Tazewell County auditor Brett Grimm says he wants to unseat David Zimmerman as chairman of the county board.
Grimm served on the Tazewell County board for nearly 10 years before being elected auditor in 2020. He says the county board has been hampered by continuous infighting, and is in need of new leadership for a change in direction.
Grimm says his chief concern is that the county has no clear plans for how to allocate its $26 million in federal American Rescue Plan Act funding.
WCBU reporter Joe Deacon talks with Grimm about why he believes he's best qualified to bring about the change he feels is needed.
This transcript has been edited for clarity and length.
You've announced that you're running for Tazewell County Board Chairman next year. Why do you think a change of direction with county board leadership is needed?
Brett Grimm: I sat on the Tazewell board itself for almost 10 years, and then I had a little bit of a break and now I'm the current county auditor. The time that I've gotten to spend on the board allowed me to see quite a bit of how things should operate. We had a very efficient, very well run operation and we saved money. We didn't charge taxpayers more than what they needed for the basic services.
Over the last number of years, things have just changed a little bit and kind of gone in a different direction. Being in there full time now as the county auditor, I get to see exactly how much of an impact some of those different decisions make. So it gives me just a different perspective now to come back and be, “this is where things need to go and the reasons why.”
You touched on it a little bit, but why do you believe you're qualified to serve as board chair and take it in a different direction?
Grimm: My business history and past history of ownership of different companies, leading people and doing different things like that. I think it's one of those that, I don't necessarily have to do the tasks myself but I know how to work with people to help get a job done. So (it’s) being able to accomplish the goals that kind of I would like to see happen. I think I can help everybody do that, and I get a pretty good consensus of people that (will) move along and to help get there.
Can you share a little bit of what your business background is, for those who may not know?
Grimm: I owned a heating and air conditioning company for a number of years. I had a safety company for a number of years, where we'd go in and do medical boxes and OSHA requirements, things like that. I had a senior care business, where we currently go in and take care of people in their homes so they don't have to go out to a nursing home or to assisted living or different things like that – so it kind of helps the family on that side. And (I’ve been) a manager of a remodeling company, so getting different projects done from different things.
What do you propose or intend to do differently than the current chairman?
Grimm: One of the main things that's driving me towards this is: we have about $26 million of ARPA money that's been delivered to the county from the Fed. It's basically our money that's been returned to us, and we don't have a clear direction on how to spend it. We've been discussing it; we've had meetings of the full board. The most common thread you hear through it all is, “I don't know what we're doing. Where's the money? How are things going?” And it's because things are just kind of being decided behind some closed doors, as opposed to doing some things that I would like to do. Some of the things are, I want to work on our people, places and things.
Currently, we have several buildings in our (county government) campus (in Pekin). They're not being taken care of very well, or we don't have enough maintenance people to keep up with them. Our bidding process is atrocious on trying to get a number of bids and then get things accomplished with it. What I would like to do is fix what we have. Between our employees and our buildings and all the different things, we have a lot of places that we can use that money to bring our equipment and buildings back to what they should be. Then once they get to that point, then let's see how much money we have leftover and what our needs are and what's the best way to spend that.
In your announcement on social media, you pointed to contentious infighting among elected officials and municipal leaders. Can you point to an example and explain how you would stop this infighting?
Grimm: I tend to not have too big of an ego. That tends to be a lot of the problems with just people around, and it's not just the county, it's life in general. Everybody's got a little bit of an ego and they don't want to be wrong. I'm married, I've got three daughters, I'm wrong all the time. So it's one of those things, it's not too big of a leap for me to be like, “OK, there's a different way to do this and it's a better direction. Let's go with that.” Right now, it's one of those, “Let's do this to get him, or to get her, or this village or city or whatever,” instead of just working together and listening to people.
The board is now represented entirely by one party, but the infighting is only gotten worse. What are the points of contention?
Grimm: The county (government) is different – it’s very, very different – than Springfield or federal, or things like that. So while I don't like the fact that it's necessarily one party, that really doesn't come into effect whatsoever. Because it tends to be one of those things more of, I see you at the library or I see you in the grocery store, see you at different (places) like that. So it's all neighbors really kind of working together to try to make this together. Whether you live in Dillon and I live on the outskirts of Tremont or whether you live in Pekin, it doesn't matter to me because we're all in the same area.
What I think the sources of contention and the different things come down to just: how do we spend money? A lot of times the people that used to be on the board, we've said a lot in the past, it came down to a matter of: did you earn the money that you're about to spend or were you given a pot full of money? I mean, at Caterpillar or State Farm or a university or municipality, different things where you have a budget that you have to spend this much to get done. So there's not as much thought to where that money came from as to how it needs to be spent. That's one line of thought, which is a good thing for parts of it. But on the other part of it, you have the people that are, “I had to earn my money, and I only want to make sure I spend it on the things that are going to be the most beneficial.” So that tends to be where the votes come down. It's not a matter of, we don't decide any – abortion, assisted suicide – any issues that would really come down to any kind of a discussion or a (partisan) problem like that. This is just: how do we best serve the people of Tazewell County?
Let's talk more about that $26 million in ARPA funds that you've referenced already, and not having a plan to use it. How do you think – you touched on “maintaining what you have” already, but what can be done throughout the county to put this money to the best use for taxpayers?
