We endorse Archie Stanley for re-election as Athens County engineer. His 32 years as county engineer and knowledge of the area make him able to serve Athens County to the best of his ability.
Stanley is running for his ninth term as county engineer and, despite a contentious campaign, we believe he should return to office and finish the projects he’s started.
Stanley’s bridge program has replaced about 220 of Athens County’s bridges, and he plans to replace the remainder during his next four-year term. Stanley has said that he doesn’t want the next engineer to inherit any work that was started under his watch.
Stanley has also instituted a new rating program for bridges, inspecting them every year instead of the required biennial inspections.
There are certainly desirable traits about Stanley’s opponent, Jeff Maiden. Maiden has worked on both the private and public side of engineering and, during the campaign, has gone out of his way to travel to other counties and talk to their engineers to get a better understanding of what the position entails.
But the longtime engineer has hinted that this will likely be his last term in office. While we think Maiden would be a capable and productive engineer, we don’t see adequate reason to boot Stanley before the completion of his bridge project.
This race has been weighed down, at least in part, by the controversy regarding just how many miles of county road are gravel. Maiden’s campaign, citing ODOT statistics, argues that there are 132 miles of gravel roads in the county while Stanley says there are only 50. An independent investigation conducted by a Post reporter backed Stanley’s numbers.
That finding makes it easier to trust Stanley’s numbers when it comes to other figures — such as how many of the county’s bridges need repairs — when they are disputed by his opponent, but, with that said, Stanley should file accurate reports of unpaved roads with ODOT in Athens County to ensure that this type of controversy doesn’t arise again.
While some of the decisions he’s made about employee pay and overtime have come under fire, Stanley’s ability to remain in the black and continue to conserve carryover funds — $1 million this year — at the time when the county’s books often flirt with the red is commendable.
One of Stanley’s greatest accomplishments came when he sold the old engineering site on East State Street and used the money from that sale to build a new engineering building on U.S. State Route 50. Stanley didn’t need to dip into taxpayers’ pockets to build a new state-of-the-art facility and now, five new businesses sit where his facility used to be on State Street.
Stanley knows the roads in Athens County so well, he can predict what roads may be flood over after a bad rainfall or what bridges need more attention. In this instance, 32 years in public office is an advantage. If it’s not broken, then don’t fix it.
