Note: The following are Question and Answers provided by the Polk County Chamber of Commerce to questions that weren’t asked during the 2022 Candidate Forum, and have been made available to local news outlets like Polk Today for publication. You can find coverage of the Candidate Forum here.

These groups of question and answers come from candidate James Vines for the District 1 Commission seat which will be decided in the Tuesday, May 24, 2022 Primary.

Note that Vines only provided some of the answers to the full nine questions provided to candidates.

Would you support creating a Land Bank Authority to help address blighted and dilapidated properties around the county? Are you in favor of creating it? Would you be in favor of supporting it financially and administratively?

No, the county has an ordinance enforcement arm which is tasked with handling such things as blighted properties. There is a legal process already in place to deal with such matters. If additional administrative help is needed, the county government can look at possibly hiring more staff if applicable or assiging existing staff to help with the additional administrative work load.

Are you aware that city residents pay the same milage rates/property taxes as unincorporated Polk County? The County commission represents all Polk County, which includes the cities.

Yes I am aware that the mill rates set by the school board and commission apply equally to all property owners.

Where do you think the majority of sales tax is generated and economic growth occurs?

In the past a majority of the sales taxes have been generated in our incorporated cities, but with the expansion of certain businesses outside of the local incorporated muncipalities, that appears to be changing somewhat.

Would you support going after grant money on a regular basis and creating a position at the county office to admin grants?

To my understanding the county already pursues grants. I wouldn’t be opposed to looking at obtaining more grants, provided that the county government works in conjunction with the local municipal partners to ensure that monies obtain benefit all residents of polk county. As for hiring someone to do this full time, it might be feasible to look at using a system of rotating resposibility for going after grants between the county government and municipalities. If existing personnel can be used to do this, then they can be given training on how to perform this task. Creating a permenant position would need to be studied from a financial benefit perspective before I would consider it.

Should Polk County bring in more industry, tourism and housing developments or stay the way it is?

Polk County should strive for growth, but with checks on that growth. Not all expansion is good. Taking careful steps to properly plan for attracting business and tourism needs to be a central focus for proper growth.