WEBVTT

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Good morning, good morning, good
morning, and welcome, welcome, welcome,

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and it's time now for our community
connection right here on K one,

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the one you trust and we have
with this yere Commissioner Mike Bouvier And Commissioner,

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how are you doing today? Very
good? Thank you? How are

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you? I'm doing great? I
understand this is your your last year in

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office. You know it's been a
pretty good run, hasn't it for you?

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Yeah? Twelve years and I haven't
had a day that I didn't want

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to go to work. Well,
that's awesome. Now. One of the

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things that a lot of people know
you for is that you restored the the

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the graveyards and cemeteries in the area. Some of them had been neglected for

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a good long time, and you
really kind of put that on your shoulders

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and said, this is gonna be
a little bit of a mission here,

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and you've got these things cleaned up
and looking good. Yes, thank you.

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It was a mission of love.
I think, you know, I

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just felt that, you know,
we need to respect our are passed and

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the people who have passed on before
us and get it cleaned up and so

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that other people can come and view
their loved ones and their stones and look

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at the history behind a lot of
the graves and everything. It's quite interesting

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too. You know, Commissioner people
often wondered, you know, a commissioner

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has a great deal of authority for
the districts in which the serb and represent

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and a lot of it it's the
roadways. Let's face it. Everybody has

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something to say about the road.
I got a great road, or hey,

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what can we do about this road? It's usually the road they live

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on. I figured that one out
tell us about the responsibility a commissioner might

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have for the roadways in their district. Well, about safety. I think

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most of it is that, you
know, I tried to ride the roads

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quite a bit to see. We
got about one hundred and fifty five miles

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of road each district. And I
like to try to write roads and see

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it myself. When I see something
that's uh, you know, that can

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cause a problem sooner than later,
we like to try to take care of

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it. And you know, we
only have a certain amount of money,

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so we're kind of limited to what
we can do. And I always give

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praise to the Cherokee tribes and the
Delawares that have helped us out in the

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past to give us money to refab
these roads, rehab the roads, and

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it's they've helped us out a lot. Always for them, we wouldn't be

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nearly as have nearly as good as
roads that we do. As far as

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Blacktop goes, I think we've done
a pretty good job here, and I

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think our commissioners have been taken actually
staying on top of it best as they

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could with the limited resources that we
have. That's correct. We look for

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grants and like I said, we
talked with the Cherokees and try to get

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money where we can to help with
you know, these roads to surface resurface.

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The be nice to have all the
roads blacked up, but that's probably

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never going to happen, not in
my time, well not probably not till

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maybe the end of the century for
that matter. And that's just that's just

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hard to It becomes more and more
expensive each year too, even the chip

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and seal, it takes a lot
of time, it does. It's it's

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incredible the cost of not only the
material, but buying equipment to do the

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chip seal and stuff like that.
You know, some of our equipment is

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just real old. Because you're talking
some of the equipment could cost up to

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six hundred thousand dollars and you know
you got to put that on a bank

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account and pay so much money month
or whatever. It's just crazy. And

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that's just for one piece, you
know, it's just ridiculous. Yeah.

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Boy, Now you were telling me
before we went on the air that you've

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got a couple of road projects that
are underway and you're working on. Can

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you bring us up to date on
the ones that are happening between rainstorms?

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Right later this spring when the temperature
warms up, we will be rehabbing the

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nineteen hundred which is east of Bison
Road, and we'll take care of that,

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and then we get eleven hundred road
that will be blacktopping then out there

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on in Dewey. But you know, that's basically about all we got ready

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to go. This year. We
have I say, I can only spend

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half the money that I'm allotted as
a commissioner for whatever, so I have

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to leave it during a year where
we have well we got to the thought

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election years. Election year, we
have to only spend you know, half

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of the money. Wow, So
it's really limited, yeah, it is.

