Supervisor candidate ready to apply education

For more than the past three years Roger Vicker has been on the side of the county supervisor table as a concerned Union County resident.

Now he’s ready to sit on the other side.

Vicker is the only formal candidate for the one Union County Board of Supervisor seat this year. He is not backed by a political party and he will be on the November ballot, not on Tuesday’s Primary ballot. Vicker is running to take the seat vacated by Ron Riley who announced earlier this year he will not run for another term.

“It’s been a venture,” Vicker said. “I started attending board of supervisor meetings about three and a half years ago, off and on.” Many of those attended meetings were because of the county’s plan to have commercial wind turbines.

“My friends would say, ‘Why don’t you run,’” he said. “Nah,” was his reply. “I like the three we have in here.”

Those friends would come back after Riley made his decision.

“Why don’t you run,” Vicker said they asked again. The situation changed Vicker’s thoughts.

“We do have a hole and I feel like I have educated myself on the job. OK, I’ll do it,” he said.

Vicker admitted the wind turbines is what started his interest in county operations. He lives in an area where he can see one from the three sides of his property. He said he is not opposed to them, it’s just he wants them in appropriate places.

“We need the energy,” he said about their electrical production. “But there are a lot of downsides to them too. They have to be addressed.”

Vicker said he furthered his research by contacting supervisors in other counties that have wind turbines.

“They were going through the same process at the same time. We compared notes and what energy companies were saying,” he said. “Unintentionally, I was learning how to be a supervisor.”

Vicker returned to the Union County supervisor meetings within the last year when the board was working on a solar power ordinance.

“It’s growing,” he said about solar power. “There are lots of advantages over wind. Wind turbines are getting taller and bigger. Solar has different chemistries and panels.”

Vicker noticed growth in the number of private residences that have had solar power panels installed. He said that concept could also be incorporated in the town of Creston.

“Take larger parking lots like at the hospital, Southwestern and the high school. You have acres for solar power that would not take up any land and create cover for parking lots,” he said.

Vicker said as a supervisor he would do extensive research into the county’s budget.

“I see it as not the supervisors to cut budgets and deal with it, but work with department heads. ‘Here are some business practices you can adopt and find out costs.’ See what things are not as important to the taxpayers and talk to taxpayers to see what is not important,” he said. “‘We need less,’ is what I’d love to see come out of the supervisors’ mouths.”

Vicker, 63, is a Union County native. After courses at Southwestern Community College, he ventured into information technology. His work included the National Farmers Organization, Creston Co-op and Wellman Dynamics. He decided to have his own IT business “and has never looked back.”

Vicker hopes the county and others can continue the good things he said are in Union County from the fairground facility in Afton, murals in Creston and Green Valley, Three Mile and Twelve Mile lakes that attract the crowds.

“Peggy Whitson (retired NASA astronaut) also learned to fly from Bill Mercer at Creston’s airport,” he said about some of the good things.

Vicker said his expectation of people changed during his petition to be on the ballot.

“I’d expect them for me to say why I want them to vote for me, or even get my petition for the ballot. But people told me why I’d make a good candidate.”