The Freeborn County 5th District Commissioner’s race is another one to watch, with two very strong candidates vying for the open seat.

Challenger Mark Rofshus is giving incumbent Mark Behrends a run for the money with his no-nonsense approach to budgeting, staffing and city-county sharing.

We give Behrends the edge, however, to allow him to continue his work on the board.

It is our opinion that the complexity of issues affecting the county aren’t learned overnight and now that he better understands all angles of the issues, we’d like to see what Berhends will do to increase efficiencies within county departments, how he will vote on county finances, and how he will find the &uot;middle road&uot; on other topics of importance to county residents.

We believe, with the learning curve in the past, Behrends will be better-equipped to lead the county through the mire of tough choices bound to come up in the next couple of years.