Let voters weigh in on the feud

Let's have voters settle this thing.

The 'thing” to which I refer is the endless feud between the Linn County Board of Supervisors and Auditor Joel Miller. This week, the supervisors asked a special panel to explore removing accounts payable and payroll functions from Miller's office, handing them and four employees to human resources.

This is the third time since Miller was overwhelmingly re-elected in 2012 that supervisors have moved to remove functions and employees from the auditor's office. Not long after the 2012 election, supervisors handed facilities management, along with 32 employees, to another county official, Garth Fagerbakke. Fagerbakke happens to be the same the guy Miller beat 62-37 in the election.

Miller has been a very pointy burr under supervisors' saddles many times. He's sued them. He's accused them, along with most other county elected officials, of lousy management and wrongdoing. At times, in my view, he's raised issues that deserved raising. He recently pushed the supervisors into the video age, posting footage of board meetings on YouTube. Long overdue.

But Miller also has a bad habit of swinging sledgehammers at houseflies. He recently complained that a non-profit seeking to build the Prospect Meadows baseball/softball complex north of Marion is using county office space without a lease. His questions and concerns are valid. His call for a criminal investigation was over the top.

'The auditor has cried wolf. The auditor is crying wolf again,” Supervisor Linda Langston said at Wednesday's meeting, which Miller did not attend. Miller has accused supervisors of pursuing a 'vendetta” against him.

Supervisors insist bad blood has played no role their dismantling of his office, a claim that strains the outer limits of credibility. Regardless of motivation, they strongly dislike how he runs his office. And yet, more people in Linn County voted to put the auditor back in that office than voted to put Barack Obama back in the White House.

How do we reconcile those realities?

Back to my opening line. The Iowa Code allows voters to merge the duties of county officers. If Miller's critics think he's mismanaging his office, all they have to do is go out and get roughly 15,100 signatures on a petition calling for a merger of the auditor's office and, for instance, the recorder's office, while also eliminating the auditor's position. Supervisors could put it on the 2016 ballot.

I checked with Lucas Beenken, policy specialist for the Iowa State Association of Counties, who says it can be done. Woodbury and Marshall counties are examples.

I'm not endorsing a merger. I'm simply looking for a voter intervention in this stale stalemate. Stop the madness. Win or lose, a voter verdict on such a measure would send a strong signal to all involved. I think county taxpayers deserve a chance to weigh in on whether they like this incredible shrinking auditor's office.

And yes, I know it won't happen. We're likely stuck in a seemingly perpetual loop of accusation and recrimination, rinse, repeat. Supervisors are likely to keep whittling away and Miller will keep swinging that sledgehammer.

l Comments (319) 398-8452; todd.dorman@thegazette.com