i'm very pleased to welcome nick sherman to our conversations with the candidates nick is running on the republican ticket for the washington county commissioner job i'll turn right to nick to start us off if elected what skills and qualifications do you feel that you will bring to the job of commissioner first of all susan thank you so much for having me big thanks to the league of women voters you guys do a great job of getting the message out to the candidates for getting the message out to the people for the candidates and i do president a company called the domestic outreach center the domestic arts center is a nonprofit organization based in allegheny washington westmoreland a little bit about their county and occasionally we reach up to erie what we started as is a  organization that does domestic violence counseling for anger management when you get arrested for an assault for domestic assault and lieu of harsh sentences in lieu of everything that would normally happen what we're doing is trying to fix the problem or working with area women's shelters where they're taking the victims and giving them the counseling that they need and then we're actually doing something different where we're taking the defendants the men that are being abusive and we're helping them with anger management issues psychiatric evaluations drug and alcohol evaluation and we found that around eighty percent of people that have the message violence issues there's a drug and alcohol related issue as well so we're trying to go to the source and fix the problems and that was the big umbrella that the domestic congress center is and now we have a under age drinking program where we're helping youth when they're getting caught with under age drinking alou of them having the stiff fines and having a criminal record we're trying to plea bargain deals o judge jimmy ellis every tuesday afternoon working with him so he's been in space instrumental in the program that we have so that's the background and lou of just that i think my experience and first of all managing people we have at right now i have fourteen people that i'm managing and that's going to bring a lot of experience to the table i want to make sure that you know we have a county commissioner that knows how to manage people and knows how to get things done we were started as a very small nonprofit now where the second biggest in the state for diversionary programs we grew in the last nine years since i start the program almost two hundred fifty eight percent so our growth has been absolutely huge because of the management that i do and because of the hard work of the people that work with me balance and budget is balancing budgets is very very important to me a lot of commissioners will boast that we're balancing the budget and elect officials and say we're balancing the budget while in the private sector you have to make the money first and then you have to balance the budget so it brings a whole new realm of expertise that we have here making sure the payroll is accounted for we are the one of the only nonprofit in the state that does not get funding from state local or federal government everything that we do with a domestic got rich center is independently funded by the people that come through our program so we've helped over around fourteen hundred people every year and we've done this at zero dollars of the taxpayers create it's good to hear about this side of the domestic violence this issuing good to hear that you're doing that kind of work let's turn to the job of county commissioner what do you think the biggest problems or the biggest issues are th commissioners are going to face in the next four years you know the next four years i think that you know i've knocked on over twenty five hundred or so far in this campaign and there's a few things that keep resonating with every door that i knock on and that's the reassessment i think people are very upset about the reassessment that we're having here in washington county it goes back to a lot of them are stops that about the l s a money the l s a money is the casino funding that we had when we were given casinos back in the early two  we were told that this would drastically reduce or this would eliminate property taxes well that is not a county issue this is state law that we're trying to work with i want to make sure that i'm working with the state representatives in the state centers on this issue to get some property tax relief back to the taxpayers like we were promised for this l s a money right now is being treated as a walking around money for pet projects through the commissioner's office and i would like to see a little bit more transparency with that so i think the  know money like i said would be a big issue we're starting to see a lot of questions with the oil and gas money as well where is that going and i'd like to have some more transparency there and i think the one overlying issue because again going back to my area of expertise i work in the district courts every single day i work with assistant district attorneys every day i work with jean with our district attorney and i see the big issue that we're having here in washington county continues to be our opiate addiction and the issues that we're having with heroin this is not an inner city problem anymore this is something that we're seeing it's rearing its ugly little head right here in peter's township north your brain cells are banned so the more affluent communities are being affected and hit hard with this epidemic and i'd like to i'd like to work with there continue to work with the district attorney's office county probation and my local judges to make sure that we're addressing this issue how it needs to be addressed do you have some different ideas about how it should be addressed different from absolutely i think one of the big issues that we have is to when these people are being incarcerated when you get arrested for a possession of heroin you're usually taken to jail for the night you're taken to the county jail you're bonded out and set to stickley speaking that's where the vast majority of people odeon die they were already incarcerated one time and then they get out they were given a slap on the wrist and they realize that a court ordered drug and alcohol as is coming quickly so they're trying to essentially get everything in that they can and that's where you see a lot of these o d s and i think that one of the big issues that we have and what other counties are doing a lot better is they will incarcerate the person the county jail and release them only to an inpatient drug and alcohol facility so we don't allow them that opportunity get out to reuse because knowledge getting out reusing their victimizing people they're breaking into homes they're burglarizing things so for the sake of the community we need to do things better am the only candidate that works and like i said allegheny washington westmoreland county i see where other counties are doing things where i see washing counties doing things better and i see a lot of the areas where westmoreland allegheny all these other counties are doing things better i have the ability to say hey you know what i like what allegheny county is doing with their probation office let's try to adopt what they're doing here and you know what i don't like what they're doing over here so let's make sure that we keep what we're doing in washington the same for that aspect of it so i think my broad range of county government is going to give me the experience to really push washington county to the next level you mentioned the local gaming proceeds where do you think do you who makes the decision on the distribution of those funds and do you think they should be going differently and how would you do it differently there's a local board set up there's a there's a board of directors that oversees that like i said i think the big issue and again not just me the doors and i'm knocking on as we were told it should be tax relief we want to make sure that it goes back into something where there's more tax relief and we would like to see more transparency in where it's being distributed to exactly to the penny how much are we bringing in how much are we paying the people to redistribute the parts to redistribute the funds and then once the funds are being redistributed why are they going to certain areas i like a lot of these pet projects to be open to an open bid process i think that any time taxpayers that time the project is being paid for by taxpayers i think that you need to have a request for proposal and i think it needs to go for a little bit what about the oil and gas drilling in the county obviously we've benefited from lots of job opportunities are you satisfied that safety issues are being addressed and environmental issues are being adequately addressed you know i i think that we're doing a really good job i think that washington county needs to realize this is an absolute blessing that we found this oil and gas we have jobs our young people i'm thirty five years old i saw a lot of my friends have to leave and have to go to texas and have to go to california have to go to the carolinas and have to leave because we couldn't find jobs and i see a lot of them coming back right now i see a lot of my friends are bringing their children back in the area for my two children to play with and i think this is a we should be looking at this as a blessing that it is the state government has the state government has the part of the e p a so we want to make sure that county government is allowing them to operate doing what they're doing and again counting the blessings that we have for the natural gas that we found here ok i'm going to give you this last minute to address the voters directly and tell them why they should vote for you next month thank you so much again my name is nick sherman i'm running for washington county commissioner i ask for your vote on may nineteenth i feel that i'm the only count the only candidate for commissioner that's going to bring the fifteen years experience working in multiple governments and multi county government to the table to push washington county forward we lag behind in a lot of areas as far as technology so i want to make sure that i'm bringing my work experience in my youth to make sure that we keep jobs here in washington county and to make sure that we're protecting the taxpayers of washington county i thank you so much for your time and i appreciate your vote on may nineteenth thank you very much thank you that was nick sherman