The race for collector ...

Questions, speculations and rumors have run rampant in the race for Howell County Collector. To aid voters in their choice, Howell County News hosted a debate for the two candidates, Mark Collins and Janet Crow.

Readers submitted questions before the debate began, and audience members submitted questions Thursday night.

Two questions stood out throughout the evening. The first: whether current Howell County Presiding Commissioner, Mark Collins, has used his time in office to benefit or gain advantage from his position and the circumstances surrounding Janet Crow's filing and the subsequent lawsuit challenging her candidacy filed by Mark Collins.

Before the debate began, candidates gave opening statements.

"I grew up in a John Deere store in Licking, MO that my parents owned and operated. It was there that I learned at an early age that hard work and honesty, and a good work ethic would get you far in life," began Janet Crow.

"My husband, Blake and I, owned and operated Earl's Dodge, Chrysler, Jeep and Ram for 30 years. It is there that I learned the skills of accounting, management, leadership, computers, finance and budgeting. Along with these skills, I bring a proven reputation of honesty, and integrity to the office of collector. I ask that you listen closely to the vast differences of character and work ethic between my opponent and myself."

Mark Collins began his introduction, "I am a third-generation farmer in Howell County. During the last tax year, the tax collector's office collected and distributed $24.9 million in revenue. The operations of this administrative office are specifically laid out by the Missouri State Statutes. The collector needs to understand the rule of law and be capable of following the nearly 400 state statutes that governs the office. With my background in county government, I am prepared to serve the folks of Howell County in the collector's office. At times, there can be complicated tax issues. On these occasions, it is necessary for the collector to be able to assist and guide the taxpayer through what is sometimes unfamiliar territory. My goal is to continue with the parameters of the law to provide service to the collector's office, which we have all been accustomed to expect."

 

Personal Advantages

Mark Collins responded to criticisms that he has used the office of Commissioner to his own advantage by stating, "Well, I haven't. If anything, my farm has suffered all the time I put in. The county commission's position is labeled as a part-time position, and I have dedicated it as a full-time position to promote Howell County and keep it moving forward. We are the 89th, third class county in the state of Missouri. We're the fifth ranked, and I believe that the people of Howell County need full response and a promotion to help them out here. With 40,000 people, we're fifth largest in the state. We're 11th ranked in the valuation with 569,000,000. But no, I have not used it for my personal gain. If anything, I have lost because of my farm, neglected my farm."

In her rebuttal, Janet Crow stated, "My rebuttal will be, I think most of these people here in the audience live on a county road. So I think they need to compare their county road to the Collins farms county road, and they'll know."

That lead into the discussion of ARPA funds being allocated to a business that Collins' family owns.

Collins responded with, "Yes, funds were distributed through OzSBI down here. We give them so much money for due diligence on applications, and they did. And they even scrutinized more, a lot of them, even more than normal. They called attorneys, asked their opinions, and it would be no different than Ms. Crow getting grants for her farm from the county governments. Everybody's capable to do it if they meet the qualifications. And OzSBI was a third-party administrator, which we paid to do it because we didn't have time to really go through the due diligence of every county or every application and be fair about it. I did abstain from that. I did not take part in that. The motion was made by Commissioner Bill Lovelace, who is now deceased."

In a rebuttal, Crow argued, "You just stated that you couldn't be fair about it if you accepted the applications yourself. That's pretty questionable. It's the Cares Plan, by the way, not the ARPA plan that you ordered the money for. And you gave OzSBI $68,000 to implement that. And I still don't understand why three commissioners couldn't sit through both of those applications and take care of business."

A submitted question continued the point of, 'How can the citizens trust that you (referring to Collins) will not show favoritism to some as the collector.'

"Well, first of all, the Cares and ARPA money did not show favoritism to anybody," Collins began. "They applied and their due diligence, whether it was by the county commission, not by me, but by the county commission or by OzSBI and their board, then the collector's funds. You have very specific statutes how that's distributed. You cannot do anything with that. There's checks and balances. You just can't do anything with it. It's very statute driven."

