Tell us your first and last name, a little about yourself, and what makes you uniquely qualified for this elected position. (Name | Age | Address) (Share some biographical information on yourself, your career, years lived in Ray County, spouse and children’s names (if applicable), etc.) (Highest grade completed | Present employer) My name is Kurt Croix (33), and I have lived in Rayville, MO, since 2022. I am a Christian, a husband to my wife Ky, a father of twins, a software engineer, and a farmer. I graduated with Honors from Mizzou with a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and a Minor in Mathematics. I am currently employed by Trellix as a Senior Software Engineer. I am uniquely qualified for this position because of my technical skills, which I will leverage to increase the openness and efficiency of our county government as County Clerk.

1. Why have you chosen to run for the office of Ray County Clerk at this specific time, and what specific improvements do you hope to bring to the office? (Why are you running for Ray County Clerk?) (Are there any changes or improvements you would like to see within the Ray County Clerk’s Office? If so, what would they be and why?)

   Before I deciding to run for Clerk, I was submitting Sunshine requests to the county for information that I believe all citizens are entitled to. I asked for a copy of existing ordinances and court orders, but received only one—which merely detailed the time limits for public questioning at commissioners’ meetings. When I requested information regarding the 2025 hack to see if citizen data had been compromised, my request was blocked, and no third-party audit was conducted. I repeatedly received false information or standard evasive answers like, “We’ll talk to our lawyer and get back to you” (which they never did). I am running to change this culture. My top three targeted improvements include:

   • Recording and Transcribing Commissioners’ Meetings: I already livestream the weekly meetings I attend using my phone and a tripod online. I offered to set this up using the county’s existing equipment, but the commission declined, stating, “We are a small county.” I built an automated workflow that transcribes, summarizes, and publishes these meetings as a podcast so working citizens can listen anytime. These files are uneditable, ensuring permanent transparency. Notably, official meeting minutes have suddenly become more detailed since I began publishing these recordings.
   • Open and Searchable Records: By default, all public documents should be accessible unless explicitly closed under Missouri Sunshine Law. I built a working demonstration of a searchable database (click the (i) in the top right corner for a shortvideo demo). Currently, county minutes are published as unsearchable files. By publishing them in a text-based format linked to the official signed version, citizens could simply search a keyword like “bridge” to instantly find every time bridges were discussed, along with the corresponding meeting audio. The minutes are just an example of what I will apply across the board.
   • Digital-First Presence: Citizens don’t have time to physically walk into the courthouse to read a bulletin board. While I will maintain the physical board, I will establish a Web based bulletin board so citizens can easily view 24-hour public notices (LERF, Emergency Management, etc) directly from their phones or computers.

2. The County Clerk handles complex administrative, financial, and legal responsibilities. What specific professional background and qualifications do you possess that prepare you to execute these statutory duties on day one? (Relevant political or work experience)

   • Financial: Managing county financial duties requires rigorous data management. Alongside my computer science degree, I hold a math minor and spent two years working on a team of data scientists at Mizzou. I have already built a public dashboard allowing citizens to easily explore the 2025 county budget , transforming a dense 327-page PDF into accessible dat - As Clerk, I will implement Optical Character Recognition (OCR) systems to seamlessly extract data from receipts directly into our database, eliminating manual clerical errors and free up time.
   • Administrative: My daily work as a software engineer at a major cybersecurity firm involves managing massive, highly complex systems. I will bring that same level of precise project management, system organization, and rigorous documentation to the Clerk’s administrative duties.

• Legal: While I am not an attorney, I am thoroughly well-versed in the Missouri Sunshine Law and possess a deep professional understanding of regulatory compliance through my career.

3. RSMo 50.530: The County Clerk serves as the county’s accounting officer. What is your strategy for ensuring the county budget, financial reporting, and expenditures remain strictly compliant with state law?

   Missouri law is crystal clear: the county cannot spend money that has not been formally appropriated. Before any department orders so much as a box of pens, my office will certify that funds are available in their specific budget line. If the line item is empty, the process stops until a formal budget amendment is approved by the Commission.

   To ensure compliance, I will:

   • Publish (digitially) each separate version of the budget (or any document) if and when it is amended.
   • Provide real-time, digital financial statements comparing budgeted amounts against actual expenditures.
   • Implement a monthly “red-flag” report highlighting any department trending more than 5% over its projected spending.
   • Maintain a strict, impenetrable separation of duties between the Clerk’s office and the Treasurer’s office to prevent fraud and minimize clerical errors.
   • Treat every day as if the State Auditor is coming tomorrow. Every expenditure will require a verified paper trail (invoice, proof of delivery, and Commission approval). By acting as a disciplined gatekeeper, we keep Ray County out of legal trouble and in the black.

4. RSMo 51.150 requires the Clerk to maintain exact and regular accounts between the treasurer and the county. How do you plan to fulfill this duty to ensure absolute financial transparency and protect taxpayer dollars?

