Service is coming to an end

The list is a long one.
Issue after issue:
•Countywide zoning.
•Landfill expansion.
•911 service.
•New addresses for all of rural Jay County.
•Job descriptions and an evaluation system for county employees.
•Building a new jail.
•Expanding that same jail when the original was outgrown.
•Adopting a wheel tax.
•Adopting a local option income tax.
•Establishing a solid waste district.
For most local governmental officials any one or two of those would be enough for a career.
But Milo Miller Jr. has had a hand in all of them.
Maybe that’s what happens when you’re in county office for 34 years.
Miller should know.
Serving 24 years as a Jay County Commissioner and 10 years as a member of Jay County Council before that, Miller leaves office Dec. 31. But there are already indications he won’t be politically idle in retirement.
It all started innocently enough.
Miller, who had been a contractor in the county for years, decided he’d like to get involved “instead of sitting around complaining about stuff.”
He decided to run for the City of Portland seat on Jay School Board.
“I got lucky and got beat,” he said during a recent retrospective interview.
Six years later, in 1980, he tried again, this time running for, and winning, a seat on Jay County Council, taking office on Jan. 1, 1981.
“I was on the county council in ’84 when we got the mandate to build” a new jail, Miller recalled.
After 10 years on the council, he ran as the Republican candidate for county commissioner from the middle district. He won and took office in January 1991.
“I think the best thing when I first started was working with a man called Jack Mink,” Miller recalled, referring to the former glass executive and former mayor of Dunkirk. “Jack was particular on particulars, and he was a good guy to learn from. I was glad I had the opportunity for two years.”
Over the years, he’s served with a number of other commissioners, both Republicans and Democrats: Ernie Muhlenkamp, Jim Zimmerman, Mike Leonhard, Gary Theurer, Faron Parr, Ed Nixon and five different county auditors.
“They’ve all been good people to work with,” Miller said.
There have been meetings by the thousands. Miller estimated he’s spent somewhere between 5,000 and 10,000 hours in county-related meetings of some sort over more than three decades.
“I’ve enjoyed every minute of it,” said Miller. “I’ve caught a lot of heck. And maybe I’ve made some bad decisions. Maybe I’ve made some good ones, but I think the community’s better than it was back then.”
Of all the contentious issues he’s faced — “We caught heck on re-addressing,” he said — the biggest and most complex was negotiating a host agreement for Jay County Landfill.
“Of course some people didn’t want to expand the landfill. They wanted to close it,” he recalled.
But a broad-based study concluded that if a good host agreement could be reached, expansion of the landfill would be of benefit.
Reaching that 20-year agreement with Waste Management was anything but simple.
“They’d make an offer and we’d say, ‘No we want this,’” Miller remembered. “We did that for about three or four months.”
Waste Management’s original offer was $2 a ton for the life of the contract.
Miller and the other commissioners had a different vision. They knew that a flat fee would be a mistake.
“We told them we want 15 percent of the gate,” he said.
The company initially balked, but offered 5 percent. The commissioners countered with 12 percent, Waste Management bumped its offer up to 8 percent.
“We ended up settling for 10 percent plus we’ve got a $35,000 per year operational permit that comes due every May,” said Miller.
Those funds for infrastructure provide money annually for road maintenance, and they’ve been tapped to acquire additional space for the county health department and the Purdue Extension office.
“I know it’s a liability sitting out there,” Miller said of the landfill. “But it’s been a godsend to the county. We’ve spent a lot of money the landfill brought in and saved the taxpayers some money. … Anywhere from 8 to 10 percent of the stuff going into the landfill comes from outside Jay County, so there’s a lot of outside money that’s helped us out.”
Still on the mend from major back surgery this fall, Miller’s looking forward to slowing down a bit.
But he already has his eye on another opportunity for service.
“I’ve thought about running for (Portland) city council,” he said with a smile. “I like being involved.”
His advice to his successor is simple: “You’ve got to be honest with the people. You can’t hide anything. … Be open-minded. Listen to what people have to say before you make a decision. … When people come through the door, they’ve got a problem and you need to listen … They put you in this seat to help.”