Crow responded to that with, "I would say, going back to this Cares Act, when they let OzSBI distribute this and do the application, I believe what I've heard from most of the people was the fact that no businesses really knew about this. And if you try to research and look back when this all came about, it was not advertised out there until mid-October. I know there's several people that we didn't know a thing about it. So I think it was lack of marketing, lack of transparency and advertising to the people in the public that knew this was even going on. So they felt like they did not even have a chance. They felt like people that were closely involved or related with the county would be the ones that knew about it. So that's a response I have from the public."

 

Candidate Filing

Throughout the evening everything kept circling back to the circumstances surrounding the two candidates filing for office. Questions arose of how exactly the candidates knew when the position would be open and why a lawsuit was filed against Crow.

"Well, I learned about it after the filing date had started," Collins answered. "I knew the presiding collector, he was unsure whether he was going to run, and so when he decided not to, I already had my preparations made, in case he didn't, that I would run."

"I did not learn about this until I was at the Republican Lincoln Days on March 18," stated Crow. "There was a quiet whisper around the room that he would be retiring. It was U.S. Representative Jason Smith that let the cat out of the bag that night. I had been thinking for many years that I would run for office to be a public servant at some point, and it was from that moment on, I had about ten days to get it all done, cleared, and make sure this is what I wanted to do. And I decided that I would run for county collector at that point."

Approaching the question regarding the lawsuit filed against candidate Janet Crow, Collins had this to say, "I have contacted the Secretary of State's office a couple of times. Attorneys have contacted them, and we cannot get a written opinion about this. They said, it's a local matter, and it's my challenge. It wasn't a lawsuit. It was a challenge of her candidacy. So that is why I did it, because I have never seen a written opinion. People can stand up here and say, she said, he said. But until it's a written opinion, it's not. I have not been able to get one from the chief of staff that I've talked with at the Secretary of State's office."

Crow responded with, "I spoke to Jay Ashcroft myself several times on the phone. He reviewed my documents after we had sent them up to his office after the lawsuit happened. He told me that my documents were in order and that I should have been filed like the clerk filed me. So I have two election authorities that said that my filing should have been accepted and I should be in a race on the Republican ballot. First of all, the affidavit he's talking about does not have to be notarized. And they can accept emails, especially since COVID. So the email was perfectly fine. And they do not have to be notarized. Therefore, my filing should have been accepted."

Coming back to the election process, a submitted question asked, 'As a Republican why could you not comply with the filing requirements to run with your party? And should voters place our confidence in you to meet timely deadlines in the position of Howell County Collector?'

Crow responded to that question by stating, "I will reiterate again, I was told by the clerk's office the documents to bring in. I brought in precisely what they told me I needed to have to file for an office. I arrived at 4:02 p.m. I had to wait in line for another person to finish filing. I brought in the documents that I was told by the clerk's office. It was then that I was told the office of collector had a special letter that I needed. The clerk explained that to me. I called my insurance company, and they sent the letter via email. Like I said before, at 4:53 p.m. it arrived, the court told me that I was filed, that I would be on the August ballot, and if it had not been for my opponent running around the office having a fit, and bullying, and harassing, and outbursts against myself and the staff, I would have been out of there before 5:02 p.m. And then I have to question, if there would have been someone else behind me waiting to file, would they have been allowed to file? Because I know they don't kick you out of voting booths when the time's up. So I questioned this whole process."

Collins rebuttal was, "Well, once again, waited to the last minute of the last hour of the last day to do this, and she did not know what needs to be done. Once again, I have this document. Anybody want to look at it? An email was all that was sent. It was not an affidavit. And I consulted with several attorneys and retired people from the law profession, and that's why I went ahead and filed the challenge, because they said that I was correct."

Diving into the topic more, a submitted question asked, 'If there had been someone besides Janet Crow in the office, would you have behaved the same way? Would you have filed a lawsuit against them? Was it personal?'

"No, it wasn't personal," stated Collins. "I'd have filed against anybody if they had not complied with the law. Why does anybody have to compete with somebody? A truck driver has to have a CDL license. Why should they have to compete against the truck driver that doesn't have a CDL license certified? Welders, why do they have to compete with welders that don't meet the certifications to do their welding job? All I want to do is compete against a person with the like credentials that I have."

