District Two County Commissioner Dan Belshan is not afraid to speak out on issues, even it is not popular in the five-member board. The votes on critical issues such as the courthouse have often been split 3-2 or 4-1. And Belshan has been always in the minority.

&uot;The county government is the servant of the people,&uot; Belshan said. &uot;My representation is for every citizen, not prioritizing special interest groups, and I like to hear all opinions. I don’t have a hidden agenda. I am fiscally careful, treating your tax dollars as if they were mine, but not afraid to spend wisely and invest in the future.&uot;

Belshan’s presence has been especially visible in the courthouse discourse. He thinks borrowing the $26.3 million for the project and associated increase of jail staff will impose an imminent threat on the budget balance of the county government.

&uot;It’s going to put large strain on the general fund down the road. And this growth has to cease. We cannot keep going like that,&uot; Belshan said. &uot;We need to explore ways to become more efficient, mostly through attrition.&uot;

&uot;Our county needs to give second place to aesthetics and the wants of an architect,&uot; he said. Instead, &uot;A gigantic tax burden is the result.&uot;

Belshan criticized the direction the board has taken. And he proposes to step back to reconsider options such as a joint jail with surrounding counties or using the Wal-Mart space in the Skyline Mall that could be freed up when a new Wal-Mart Supercenter is built.

His father, Milo, and his father’s uncle, Luis Benesh, were also county board members in the past.

Belshan has been farming for 25 years. Music activity he started when he was a student at Glenville High School has developed on a professional level, as Belshan has toured across the Midwest for concerts and recently launched a recording service for a telephone on hold using a recording studio in his farmhouse near Myrtle.