“Here’s the hard truth, Junior, and you may not want to hear it.

If you can’t beat this guy in an election, then you don’t deserve to be Sheriff.”

[Image by Canva]

SUMMARY

THE COUNTY ADMINISTRATOR examines the political dynamics of local government in the setting of Seney County, a fictional county, in northeastern Nebraska. The play centers on five local power brokers: the chairman of the county board (who is the former sheriff), the sheriff (who is the chairman’s son), the former state's attorney, a wealthy landowner, and the county administrator. All of these men view the current state's attorney’s primary assistant, a formidable and fearless woman attorney, as a threat to their ability to run the county in their long-standing, patriarchal fashion. Knowing that the state’s attorney will not discharge his most-valued employee and confidante, the five men hatch a political plan to force the state’s attorney out of office. 

CHAIRMAN (to OBADIAH): If I were still Sheriff, I’d give you a copy of the draft report and the photos right now.

OBADIAH: I know you would.

CHAIRMAN (trying to break up the tension in the room): Along with a patch.

OBADIAH (smiles grimly, but moves on to another topic, directed to SHERIFF): All right, so now that you’ve made it clear that you’re not charging Harry Swanson even though he killed my dogs, let’s move on to a more pleasant, though slightly related, topic. What the hell can I do about this guy’s noise? I know we’re only in April right now, but in a couple of months he’s going to be making me—along with everyone else in my part of the County—miserable with his metal fest, or whatever the hell he calls it, every weekend between June through the end of October. He has every washed-up one-hit wonder from the 80s playing in his back yard until one in the morning, along with every idiot anywhere within a two-hundred-mile radius of Omaha, Sioux Falls, and Sioux City shooting firearms off at all hours of the evening. I don’t know what is worse: the music or the gunfire. Every time any of us call your deputies they come out and tell us that the County doesn’t have a noise ordinance and that Swanson isn’t violating any law.

SHERIFF: Yeah, well that’s true that the County doesn’t have a noise ordinance.          

OBADIAH: Okay, so that’s why I wanted to meet with both of you. What do we have to do to get a noise ordinance around here?

CHAIRMAN: Well, the problem isn’t with the Board, it’s with the State’s Attorney. He tells us that the County can’t lawfully enact a noise ordinance, because we’re not home rule. He says we—

SHERIFF (simultaneously with CHAIRMAN): —don’t have any statutory authority.

CHAIRMAN (finishing sentence): —don’t have any statutory authority.    

OBADIAH: Okay, then what do we need to do to get a new State’s Attorney?

CHAIRMAN (gesturing to SHERIFF): We ask ourselves that every day. The guy has been a huge disappointment. We both regret ever having supported him.