Scott County Primary Elections on June 4, 2024, are especially important due to the importance of counties in the American Republic pecking order of authorities. Arguably the most important election for any county is its sheriff. Globalization has the elimination of elected county sheriff's as one of its stated goals because this office represents a systemic threat to its central control model.

In keeping with the Reader's tradition during primary season, we are publishing a candidate questionnaire for each of the three Scott County offices on the ballot this election year. The following questions were emailed to the candidates below. The unedited responses will be published at the Reader's website May 8 through May 10, and then again in print on May 23, 2024, when the June Reader print edition hits the streets.

How did the City Administrator, who hired the department heads that mismanaged two of the city's biggest disasters in modern history, secure a $1.6MM payment for emotional damages and lost wages in secret without a city council vote until after the 2023 municipal elections?

Important note to the reader: All underlined phrases in the timeline below hyperlink to the document that corroborates that statement. Most of the hyperlinked documents were acquired through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. 

We're very pleased to publish Douglas Tallamay's original essay for the Reader on the importance of oak trees. For an even deeper dive we highly recommend his 2021 book The Nature of Oaks. It's full of richly produced color photos and its presentation is a work of art unto itself. Here's an excerpt from the book, regarding how and why the oak tree is the “keystone species.”