Crow rebutted, "He (referring to Collins) was so desperate to run unopposed that he would have done anything to get anybody off the ballot against him. And when I got a chance to look at his paperwork, like I said, his paperwork was not correct either. His 5124 was not notarized properly so, I could have had him tossed for that, too, except I didn't go the route to sue anybody. That's the difference between my character and his question."

 

Municipalities and Contracts in The County

A question directed at Crow,'Are you for or against terminating the municipal contracts that add to the collector's salary?'

Crow stated, "So I would renegotiate these contracts, and here's why… The contracts are from 1990. The collector's contract states to compensate the Howell County Collector for services provided by him at a rate of three percent of the total amount of taxes collected by the collectors for the city and the penalty of 2 percent for delinquent taxes. In addition, Howell County, Missouri gets one percent for those taxes collected. I do not think that any elected officials should get three percent to their payroll. I just don't believe in it. There is a statute, or not really a statute, but the collector's office is supposed to make $60,554.00. But there's all these contractual things. I don't think that we should be double taxing the citizens of West Plains and Willow Springs three percent. I think the cities or county can do more with it. I just do not think it should belong in the salary of an elected official."

Collins responded to that with, "Well, if we quit collecting the taxes for the city, it would cost the city of Willow Springs tens of thousands of dollars. They would have to have their own collector, their own software, their own office, their own postage and everything. The programs for collecting taxes are very specific, and they're expensive. There has never been, in the last 40 years, any of the cities come to the Collector and request this."

 

Closure of Parking Lot

A hot topic amongst the crowd and readers of Howell County News prompted this question, 'The closure of the Howell County office building parking lot that has been closed for the last year, that was something the commission voted on over a year ago. How would you respond?'

Collins responded with, "Yes, that was a commission decision. We were doing that about the time that COVID hit. The merchants had come to us for the last 15 years wanting some parking spaces available for their customers because the county employees were taking up the parking spaces. So in an effort to do that, we decided to close that, have a safe place for COVID-related and give 911 space. They have employees that come in at night, and so they needed a safe place. But another thing is, more than once, more than once, people have been caught downstairs and being very, very friendly. And so an effort to do that and to keep the graffiti from being wrote all over the walls, that is another reason why we closed it. It was a commission decision. It wasn't my decision. It was a commission decision."

Crow rebutted by saying, "My rebuttal would be what you effectively did was shut out some businesses, and they closed, and took their parking away."

 

Salary of Collector

In a reader-submitted question it was asked, 'What do you think about the Howell County Collector's salary being higher than it is in most of the states?

Crow began with, "I believe the high paying salary of the Collector's office is what sets this office up to be transitional succession plan for the career politicians in our county. Just look at the past history of those who have held the collector's position. The current Collector held a clerk's position for 35 years. Now, my opponent has been on the Commission for 26 years. So why would they want to not choose to stay in their current position to serve their community? The answer is the high-paying contracts that pass a salary that set them up for a better retirement. This is the one topic that our community deserves transparency on."

Collins rebutted with, "Well, I think it's well deserved. You don't have a risk without rewards. You got your land up for a lien that could be taken away from you. So there is substantially a lot you're in care of. Like, in this case, over $29 million. So I could see where it could be higher than others."

 

Closing Statements

In closing statements, Collins went first stating, "In 19 days voters of Howell County will elect a county collector to serve for four years. With my experience I believe I can serve the taxpayers well and hit the ground running on day one. My objective is to serve the citizens of Howell County, it's my home, always will be, I love it, this is where I want to be. Get out and vote come November 8. Vote for me. I love being your servant. Thank you and may God bless Howell County."

Crow closed by offering, "Very simply, I am running to be a public servant, I am running for change and transparency. I am not the kind of person that sues the county they work for or sues another elected official. I am running on my qualifications and reputation of honesty and integrity. I will continue to take the high road and work for change and transparency. Vote for Janet Crow November 8."