MARSHALL – Lyon County Commissioner candidates talked about local issues Thursday night, in one of several candidate panel discussions held in Marshall. Commissioner Steve Ritter and challenger Al Kruse discussed topics ranging from public infrastructure to agriculture in Lyon County.

Ritter and Kruse are running for office in County Commissioner District 2, which includes Marshall’s Ward 2 and Lake Marshall Township. Commissioner Paul Graupmann, who represents Commissioner District 3, which includes Marshall’s Ward 3, Lynd Township and the city of Lynd, is also running unopposed for re-election.

Thursday’s panel discussion focused on Ritter and Kruse. The two candidates answered questions from local media and area residents. The discussion started off with commissioner candidates’ thoughts on what the county could do to help foster economic development and growth in Lyon County.

Ritter said that was a topic he’d thought about often. “It’s one of our biggest challenges, to get the Legislature to quite putting more mandates on local units of government without funding them,” Ritter said.

Encouraging growth was a challenge, partly because the county doesn’t have control over some of the factors that can drive businesses away. An atmosphere of heavy state regulation can push businesses and industries to neighboring states like South Dakota, he said.

Kruse said he thought there were some things that could be done to help encourage business and workforce growth.

“We need high-speed rural broadband,” Kruse said. Internet access is extremely slow or spotty in parts of Lyon County, he said. However, Kruse said it could be possible to expand high-speed Internet service. Lac Qui Parle County has done so, with positive effects, he said.

If Lyon County could address the broadband issue, he said, “It would be a big draw . . . That, and day care, affordable housing and jobs that pay better than minimum wage.”

County infrastructure was also a major part of the panel discussion. Ritter and Kruse were asked what the county should do to maintain its roads and bridges.

“We’re on the right track,” Ritter said. Three years ago, Lyon County commissioners approved a 0.5 percent sales tax and a wheelage tax to raise funds for repairing and resurfacing county roads. While creating new taxes isn’t a popular thing to do, Ritter said the measures had support from the public, and raise over a million dollars a year for additional road maintenance.

“Everybody I talked to on the street was in favor of maintaining our infrastructure, because, as the state does not keep up with the gas tax increase . . . we had to have another funding source,” Ritter said.

Kruse agreed that the county sometimes needed to use its own resources to take care of roads and bridges. However, he said, “We also need to be cognizant of the fact that the state Legislature put us into that position.” The county needed to help urge the state to support road and bridge funding, he said. “We can’t be putting it all on our citizens out there.”

Infrastructure also played an important role in supporting agriculture in Lyon County, candidates said.

“One of the things that farmers depend on is roads,” Kruse said. The county needed to maintain county roads for trucks and farm equipment, he said. “We also need to lobby the Legislature to step up and do what they can.”

Ritter said county commissioners work to help support local agriculture in a couple of ways. Maintaining and rebuilding roads was one, although he cautioned that it was a costly process.

“Some of these county roads, the ditches are so steep. They haven’t been regraded since back in the 1940s. So, when we regrade a road in the county system, we bring it up to a 10-ton capacity,” Ritter said.

Ritter said the commissioners also serve an important role as the county ditch authority, which governs necessary tasks like ditch cleaning and approving drainage outlets. For a county, he said, “Your infrastructure is one of your biggest assets.”