Retired firefighter Howard seeks magistrate seat

After a life­time of fight­ing fires and pro­vid­ing first aid and life sup­port as a pub­lic employ­ee, Bryan Howard wants to serve in a dif­fer­ent way; he has thrown his hel­met into the ring for 2^nd District magistrate.

“I just want to keep giv­ing my time and work­ing for Clark County, and fig­ured this was one way I could do it,” he said.

The farmer and retired fire­fight­er said he wants a bet­ter com­mu­ni­ty for his chil­dren and grandchildren.

Howard, 56, is one of three can­di­dates in the Republican pri­ma­ry for the most­ly rur­al south­east­ern dis­trict of the Clark County Fiscal Court that includes Trapp, the lit­tle com­mu­ni­ty where he grew up and start­ed as a vol­un­teer firefighter.

“I was 16 and hung around Fox’s Store at Trapp, and if the fire truck went out when I was there … they would let me ride with them,” he remem­bers. “Then when I got to the age of 18, I became a vol­un­teer and got cer­ti­fied. That kind of start­ed my career.”

Howard was a vol­un­teer fire­fight­er until he was 25, when he became a full-time fire­fight­er for the Clark County Fire Department, then became a fire­fight­er and emer­gency med­ical tech­ni­cian for Winchester in 1997. He was pro­mot­ed to lieu­tenant in 2010 and retired in 2015. After his retire­ment, he served under Sheriff Ray Caudill as a reserve deputy sher­iff for a cou­ple of years.

Howard grad­u­at­ed from George Rogers Clark in 1987 and took some col­lege class­es while work­ing as a fire­fight­er. He ran unsuc­cess­ful­ly for mag­is­trate as a Democrat around 2002 and became a Republican in 2013.

“I nev­er real­ly vot­ed par­ty line; I vot­ed for who­ev­er I thought was the best can­di­date, but my beliefs were more toward con­ser­v­a­tive,” he said.

Howard and his wife, Chris, have a son and daugh­ter, Austin and Courtney, and they will soon wel­come their third grand­child. Their chil­dren and grand­chil­dren live on their farm on Howard’s Creek Road, where they built their own hous­es. The Howards are mem­bers of Epperson First Church of God.

Howard said he rent­ed his first farm and raised his first tobac­co crop when he was 13, then bought a farm of his own when he was 19. His par­ents taught him hard work and respect, and that he should treat every­one the way he want­ed to be treated.

As mag­is­trate, he said, he wants to work for “every­body in Clark County,” not just those in his dis­trict, and wants to be “a good, strong voice” for the people.

As for why he thinks he would be the best choice for the Fiscal Court, Howard said, “I have some expe­ri­ence in all the pub­lic safe­ty fields,” and he knows a lit­tle about the bud­get and how gov­ern­ment runs.

One pro­pos­al for improv­ing the county’s pub­lic safe­ty and finan­cial sit­u­a­tion is the merg­er of the city and coun­ty fire depart­ments. Howard thinks it’s worth con­sid­er­ing because it could save tax­pay­ers money.

“I def­i­nite­ly think there needs to be a study done,” he said.

Howard not­ed that the city and coun­ty fire depart­ments cur­rent­ly have an agree­ment for “auto­mat­ic mutu­al aid” on fire runs, and they train together.

“They’re already work­ing togeth­er in that direc­tion, I believe,” he said.

Currently, the EMS pro­gram for the whole coun­ty is part of the city fire depart­ment, and the coun­ty gov­ern­ment con­tributes to its fund­ing. He said he doesn’t want to cut fund­ing for EMS because it’s about sav­ing people’s lives, and “that is one top pri­or­i­ty that does weigh heav­i­ly on my mind.” Clark County has a good EMS ser­vice, he said, and he doesn’t want to see it privatized.

The coun­ty jail is anoth­er concern.

“Every coun­ty has prob­lems with their jail fund­ing, and hav­ing the state inmates sure helps off­set that cost,” he said.

Howard said he would like to see state leg­is­la­tion enact­ed that would pro­vide more mon­ey for coun­ties to assist them in fund­ing the jails.

“That would be a great help for us,” he said.

He said some coun­ties have closed their jails and trans­port their pris­on­ers to region­al deten­tion cen­ters, but “that’s just a bur­den for the jail­er,” who is still respon­si­ble for the inmates.

Howard wants to improve the county’s finances through bet­ter man­age­ment and growth.

“I’m not for rais­ing tax­es … and I’m def­i­nite­ly not for cut­ting ser­vices in Clark County,” he said. “I do think we need to look and see if there’s any waste in the budget.”

He said he would like to get more rev­enue by expand­ing the Winchester Industrial Park and tak­ing a “steady” approach to busi­ness and res­i­den­tial devel­op­ment and farm­land preservation.

“I’d like to see growth, but not rapid growth,” he said. “There’s not much farm­land any­more, and I think we’re see­ing that in the short­age of cat­tle,” which is why beef prices are high, he added.

“It’s a fine line there, but I think a lit­tle growth won’t hurt,” he said.

He believes the coun­ty has a role in choos­ing where devel­op­ment occurs, and he thinks one place it should hap­pen is along the east­ern bypass — Veterans Memorial Parkway and its planned extension.

Howard said he wants oppor­tu­ni­ty for his chil­dren and grand­chil­dren because he wants them to be able to stay here. He also wants bet­ter rela­tion­ships and coöper­a­tion in coun­ty government.

“No mat­ter what side of the aisle you’re on, I’d like to see every­body get along,” he said. “I want a good, work­ing Fiscal Court,” and that hasn’t always been the sit­u­a­tion in recent years, he added.

The empha­sis, he said, needs to be on what’s best for the peo­ple of the coun­ty, and he wants to do his part.

“I’m excit­ed about it this time, I’ll tell you,” he said. “I can’t wait to get started.”