   When the approval and payment process get blurred, taxpayer money is risked. My office will maintain a completely independent set of books from the Treasurer. We will not simply take their word for bank balances; we will independently record every receipt issued and every check authorized. Through frequent reconciliations, my office will instantly log debits to the Treasurer’s account the moment a tax payment or grant is received. No money will leave the county treasury without an authorized check signed by the Clerk. Before any signature is applied, my staff will verify that the expenditure matches a specific court order or legal contract, ensuring taxpayer money is never risked.

5. The Clerk is the administrative backbone of the County Commission. How do you view the importance of keeping meticulously accurate and comprehensive journals of all commission proceedings and orders?

   Accurate record-keeping is the fundamental backbone of county government. The automated transcription system of Commissioners’ meetings that I built for my campaign shows how technology can enhance accuracy. As Clerk, I will utilize the county’s existing audio equipment to implement speaker-identification software to improve these transcripts. This ensures that official transcripts and descriptions perfectly reflect exactly who said what, allowing votes to be flawlessly cross-referenced with my notes. Absolute accuracy prevents public confusion and protects the integrity of the record, as highlighted by past public clashes over minutes accuracy (such as reports in the Richmond Daily News: Commissioners, resident clash over accuracy

6. As the local election authority (RSMo 115.015), the integrity of the democratic process rests heavily on your office. What are your specific priorities for ensuring fair, accessible, and secure elections in this county? (Elections are one of the clerk’s office’s most visible responsibilities. What steps would you take to help maintain voter confidence and communicate clearly with the public during elections?)

   I personally observed our local election process during the April election. The physical mechanics of our current system are straightforward and secure, and I do not intend to disrupt the core processes that currently work well. My priority for maintaining voter confidence is absolute transparency and communication. I will be fully accessible to any citizen who has questions or concerns about election integrity, and I am entirely open to making practical, secure adjustments based on public feedback to ensure everyone feels confident in their vote.

7. Clerk is legally responsible for archiving crucial county ordinances, including complex planning and zoning orders. How will you modernize or maintain the preservation of these records so they are secure yet easily accessible?

   TLDR: I will implement modern data protocols to ensure all open county records produced during my tenure are highly secure, permanently archived, and easily auditable by everyday citizens. For open records, I will utilize secure, open-source data publishing protocols (like Nostr and Blossom). This applies an unalterable digital signature to every document that traces directly back to my office as Clerk. If a file is tampered with or altered after publication, that change is immediately detected and flagged. For closed or confidential records, I will apply my professional cybersecurity background: files will be encrypted locally, restricted strictly to authorized personnel, and backed up to high-durability, secure cloud storage with off-site redundancy.

   Technical Response: All open files will be published using the Nostr and Blossom protocols. The Nostr protocol ensures that each publication will have a signature that traces back to the Clerk. The Blossom protocol will ensure that each document is hashed when it is signed. If a file is changed after publication, that change is known and auditable by the public. These are widely used free and open source protocols. Running this server with off-site backup has negligible cost and the files will be mirrored to another Blossom server/nostr relay for free. As for closed records, I work at a cybersecurity company dealing with sensitive information daily. Closed records will be stored encrypted in an S3 bucket off-site that has 11 nines (99.999999999%) of data durability and is again, negligible cost. These will only be accessible by the officials that require them.

8. As the de facto custodian of records for the County Commission, what is your fundamental philosophy regarding public access to government documents and meetings? (What do you see as the biggest responsibility of the Ray County Clerk’s Office, and what experience has prepared you for that role?) (How would you approach maintaining transparency and public access to county records and information?)

   By default, ALL data produced by our county government belongs to the public. This means official communications or documents generated by elected or appointed officials (such as the Planning & Zoning or LERF boards) should be systematically open. To protect sensitive data, I will implement filtering software that scans documents for legally confidential information before publication. While fully transitioning the entire county to this transparent, digital infrastructure may take time, I possess the precise IT expertise required to work alongside our existing technology department to deliver this to Ray County incrementally. Refer to Q7 for more detail.

9. The Missouri Sunshine Law mandates timely responses to public records requests. What specific processes will you implement in your office to ensure requests from citizens and journalists are handled promptly, thoroughly, and without unnecessary obstruction? How will this work with the county’s own Sunshine Resolution that only allows the county to charge 1/2 the rate of the lowest-paid employee in the Clerk’s office for research?

   When an office proactively maintains a public, searchable database where records are open by default, the Clerk’s office ceases to be a bottleneck. By giving citizens and journalists direct access to information, the need for formal Sunshine requests will drop dramatically. Requests will be limited to highly specific historical records or complex items. This naturally aligns with the county’s Sunshine Resolution regarding lower research fees (from the prior admin), as my office will rarely need to spend paid hours manually digging for basic information.

