Remarks by Jim Howell
146 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 2 of 6
- Play at 1:00:54
“All right. Thank you very much. Thank you. Chairman. Oh, Commissioner Howell. Steve, I just wanted to say thank you for your service as well. 30 years is amazing. And I'm also very patriotic. I would love to have them participate in showing honor to our country. And I'm sorry they don't do that. I would like to see them do that. I don't know if we can use our money in any way to encourage them to make a different decision. I think that's what you're asking us to do is to leverage our money to make sure that they don't do something that is received as disrespectful to our country.”
Board of County Commissioners · Oct 14, 2026
- Play at 1:15:46
“Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have spent... considerable time thinking about last week's meeting, and I have some questions, I guess, for staff and really for public to think through. I think Colonel Smith may have misspoke when he talked about Section A on the same section, Section 187A. He talked about the right to lease a facility is what that's about. That's actually in Section 188. It's the next section. And the difference is section 187, paragraph H, is the authority to construct a hangar with a third party. Section 188, paragraph A, is the authority to enter into a lease agreement for…”
Board of County Commissioners · Oct 14, 2026
- Play at 1:24:35
“Chief researchers, which is, they work in the Kansas legislative research department, KLRD. Yep. Great organization. Yep. And they need to settle scores. I think even the Department of Administration gets counsel from KLRD. They give legal guidance to the entire operation of the state of Kansas.”
Board of County Commissioners · Oct 14, 2026
- Play at 1:25:54
“May I ask, do you think a motion is necessary here or just consensus from the commission here?”
Board of County Commissioners · Oct 14, 2026
- Play at 6:01
“So we were supposed to have a meeting on that, and that meeting was canceled. Was that meeting rescheduled, or what happened there?”
Board of County Commissioners · Oct 2, 2026
- Play at 6:31
“Okay. Well, I didn't receive anything other than a cancellation notice, but okay. Thank you.”
Board of County Commissioners · Oct 2, 2026
- Play at 6:37
“They did not. And by the way, the cancellation notice happened so late that I was driving to the meeting at the time that that happened. So, no, there was a lot there that did not go well. If there's another email, I must have missed the secondary email. Thank you.”
Board of County Commissioners · Oct 2, 2026
- Play at 9:25
“Can we get an updated fiscal note that talks about our current costs, the costs under the agreement, and then the costs, what happens when the bonds are paid off? And... I'd like to see that, again, if they provide maintenance labor for our benefit versus if they don't provide that, because at some point that will end. We don't know when, but it invariably will end because their mechanic will be updated from time to time. And so whenever that happens, we don't have that benefit at that point. So I'd like to know what that cost would be as well. Thank you.”
Board of County Commissioners · Oct 2, 2026
- Play at 10:58
“1 more question on that hanger. May I can there be a clarification on there? What happens at the end of the 50 year lease with the airport authority? There may be a change in ownership at that point.”
Board of County Commissioners · Oct 2, 2026
- Play at 11:32
“What is our understanding though of what will happen at the end of the 50 years? What is the understanding if we're not going to clarify it with a memorandum of understanding? What is our understanding?”
Board of County Commissioners · Oct 2, 2026
- Play at 11:59
“So for the land itself, what about the building at that point?”
Board of County Commissioners · Oct 2, 2026
- Play at 12:10
“So, at least the leases, the facility and the land, which probably would be more than 22,000 a year at that point.”
Board of County Commissioners · Oct 2, 2026
- Play at 13:23
“I think I understand everything you just said. What I'm wondering is, though, is the ownership of the building, does that revert to the airport authority? They leased the building and the land then at that point because they essentially owned the building at the 50-year point. They actually became owners of the facility at that point.”
Board of County Commissioners · Oct 2, 2026
- Play at 14:03
“It just seems we have multimillion dollar buildings. There's nothing, there's no, nothing written down exactly how that's handled. And what's the, how is this done? And it's simply... historical relationships and what's happened in the past, but there's nothing written down saying this is what we should expect. Here's how that works.”
Board of County Commissioners · Oct 2, 2026
- Play at 19:41
“Commissioner Howell? Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Joe, a couple of comments and a question. So, first of all, a sinkhole cost us $73,000. That's a comment. That's a lot of money for a sinkhole. $73,000 to fix a sinkhole. That's a lot of money. The first one I was going to ask about is the electric pole relocation. I'm just curious why the utility company isn't on the hook to change this location.”
Board of County Commissioners · Sep 23, 2026
- Play at 20:06
“Seems like that was something they should do that if we need the space. They're located in, I assume, our right of way. About a quarter million dollars. Go ahead.”
Board of County Commissioners · Sep 23, 2026
- Play at 20:37
“Okay, and is this right where the pole is? Is this going to be paved as a paved shoulder right where the pole is, or is it off the road a bit?”
Board of County Commissioners · Sep 23, 2026
- Play at 20:47
“Okay, so the ditch is the issue. I'm just curious, is it required that the ditch is obstruction-free?”
Board of County Commissioners · Sep 23, 2026
- Play at 21:05
“But it's their pole, right? Correct. Okay. I guess I'm just not concerned about their poll as much as they should be concerned about.”
Board of County Commissioners · Sep 23, 2026
- Play at 21:17
“Okay. Well, anyway, it's almost a quarter million dollars for that one. That one bothers me a bit. But anyway.”
Board of County Commissioners · Sep 23, 2026
- Play at 21:53
“All right. Next question is for someone else. Thank you. Item number three, Joe. It talks about the striker power load electric cots. It gives a price of $88,139 each. It doesn't say the quantity that that covers. Nowhere on this does it talk about quantity. Yeah. How many units are we talking about? Is this one or ten or all of them? We don't know.”
Board of County Commissioners · Sep 23, 2026
- Play at 22:34
“So we're only going to buy one of these total? Correct. Okay, and most of our ambulances do have power cots, but this is different somehow?”
Board of County Commissioners · Sep 23, 2026
- Play at 23:02
“So where will this be located? And since we have a big county and we only have one of these, where will it be? How do you get this to where you need it? This is to take people up and down, let's say, a flight of stairs, for example, right?”
Board of County Commissioners · Sep 23, 2026
- Play at 23:27
“Okay. That explains things better. Just again, by reading this, it's not clear that we're only talking about quantity one. Just throw that out there. So I don't know. Maybe it's obvious, but to me it wasn't obvious. All right. Well, thank you for the answer to the question. That's all I got. Thank you, Joe. And thank you, Chairman. Okay. Commissioner Beatty. Yeah, Atlanta, if I can ask a follow-up.”
Board of County Commissioners · Sep 23, 2026
- Play at 28:19
“Okay. Commissioner Howell. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do appreciate you working with our other staff to sharpen the pencils and get this down somewhat. As I mentioned yesterday, we don't know that $300,000 is kind of a guess. It could be more or it could be less, and I would just make the comment that the one option here, if you want to stick to 50-cent increments, the closest option to zero is the $2.50 increase by the commission, so total would be $7.50. $5 from your decision and $2.50 from the decision of the Board of County Commissioners for a total of $7.50. I would like to see us use…”
Board of County Commissioners · Sep 23, 2026