Hood challenging incumbent for commission seat
By CLEON RICKEL, Herald Senior Writer
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As someone who frequently drives one of the county’s general transportation buses, David Hood knows roads.
He’s driven the remote byways and odd corners of the county picking up elderly passengers who don’t have reliable cars.
And as far as he’s concerned, too many of the roads are lacking.
“It seems like we’re spending a lot of money on rock that doesn’t seem to be doing a lot of good,” Hood said.
Roads and their repair is one of Hood’s top issues as a candidate for the Franklin County Commission. A Republican, he’s challenging incumbent Roy Dunn for the the 3rd District seat. The winner of the primary will face Scott Barnhart, who filed as an independent for the post.
Hood is a retired captain of the Ottawa Fire Department. He’s also been a member of the Ottawa Department of Public Safety and the Ottawa Police Department. He works for the county general transportation.
Hood said he’d like to see the county follow a regular program of maintaining county roads.
The county spends too much money with too little planning and forethought, he said. Often such decisions are politically tinged, he said.
Stationing an ambulance at Wellsville is one example of that, he said.
The commission didn’t think through the cost and its impact on other cities in the county, he said.
The county’s own study — which was done by the Kansas Board of EMS — cast doubts on the feasibility of having an ambulance at Wellsville, he said.
Hood said he has doubts about building a new jail although he agrees that the county needs to move the juvenile detention center.
An Ottawa High School graduate, Hood and his wife, Helen, have two sons and four grandchildren.
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