During the county commission meeting last week, retired county comptroller Alan Kalt spoke during public comment to give tribute to Commission Chairman Pete Olsen during what was Olsen’s last meeting before retiring himself. Olsen has served 12 years on the commission and is termed out of his seat. Myles Getto was elected to fill the District 2 seat.
“Seventeen and a half years ago,” began Kalt, “you asked me a question as we sat at a baseball tournament watching our sons. You were talking about why is the county putting bike trails and speed limits on certain county roads and I told you, ‘you know what – you need to run for county commissioner.’ And you said to me, ‘now why in the hell would I run for county commissioner?’ Today, I can tell you why.”
Kalt continued by saying it had been an honor and privilege to work for the commission for 27 years and have the opportunity to work with several selfless leaders over the years. He said that Olsen came onto the commission during a great recession and sat in staff meetings figuring out how to not lay people off. “You believed in staff, and we were able to get through that difficult time.”
Kalt referred to Olsen’s vision and insight to bring in economic development to help during those tough times. To bring in the Dairy Farmers of America and work to put in the infrastructure needed, “Maybe you ran for commissioner to build a bridge and do the things to make this community prosper.”
Referring to the Pennington Life Center he said, “Maybe you became a commissioner to help seniors, to retire that old, tired building and work with the Pennington Foundation on a new facility to expand Meals on Wheels and other programming.”
Kalt spoke of the short window of opportunity presented to purchase the golf course and said, “Maybe you wanted to buy a golf course and keep that resource for the community for recreation,” and he said perhaps Olsen wanted to be a commissioner to partner with the geothermal industry and work with Enel to allocate resources to match funding and build a new Youth Club.
“Or maybe you wanted to help the employees at the Sheriff’s office with that deplorable jail facility and lend your leadership to bringing in the new jail,” said Kalt.
He also spoke of the city and county working together and the leadership Olsen provided during the covid crisis, as well as finding a generational solution to the Newlands Project flooding with the Big Dig, or the foresight to the investment in the Rafter 3C facility.
“Today I can answer why you would want to serve as a county commissioner,” said Kalt. “So you can leave an indelible mark on this staff, and the place we call home.”
He closed by saying the only thing Olsen had to worry about now would be which grandkid to go visit.
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