Grimm: When I was property chairman of the county back in 2016-17, we came up with the five-year capital plan of things that needed to be replaced: everything from locks on the jail to air conditioners on the health department. Different kinds of things – roofs, sidewalks, painting handrails – different things, just to maintain and take care of the items that we have. Those haven't been done; there's been nothing that's been done with that. We had gone as a board to figure out how to budget $5 million to take care of (those) kind of things, and then it was a five-year plan to take effect. Never done, never touched, never broken open.
We've continued to fix things as things became emergencies because they weren't maintained. That's part of those things as well, where I've worked on taking care of things, again, in my life as a business owner and a service person. Every bit of my life has been managing people and in a service industry, and if you don't take care of the things that you've got, you're going to end up with a bigger problem. That's what I want to avoid.
The relationship between the county and the City of Pekin has deteriorated in recent years. How can that relationship be repaired?
Grimm: Fortunately, I haven't had a lot of doings with the City of Pekin personally, so it's one of those things (where) I'm able to go into it with a pretty open mind. Mary Burress is the new mayor and she was (previously) the county treasurer, so I've known her for a long, long time. We never really worked with each other; we worked alongside each other. But she's got the best interests of Pekin in mind and I've got the best interest of Tazewell. So again, I'm not going in there with any kind of a, “you did this to me, I did this to you.” Let’s just work and make this happen.
One of the major topics that has been contentious between the county and Pekin has been plans for a justice center annex and along with that, the demolition of the historic Tobin and Arcade buildings. Do you believe the annex is needed?
Grimm: I think there needs to be something; I can't give any kind of an answer what that is. It could be an administration building, it could be a couple of different options. We have about three buildings right now in downtown Pekin that people are in, that aren't used very well. A lot of that is (because) the foundations are cracking, the roofs are falling in. We've got different things (where), again, it comes down to maintenance, but they're older buildings. So it's one of those that, instead of keeping our employees in stuff like that, we can put them in something newer or can consolidate a little bit – but that might be an existing building. Do I know what we need? Not exactly, and the reason for that is more because I don't know how much money we have – because I don't know what it's going to take to fix that “people, places and things,” and I don't want to spend anything more than what we have. So once I know what that balance is, then we can see about that.
The Tobin and Arcade buildings have been a major point of issue among several different people in Pekin. They are county-owned, and it sounds like they're to the point of being unsalvageable. Is going ahead with demolition something that you think is the right way to go?
Grimm: One of the buildings definitely has deteriorated rapidly in the past six months, and the other one is empty now. It doesn't really matter what I think on it, because it was voted that they're going to do it. So whether I agree with it or don't agree with it, instead of the “how,” I'm going to deal with, “OK, this is what we have now, how do we move forward?”
So moving forward then, you’ve said there's no real plan for those spaces. What do you think should be done, and do you think it's a problem that these buildings have to come down before knowing what exactly is going to be done with the area?
Grimm: I think that's unfortunate, because it's one of those that I try not to leap without having some idea of what's going to happen at the end of it. I think that's kind of why we did some of this; yeah, there's no discussion of, “this is what we're going to do” with these buildings or this empty space.
The proposal is the annex would go there.
Grimm: But I've heard everything from a two-room courthouse to an eight-room courthouse, to the biggest building that we can afford, to – and again, nobody has any idea. We haven't seen drawings, there's been no plans, there's been no discussion. When you talk to the property committee or the county board as a whole, nobody's brought things to them. Nobody has talked to them about, “what exactly do we want?” They're always like, “Well, how do you feel about this? Or how do you feel about that?” – but there's no, “this is what we're going to do.”
You pointed multiple times in your announcement to a lack of transparency with how taxpayer money is spent. Where have you seen this lack of transparency, and as board chairman, how would you guarantee that the transparency you feel is necessary occurs?
Grimm: The fact that I'm the county auditor and I have to really ask quite a bit to try to find out where the money's been and how they're doing it and different things like that, that's my job – and I have to struggle to find out where things are at and how much we have left. The board, they don't have the time or the resources or the ability to dive into things like I do. And I think that's wrong, because they're the people that are making the decisions. They're the people that are trying to decide how to do that; that's the entire function of the county board is to be stewards of the money. And if they're struggling to find out how much we've got, where it's at, and how it's being spent, then that's wrong and that's one of my key points. We need to make sure that everybody knows where things are going.
Shortly before you became auditor, there was some consideration among county leaders toward eliminating the position, or making it appointed instead of elected. Obviously, that elimination has now happened in Peoria County. Do you believe an auditor is still necessary in Tazewell County, and should it be an elected or appointed position?
Grimm: I can argue both ways. It's one of those where it's definitely a good thing to be able to have somebody that is in there to see it. I disagree with the state statutes in the qualifications for the auditor. The (only) qualifications are the fact that you have to be 18 years old and a resident of the county. I kind of feel like that with a $66-$67 million company, it'd be nice to have some credentials or some ability to understand what a financial statement looks like, how to dig into things, and stuff like that. Without that capability and without those requirements, anybody can run. So, having a financial department where you have a couple of CPAs and different kinds of things to make sure that journal entries are correct or things are being charged and put out as they should, I think that's important. So I can argue both ways.
