An editorial by Dave Baumeister, County Correspondent for the Garretson Gazette, Brandon Valley Journal, Minnehaha Messenger and Dells City Journal
While giving voters things to think about with local candidates and issues is considered a main job of a good newspaper, we usually try to stay out of primary elections, as those are for political parties to sort out for themselves.
However, before June 7, we need to make an exception and talk about an important local race – that of the Minnehaha County Auditor.
In this election, incumbent Ben Kyte is being challenged by Leah Anderson, and looking at Anderson’s political signs and listening to her speak at county commission meetings, she seems to be running on only one issue, “election integrity.”
While the auditor’s office is associated with elections, there is much more to it than that.
Mainly, the auditor is responsible for collecting taxes, keeping track of the budget, and dispersing money.
And Anderson must agree with this, because the week after the annual briefing on the job of the county auditor at the county commission meeting on April 26, she said, “I was glad you allowed Ben (Kyte) to share so much last week (April 19). It was nice to hear everything he is responsible for, and I think he is doing a great job with most of it.”
But she then went on to criticize Kyte on work surrounding elections.
However, Kyte, who was appointed to fill the remaining term of retired auditor Bob Litz in 2021 has not yet had the chance to fully work on a major election.
So, for a person to say someone is doing a “great job” on the work he’s done, but then go on to say she has “concerns about” the part of his job he has not yet been able to work on…well, we have some “concerns” too, but they are not about Kyte, they are about the understanding Anderson has of the auditor’s job.
Right from the time Kyte started, he got his office to work together with new Minnehaha County Treasurer Kris Swanson in streamlining tax procedures.
He’s already been through the budgeting process successfully in 2021, so he is even better equipped to handle it in 2022.
He is very good at keeping track of county meetings and publications, this keeping people notified of what is going on.
In Minnehaha County, do any of us really have a reason to be concerned with the “integrity of our elections”? Of course we don’t.
But should we always be vigilant as to how our tax dollars are being spent? Of course we should!
And that is where we see the experience of the incumbent Ben Kyte as being extremely valuable.
So we feel the choice here is very simple: do we want to vote for Anderson, who criticizes Kyte for a job he hasn’t had a chance to do, while she says he’s been doing a “great job” on the parts of his job he has done?
Or do we want to vote for Kyte, who has done that “great job” of keeping track of our tax dollars, and when the elections are held, we will most likely see he has done a “great job” with those, as well.
Readers may not always see us supporting incumbents in an election, but for the job of Minnehaha County Auditor, we feel the choice for Kyte is clear.
