Casson Signs Contract With County

By Gordon HopkinsOn January 3, 2023, Joseph Casson signed a contract with Jefferson County to continue in his role as county attorney. Casson was sworn in at a ceremony on January 5.The contract runs until January 6, 2027.Casson opted not to run for re-election in Jefferson County in 2022. Instead, he ran for county attorney in Thayer County, to replace county attorney Dan Werner, who also did not run for re-election. Casson defeated his lone challenger, write-in candidate Julie Effenbeck of Chester.Casson will serve as county attorney for both Jefferson and Thayer.No candidates filed in Jefferson County. Although there were 120 write-in ballots cast in Jefferson County, Election Commissioner Kris Riggle advised FJN, “We did not have a write-in affidavit on file for the county attorney race, so we will only report the write-ins as a total.”Casson informed Jefferson County Commissioners of his intentions months ago.Difficulties in recruiting attorneys in rural communities have led to county attorneys being forced into ‘double duty,’ working for multiple counties. County attorney is an elected official but, if no one runs, then counties are able to contract with an attorney. Any lawyer who runs for county attorney must live in the county or an adjoining county. According to state statute, if nobody runs for the office, the county board can contract with any attorney anywhere in the state of Nebraska to do the job.Ordinance ViolationsIn addition to his Thayer County work, Casson will also be taking on additional duties for the City of Fairbury. Jefferson County signed an interlocal agreement with Fairbury to prosecute ordinance violations.In 2018, the Fairbury City Council voted to dissolve the police department and contract law enforcement services with the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department.Casson explained the reason for the new contact, “Well, it’d be nuisance violations, basically. Because the way the law enforcement contract the sheriff has with city, the sheriff does all the criminal violations, traffic violations. The city was left to do all the other violations and, to this point, they have not, since we signed the contract, prosecuted any of those because they didn’t have a prosecutor. And so that was the weak link. And my understanding is, the city said they couldn’t afford to do it, although the cost isn’t that much. And so this was my solution to get the ball rolling on helping the sheriff do some policing around town. Because these are important cases we need to pay attention to.”Casson has said in the past that the Sheriff’s Office was expending a great deal of manpower fielding calls for dog complaints, junked cars and other violations of city ordinances.Commissioner Mark Schoenrock expressed hope that cracking down on nuisance violations would lead to an overall quality-of-life improvement in the city, “ We talked about being able to prosecute these lesser offenses, and that should have a very positive effect on other more serious offenses that go on in Fairbury, so that people know that they’re going to be held accountable. It might have an effect, on up the line, for more serious offenses.”

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