10. How will you handle situations where a requested record might fall into a gray area between “open” and “closed” under the Sunshine Law, and will your default position be to favor public disclosure?

    My default position will always favor public disclosure. If a record falls into a gray area, it will be treated as an open record unless a specific, clear statutory citation under Missouri law mandates that it must be closed. The burden of proof should always be on hiding information, not on sharing it.

11. In your view, what are the most significant challenges a County Clerk faces in maintaining perfect compliance with open meetings and open records laws, and how will you overcome them?

    The primary barriers to perfect compliance are technical and behavioral. The technical challenges are easily solved with automated recording, transcription, and indexing. The behavioral challenge requires training county staff to be mindful of what information is genuinely confidential versus what is public. I will implement automated tools to scan for sensitive information prior to publication, provide clear training to departments, and conduct routine internal audits to ensure “confidential” flags are never being abused to hide public information.

12. The County Clerk plays a vital role in local MEC (Missouri Ethics Commission) compliance. What do you believe your role is to ensure all elected and appointed county officials file their required personal financial disclosures accurately and by the statutory deadlines?

    As the local election authority, the Clerk has a strict statutory obligation to ensure state ethics laws are upheld. I will implement a proactive, automated notification system to give local candidates and elected officials clear reminders of their personal financial disclosure and campaign finance deadlines. If a discrepancy, missing filing, or irregularity is discovered, I will act immediately, impartially, and transparently—notifying the candidate of the error, assessing any legally mandated late fees, and reporting unresolved non-compliance directly to the Missouri Ethics Commission as required by law.

13. How will you manage reporting of campaign finance documents for local candidates to ensure strict adherence to state ethics guidelines?

    See my answer to question 12.

14. If you discover a discrepancy, a missing filing, or an irregularity regarding a local official’s or candidate’s MEC requirements, what immediate steps will you take to address the issue and enforce compliance?

    See my answer to question 12.

15. Ultimately, the County Clerk is a public servant tasked with following the statutes above all local political pressures. Can you describe a time when you had to enforce a strict rule or standard despite significant pushback, and how you handled the situation? (Statutory Oath of Office / RSMo 51.070)

    Working in cybersecurity, I frequently have to enforce strict security protocols, telling users or developers they cannot use a specific tool because it violates policy or compromises data. When individuals push back due to convenience, I firmly point them to the governing documentation and standards. In public service, the Missouri Revised Statutes serve as that ultimate standard. I will hold my ground against local political pressure unless a higher state authority or a court order dictates otherwise.

16. When reporting funds received by cash only, how will you record those transactions to assure that ALL cash is accounted for? Do you have a plan to modernize and start using bank cards?

    Recently, I went into the Clerk’s office to pay for a Sunshine request, and the office lacked the change to complete the transaction. Later, when their research yielded no records, they couldn’t even process my refund TWICE. Our current system is deeply outdated. I will immediately modernize this office by introducing cost-effective point-of-sale terminals (such as Square) to securely accept credit and debit cards. For any remaining cash transactions, funds will be immediately entered into a digital ledger, and a system-generated receipt will be printed instantly to ensure a flawless, auditable paper trail.

17. The county clerk works closely with commissioners, department heads, and the public on a daily basis. How would you approach communication and collaboration in the position?

    I view the Clerk’s role as inherently collaborative with the County Commission. A vital part of that collaboration is ensuring strict compliance with the Sunshine Law and maintaining proper record-keeping procedures to protect the county from liability. At the same time, as an independently elected official, my primary accountability is directly to the voters. The rights of our citizens and the transparency of our government must always be the top priority. To best serve both the public and the Commission, I believe maintaining clear, objective, and professional communication is essential. Keeping our interactions focused strictly on county business ensures the highest level of transparency, prevents misunderstandings, and fosters a government that the community can fully trust.

18. Anything else you would like the citizens of Ray County to know.

    Ray County is where I have put down roots, and I want to improve this county so that when my children come of age, they can build their lives and careers right here. The first step toward that future is to implement systems to ensuring we, as citizens, actually know what is happening inside our courthouse. Throughout this campaign, I have spoken to countless residents who had no idea our county government suffered a cyber attack in 2025. Currently, to get a detailed copy of our county budget, you have to physically bring a USB drive to the courthouse rather than accessing it online,yet it took me just five minutes to publish it on the internet for free. Public meetings are frequently unannounced and held at times when working citizens cannot attend. I know I am not originally from here, and my unwavering push for transparency has been labeled as adversarial by the current administration. However, I would be asking these exact same tough questions as a private citizen.

    My oppenent currently works in the Clerk’s office, her mother is the Collector and her family holds the janitorial contract for the county. If you prefer to maintain the status quo or vague promises to “focusing on efficiency, accessibility” are enough, then my opponent is your candidate. But if you want a Clerk who has already proven his dedication by building the actual systems needed to give you the information you have a legal right to, vote Kurt Croix for Ray County Clerk.Candidate Questionaire