But a welcome, welcome, welcome. It's time now for our community connection
and we have Corey Shibvel here with us and he is running for county commissioner.
First of all, good morning to you, young man. Good morning,
and how are you doing today? Little Monday morning going on here?
But you've got a lot of energy? Yeah, what I got? I'm
good, I'm good. Well great. I want to ask you, first
of all, why are you I know that we have a commissioner that's not
running, so there's a vacancy, but what has prompted you to want to
take the initiative to go forward with this? Well, after twenty eight and
a half years with Washington County, huh, fourteen of those years I have
been the road supervisor, and with Commissioner Vivia not running, I felt like
it was the right time and a good opportunity for me to take the next
step into county government. Now, you talked about being in the arena there
for twenty eight years, tell us a little bit about your qualitivacations. Time
is one thing, but what have you done with your time is? I
guess what a lot of folks would like to know. What have you learned
that kind of positioned you for this jump. Yeah. Absolutely, Well,
fourteen years of being the supervisor, you know, I have had a good
working relationship with the commissioner, so I'm able to see the inside of what's
going on in the county, not just not just the road department. So
in that field, you know, I've taken on responsibilities as assessing roads and
bridges, overseeing the upkeep on equipment, tracking inventory, and assisting commissioner done
lap with the budget of that department. So you really had an intricate relationship
with the job as far as getting into the nuts and bolts other than just
you know, shovel a little snow here and patches a little road there and
yes, hey, yonder comes a bridge. You've not only been out their
hands on, but you've been in the on the thinking side of the equation
too, like you said, with the inventory and with the dollars and cents
and and getting a feel for how things get done on on the backside.
Yes, absolutely, I've I've been to many commissioner meetings, so I understand
the process. Uh, you know, I know that they are approving purchase
orders, they are approving payroll salaries, they're overseeing they're financially overseeing all of
the county offices. Indeed, and that includes every commission uh you know,
every garage, everything that goes on here too as well. So it's a
it's a job that really calls for a lot of know how, and it
seems that you've really been exposed to a lot of that know how. Yes,
I have absolutely, you know, like I said, fourteen years of
it, I've seen. I've seen quite a bit over the twenty eight and
a half years. But then as a supervisor, you see on new equation,
a whole new way of thinking on it. Yes, Corey shipples with
this here and he is a running for county commissioner. Your family guy,
Yes, it's a little bit about your family. Family first, no doubt
about it. I've been married for thirty one years. I've got two adult
kids, I've got three grandkids now, the oldest one not quite four,
and the three of them they definitely keep us on our toes. I know
how. That goes a lot of fun to be around. But boy,
they got some energy to go. Oh yeah, oh goodness sakes well,
it seems like you put a lot of thought into it. Did it take
a whole lot of contemplation, or was it one of those things that as
soon as you found out Commissioner Boobia was not going to run that maybe you
really started putting a lot more effort into the thought. Well, you know,
the thought came across about fifteen years ago, oh really, that I
might want to do this some days. I didn't know when, but yes,
when he decided he wasn't going to run, I thought, you know,
this is a great opportunity, great timing, and and honestly, I
just felt like the residents of the county, including myself, would want somebody
who had experience and knowledge for the job. And once again, it's not
one of those things where you either show up at the meetings. You got
to show up at the garage, you got to show up at the oh
yeah, at the at the site. You got to you got to make
sure that dollars are accountable and manpower and woman power are all there in the
buddets and ready to roll. Absolutely, so you've got the you've got the
manager's hat on. You've been doing that for quite a while, and you've
gotten the peak behind this means because of the mere fact that you had to
keep track of a lot of dollars. You had a lot of you had
a lot of math going on there. Wow, that makes my head hurt
thinking about it. Yeah. Yeah, the county, the road department runs
off of a quarter cent sales tax, okay, and that quarter cent generates
between one point five and two million dollars a year, and then of course
that's divided by three districts, so we we operate off of about six hundred
thousand dollars a year, and that's maintaining roads and bridges and then the upkeep
on equipment and purchasing equipment. So so yeah, you kind of you you
really need to pinpoint what your what roads you can work on, and what
kind of equipment you can purchase. Tell everybody where your district would be should
you get the job of county commissioner. What geographical area in the county District
two? District to the county is in Dewey, and District two is pretty
long. It's all pretty much east of Highway seventy five, but it does
run north to Highway ten and then it runs all the way down to West
thirty two hundred road. Oh my, so you got a so yes,
Yeah, they just can't make squares anymore. Can No, No, you
would You would think that they would just be kind of divided up equally.
But no, I understand why. It's populations. A lot of ye go
into it, A lot of a lot goes into it. Yeah, yeah,
got to get the right number of voters in each one and so yeah,
everything has to come out in the wash as they say, yes,
yes, oh right, well this is really cool. Now do you have
a like a Facebook page or a website that the folks can be directed to
to keep up with you? Yes, I have. I have a Facebook
page. It is Cory Shivel for County Commissioner, District two. Right,
have a emailed email is on that site. It is I believe it's got
c Shivel for County Commissioner at gmail dot com. There you go, there
you go. And you know, this is one of those things where a
lot of folks will say, well, what does a county commissioner do?
Well, they do a lot. First of all, it's more than just
you know, patching a road. Yeah, it really is. You know,
there's two hundred and thirty one county commissioners in Washington County or I'm sorry,
in the state of Oklahoma, and if you asked each one of them,
you would probably get two hundred and thirty one different answers. Oh,
yeah, it's really hard to district. Yeah, it really is. What
makes sure the district unique. Our district, you know, the south end
of the county is really kind of booming as far as housing developments and that
kind of stuff. So I think we're a little different than say District one,
who's on the north end of the county. So yeah, I would
say that would be the unique part of District three. So yeah, I'd
like to say everything's got its own little little stuff and you've got to be
pretty well aware of it. Twenty eight years doing this. Like I was
joking with you, I said, that's a good start. That's a big
portion of your life. Yes, and and your qualifications of course speak for
themselves. I want to thank you very much for being with us and sharing
your thoughts with us on the position. And do you do you need folks
to help you out knock on doors and things like that. You're looking for
volunteers. Oh, I could use all the volunteers absolutely, send them to
the Facebook phase. Yes, they can message me or they could email me
and yeah, if someone wants to jump in and help, I would I
would be glad to have them. Well, that'd be great. You know,
it's a pleasure meeting you and I hope you can drop by again.
And thanks for being on our Community Connection today. Anything I've missed absolutely no,
I don't think so, you know, I do. I really do
like county government. I think it is one of the most efficient and transparent
form of government that there is. So yeah, I really, I really,
I really enjoy the job that I do very good at. Kory Shivel
and he is running for County Commissioner, And thank you for being on Community
Connection right here on K one the one you trust