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So we'll just do our regular maintenance
and then fixing potholes and chip sealing

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and you know, trying to get
stuff, taking care of them, watching

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out for emergencies and so forth like
that. Speaking of emergencies, this is

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something that the commissioners were looking at
several months ago. And I'm just recalling

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the story. You're looking at getting
some redundancies to make sure that the function

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of county government would continue should we
have an ice storm, quake, tornado

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or things like that. How's that
coming along. Yeah, we we have

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to keep on top of all of
that because you know, we would just

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be able to stand still if that, if we didn't take care of that,

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that's the worst place to be during
an emergency. Still, yeah,

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we've got it laid up pretty well. Well, that's good. I mean,

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it's good to know that we have
backup systems in place, nothing's going

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to be lost and we can continue
in the throes of something horrible, God

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forbid it ever happened. Right,
We've got a couple of new buildings going

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up on Bison Road for emergency management, so that's going to be a nice

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thing when they're all finished. So
we'll have a command center there and Terry

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Cox does a super job at taking
care of all that. And we've got

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one building up and I'm not sure
exactly how far there along probably sheet rocking

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and pain pain now. But then
when that's done, phase two will be

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there to put up another building and
you'll have a landing pad for a helicopter

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and all all that kind of stuff. Got nice. That's great. You

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know, we're thankful for the space
that we had out there by the DSR

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building, but it was a little
compact. There's get a little tiny.

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Yeah, that's kind of back there, stuck in a limited of what equipment

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you can have. And ye,
you know, we've got big trailers,

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you know, and there's for and
we can use them buildings. Therefore the

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new buildings for forever. In a
COVID situation again where people can come up

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and drive through the building, you
can get their COVID tests and whatever.

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However they're going to do it,
and it's probably going to be called something

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else. Yeah the next one,
give it a hundred years. They usually

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go one hundred year cycles. Yeah, something different, But that is that

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is really good. You know,
a lot of forward thinking by the commissioners

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that to help out with the Washington
County Emergency management, getting them what they

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really need to take care of us. I should should danger call What would

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you say is the highlight of your
career as a as a commission? What

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would you say that your your shiniest
moment, You're you're proudest thing that you've

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done to help out the community.
Oh boy, Well, as you know,

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I tried to get god get it
off the ground for a new fairgrounds

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and for whatever reason it didn't go
through. Kind of disappointed into that,

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but that would have been a great
highlight for my career. But probably the

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cemeteries because I hear so many people
say we've done a good job on the

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cemeteries and also taking care of the
roads. I we hardly get any calls

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on District twos roads. You know, we may not do it like they

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want us to all the time.
You know, sometimes I have to tell

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them, well, we don't have
the money, and they'll say, well,

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how come you did that road.
Well, when you spend three hundred

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and fifty thousand dollars in that road, you only got six hundred thousand less

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for the year, or three hundred
thousand dollars left for the year. You

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can't do another road. Yeah,
you just can't you have to do We

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have to put out do the roads
that take care of the most wow,

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and that would be you know,
we put down things that tell how many

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of what the traffic is across these
roads, and we count the traffic and

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we'll work by that and by how
much traffic that is, and then we'll

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do that road first. See,
folks, there's always a little bit of

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math and everything. You know what
I'm saying. Yeah, whether it's counting

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cars or counting dollars. So we've
got to do the math. You've got

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to make sure that the dollars make
sense. Yeah, Oh my goodness.

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So what's a what's what's you going
to do after post commissioner work. Well,

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I still have a plumbing company.
I might just go around and you

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know, make sure the jobs are
being done, and probably spend a little

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time traveling a little bit. But
you know, I like to keep involved

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with rotary and maybe a little bit
with the high school students. With rotary,

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I do a lot of that.
It's called interact at the high school,

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and so I really enjoy the kids
and I'll probably try to stay active

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doing that kind of stuff. I
want to let folks, you know,

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at home that just because you retire
from a position doesn't mean you've retired from

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everything. It just means we're turning
the page and getting into a brand new

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chapter, and usually an exciting one
too. Right since time, you know,

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I've been doing it twelve years and
I'm old enough that needs do young

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blood. You know, we have
Mitch Chandle, which is a younger man,

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and that man is just incredible.
I mean, got a lot of

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energy, doesn't he He's got a
lot of energy, and he's been here

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for a long time, you know, through the for county government, and

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he just knows the ins and outs
and just does He's phenomenal. And get

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another couple more like him, and
there wouldn't be another county in the state.

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It could be equal us here.
Wow, sounds good. Well,

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I want to wish you the best
when retirement comes. But in the meantime

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I know you're going to be working
hard, because that's the only thing you

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really know how to do is work
hard. You got one speed, don't

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you get her done? That's a
charge charge Bunker Hill Commissioner movie. Thank

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you for spending time with us,
Yes, thank you, folks. You've

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been watching and listening to our community
connection