Morton County Commission candidates offered their stances on the county's drafted comprehensive plan at an election forum held Tuesday at the City/County Building in Bismarck.

They also aired views about county-city issues and previous efforts to share services with Morton County's neighbors across the Missouri River.

Morton County's draft of its comprehensive plan drew comment from the six-member panel, which included Matt Erhardt, Dick Tokach, Bruce Strinden, Ron Balkowitsch, Mark Bitz and Susan Beehler.

"I am confident we could have this done at the end of the year," Bitz said.

Referring to a controversial proposed feedlot north of Crown Butte Dam, Bitz said that the controversy arose from rural development.

"We felt (it was) going too far out into the county," he said. "We felt it was urgent to provide county services to some of these areas. We wanted to take a look at what the guidelines were, how we could update them." He said the plans being reviewed now are similar to those considered in 1999 and 2000, but he expects some updates.

"There is a public hearing concerning the comprehensive plan on Sept. 25, so it is moving along," said Beehler. "I was concerned about property rights owners, the same concerns that Burleigh County has with people living out in the country not being able to do what they want with their land.

"In the same respect, it could be the people who want to sell for the feedlot are being infringed on by the people who do not want the feedlot to come in. So, his property rights are being infringed on. I don't know if the comprehensive plan is going to be able to address those things or not."

"If the comprehensive plan, as it sits at this point, would have been in place, it would not have changed a single thing with the Berger feedlot issue," said Strinden.

Candidates were asked how to best improve the working relationship between Morton County and the city of Mandan.

"The county of Morton and Mandan go hand in hand," Beehler said. "As its largest city, it has some of the biggest needs as far as tax dollars. The other thing I find (challenging) is trying to balance that growth with the amount of tax dollars available. I feel the city and county need to work together because what the city does affects county residents. … At least 50 percent of the residents feel that taxes are too high. That is where conflict and division are coming in," she said.

Bitz said cooperation does exist between Mandan and Morton County.

"One of our prime achievements has been the merger of the two libraries. Readership has gone off the charts. The bookmobile service is being utilized by many, many more people. It was a good effort on the part of two entities. We currently are making progress (in) discussing dispatch and communications. We've come a long way in cooperating with the city of Mandan. It's a matter of keeping the lines of communications open," he said.

Erhardt took issue with Mandan taking a two-mile territorial extension.

"I think they are taking all these little developments that we have started as a county. … I think this is something that will create problems with taxation with the county because we don't have sales tax. All we get is revenue from the property tax," he said. "This is a big issue, to support the county. We have to budget very carefully," said Erhardt.

Strinden said the entities will need to work more together to save costs."The only way they are going to be able to hold the taxes (down) is to use shared services," said Strinden.

"We do need to work hand-in-hand between the county and the city," Balkowitsch said. "We need to make sure if the city wants to expand out further than it is, it has to have the infrastructure to support that infrastructure."

The forum also addressed previous efforts to coordinate emergency 911 efforts between Morton County, Mandan, Bismarck and Burleigh County at a combined dispatch center.

"Our 911 (in Mandan) is very valuable. It's a lifesaving tool," Erhardt said. "It's something we have to look at very carefully. … At one time, we did not have the facility availability with the 911 services because of the lack of connection and communications. But right now, we have it working beautiful."

Tokach said he was on the committee that worked on the concept with Burleigh County, Morton County and Mandan: "We thought we had everything worked out, but it seemed there were always some problems. It finally was vetoed by the city of Mandan so we just kind of dropped it all together. Burleigh County and Bismarck did their own," he said.

Bitz said he was serving the Mandan City Commission at the time of the joint county communication center debate. "While I supported the concept of the communication center; I did not support that particular plan. One of the major flaws I saw in it … was we had 35 employees that would have been working there, and there was a user board of 17 people to oversee it. It was a recipe for disaster."he said.

Bitz said each entity buys their radio equipment at different cycles, and much of the different equipment would not have been compatible with the system. He said the switch could have been costly.

Beehler said there is a typical pattern where the city and Morton County come to a roadblock when working together. "Then they can't work through it, and it almost becomes a power of who is going to do what … If we could come beyond that and what would be best for the taxpayers of Mandan and Morton County and this region," she said.

She said one example of cooperation was when the county, school system and road department came together for safety issues in traveling to the new middle school.

(Forum sponsors were the League of Women Voters and Community Access Television.)

(Reach reporter LeAnn Eckroth at 250-8264 or leann.eckroth@bismarcktribune.com.)