expenses (which does NOT include any mortgages) then they will "factor" this information in to estimate a "fair market value" of each commercial property. Now then for those who have very little business experience this is call "Income approach to Value" this is how a seller would go about listing his property to sell, by coming up with the fair market value for a listing price. However the Benton County Conference Board which is made up of the Supervisors, the city Mayors through out the county and the local school board members all voted to pay Vanguard Appraisals $267,335.00 to reappraise ALL commercial and industrial property within the county. (A copy of the minutes from that meeting is attached) So I visited with Larry Andreesen the Benton County Assessor, I asked Larry what this was going to do to the property values, Larry's reply was he "hoped" the increase would be under 20%. I then asked if any other reappraisals were planned and he stated when the commercial and industrial assessments were finished residential would be next and the increase would be "at least" a 20% increase.
Now I have visited with other property owners in all corners of the county and none of them were aware of what is going on. One individual that I spoke with said he WAS planning a expansion of his commercial property, but since the letter came out he said that he would rather build in Iowa County just a short distance from his location. This is the problem of NOT having a good "business head" on your shoulders. The county officials could only see increased property tax dollars signs for increased property values, when the BIG picture reallyis property owners are NOT going to do any investing in additional expansion just to incur more taxes andshould this go through the prices for goods and services will have to be increased to cover the increased property taxes.
The natural order of buying and selling of property as it goes through the court house sets the new values whether it is commercial or residential property. We should not have to reassess all commercial, industrial or residential property within our county in order topay county, city or school expenses. Instead we should offer incentives to property owners to improve their properties and create jobs, not vacancy's in our work places. Perhaps the message the Board members are trying to send is "we do not want any growth or business we are just going to raise taxes on those who choose to invest in our communities.
This is the complete opposite of what the City of Vinton is showing in the Comprehensive Housing Needs Analysis that cost the city $15,133.00 to find out that there is a need to have "affordable" housing in Vinton. Yet we are going to penalize any investor that is willing to build rental property in Benton County?
Just an interesting side note, I do not have to wait for the commercial and industrial reassessments to be completed before having a residential reassessment of my home, by coincidence the assessors office stopped by with their tape measure about 2 weeks afterI inquired about the commercial and industrial reassessment. Funny how it just happened to be "my time " for residential reassessment?
So, if you would like to see Benton County shine like the jewel it is, I will do everything in my power to make that happen.
Remember, I am not trying to seek personal gain or satisfaction from this office; I am trying to make Benton County a better place to live and work. I would appreciate your vote on November 8th.
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