Bud Corbus announces bid to seek re-election

First District county commissioner Bud Corbus has announced he will seek re-election to a second term in office.

Under the county's staggered system of commissioner seats, Corbus is finishing a two-year term this year, but running for a four-year term.

"I've only had a year," since he took office, Corbus noted, but during that time "I think I've managed to accomplish a few things."

When he was first elected, he said, "at the onset, you have a thought of how things should work. But once you sit in the seat, you see things in a different light.

"My goal," he said, "is to build better communities. Glenns Ferry needs all the help it can get. The relationship between the city of Mountain Home and the county is crucial, and the airbase and community relationship is vital.

"So, we must build and maintain those relationships."

He's proud of some of the work in which he's been involved. He participates in the Glenns Ferry Economic Development Committee and the county got a grant to hire an economic development director for Glenns Ferry and the county (Bonnie Harper). Those efforts will be coordinated with the Mountain Home economic development effort, which for years had, by default, handled all the work for the entire county.

He's been involved in meetings and discussions concerning efforts to obtain a long-term water right for Mountain Home Air Force base.

He's made sure he's spent time in the Pine/Featherville areas, listening to the concerns of citizens who live in those remote mountain communities.

But perhaps the biggest challenge for he and the other commissioners was coordinating the county's share of the response to the Pony and Elk Complex Fires.

Besides rapidly moving to hire the local fire department to help with structure protection in the Elk Complex and Little Queen fires, the county also created a task force of various state, federal and local agencies to coordinate the recovery effort before the fires had even been declared out.

In addition, Corbus said, "we've done real well with our budgets."

He also addressed "one of my pet peeves. Our extrication team has responded to accidents for years and gotten paid nothing. Now, they'll get a small stipend, at least enough to cover the costs of using their own vehicles to get to the scene, and we've made sure that they're now covered with liability insurance through the state insurance fund." The county also approved a new extrication building in Pine.

In addition, he cites as another accomplishment the effort the county made "to go to bat for the people of Atlanta" to help keep the only road to the community in the winter open, after Boise County had threatened not to maintain it.

In the future, he said, he'll work to acquire a human resource director for the county to set up standards for employee pay, and to get those employees "some sustainable raises" so they equal those of surrounding areas.

"I enjoy the work," he said. "There's so much to learn, you can't possibly get a handle on it in a year's time. But representing the people of this county means a lot to me, and I'll do my very best," he said.

Corbus is the owner of B&C Welding in Mountain Home. He also serves as assistant chief to the Mountain Home Volunteer Fire Department.

He and his wife, Edie, have two children, Christ and Ashley, and a granddaughter, Kynlee.