A fourth Republican has filed for the Kosciusko County Council District 1 seat.
Retired Kosciusko County Sheriff’s Office deputy Donald A. McCune, 52, has put his name in to replace Doug Heinisch, who resigned from the County Council effective May 18 because of his work schedule. McCune joins candidates Kimberly Cates, 56; William Dixon, 55; and Frank Rhoades, 69.
A caucus is scheduled for 6 p.m. June 7 in the Syracuse Town Council Chamber, 310 N. Huntington St., to replace Heinisch. The deadline to file declarations of candidacy with Kosciusko County Republican Central Committee Chairman Mike Ragan is 6 p.m. Friday.
Eligible candidates must reside in Kosciusko County Council District 1, be a Republican in good standing and not have a felony in their past. District 1 includes Turkey Creek and Tippecanoe townships, the eastern part of Plain Township and a little more than half of the northern half of Washington Township.
In a telephone interview Monday, McCune said he decided to seek the Council seat not because the Council was doing a bad job, but to help the county be more financially responsible and conservative, especially after the pandemic this past year.
“I think taxpayer dollars can be spent better,” he said. “I know agencies bring their dollar requests to the County Council and say ‘here’s what I want.’ I would listen to anything they want or want to say, and they can bring their complaint or want to me, but they need to tell me how they can fulfill it. How will they pay for the cost without any extra burden on the taxpayer?”
McCune said thousands of federal dollars sit idle because people don’t know about it or how to research it to bring to the Council. He said the County needs to have one person to do that and bring it to the departments’ and Council’s attention. “We need to operate as one to go further and be wiser,” he said.
If someone is not willing to work with someone else or another department, then something needs to be changed. Regardless of political party, everyone at the county is responsible for the management of tax dollars and their use.
“With Kosciusko County, they’ve always been financial responsible, but this past year, the tax base is not going to be where it was at in 2019. Lots of people were not working, so there weren’t a lot of people paying taxes,” he said.
He also said the county needs guidelines on providing tax abatements to businesses.
McCune has lived in Kosciusko County his whole adult life. In 1992, he interned with the KCSO and was hired that year at the jail. He worked his way up to road patrol, retiring in September 2019.
McCune also has an associates degree in criminal justice from Indiana University.
Besides having mastered his household budget, he said he also was responsible for the county dive team’s small budget, which was about $500 per guy. He said he acquired the skills to fix the equipment himself.
Precinct committeemen eligible to vote in the June 7 caucus include Mike Wilson, Plain 1; Tyler Huffer, Plain 4; Dan Thystrup, Tippecanoe 1; Mark Grady, Tippecanoe 2; Sue Ann Mitchell, Tippecanoe 3; Jim Smith, Tippecanoe 4; J.D. Ayres, Turkey Creek 1; Kimberly Cates, Turkey Creek 2; Turkey Creek 3 was recently vacated; Virginia Cazier, Turkey Creek 4; Karen Grady, Turkey Creek 5; Randy Girod, Turkey Creek 6; Frank Rhoades, Washington 1; and Tom Pletcher, Washington 2.
