Butler County commissioners Bill McCarrier and Dale Pinkerton on Wednesday fired salvos in their ongoing war of words with Commissioner Jim Eckstein.

During the commissioners meeting, Pinkerton berated Eckstein and his administrative assistant Peggy Abersold, for creating problems.

“Both have done more to undermine county government in just 15 months due to the manner in which they do things,” Pinkerton read from a prepared statement.

Pinkerton said Eckstein believes he is working to serve the people, but actually is detrimental to the county.

“He costs the taxpayers thousands of dollars by the excessive work his office generates due to his unwillingness to comply with processes and procedures,” Pinkerton said.

Eckstein disagreed.

“Dale Pinkerton and Bill McCarrier want to keep the status quo and the perks of government,” Eckstein said in an interview.

Eckstein criticized Pinkerton for the inclusion of Abersold, who is not a department head, in his comments.

“I think they’re off limits,” Eckstein said about rank-and-file employees.

During the meeting, Pinkerton accused Eckstein of misleading the public with false statements.

Pinkerton cited the latest example of these misrepresentations being an April 1 e-mail sent to commissioners in other counties across the state.

He said the e-mail erroneously assigns a $1.1 million estimate for a garage in a new office building that is proposed to be constructed adjacent to the government center on Diamond Street.

Pinkerton said no one ever cited that amount to build a garage.

“This is simply an outright lie,” Pinkerton said.

Eckstein said the $1.1 million number was based on a $750,000 estimate to construct a garage plus the financing needed for that portion of the building project.

Pinkerton stressed the preliminary drawings for the building are a work in progress since the project has not yet been approved.

“Nothing is engraved in stone,” Pinkerton said.

He and McCarrier support construction as the way to create additional office for human services departments and adult probation, which is housed in space rented inside the city tier garage.

Eckstein favors buying an existing building such as the Holly Pointe on Main Street.

Pinkerton said Eckstein and Abersold consistently interpret the same information far differently than other county officials do.

“Twenty people can be in the same meeting room and all leave the meeting with the same conclusions of what actually transpired at the meeting with the exception of Jim Eckstein and his assistant,” Pinkerton said.

Eckstein said during the interview he’s happy to be associated with Abersold, but refuted Pinkerton’s assessment.

“That’s really a broad stroke to brush,” Eckstein said.

He said any meetings in which the other attendees agree with the other commissioners and disagree with him is because they’re at-will employees who could be fired by a majority of the board.

Eckstein categorized the at-will employees and the other commissioners as a “clique.”

McCarrier said similar remarks made by Eckstein in the past about solicitor Mike English are “absurd.”

Pinkerton said the result of Eckstein’s dysfunctional approach is chaos in county government.

McCarrier agreed.

“Our county meetings have become a public spectacle,” he said.

McCarrier said Eckstein has sullied the county’s reputation across the state.

“Everywhere we go, Butler County is a laughingstock because of what he does,” McCarrier said.

Eckstein compared himself to the late Margaret Thatcher, who served as prime minister to Great Britain, saying he isn’t swayed by what other officials believe should be done.

“I make decisions on what my constituents tell me,” he said. “I don’t do what’s politically correct. I don’t care what they discuss at the country club.”

Eckstein said he’s not encountered officials from other counties or at the state level who ridicule Butler County.

He said two-thirds of the more than 50 counties he surveyed about what they do about parking responded to his e-mail, so those officials must be taking his concerns seriously.

Pinkerton said he and McCarrier, who are Republicans, are not politically motivated to challenge comments made by the sole Democrat.

He pointed out he and McCarrier worked with other boards in the past without having such difficulty.

“The problems our county faces are being caused by two people in the same commissioner’s office who work for themselves,” Pinkerton said.

Eckstein agreed the conflict among the board is not a case of Republicans versus Democrat.

“They want me to be a conformist and I’m a nonconformist,” he said.

Pinkerton refuted repeated claims by Eckstein about being excluded from information on county issues.

“No one’s leaving Mr. Eckstein in the dark intentionally,” Pinkerton said. “He just doesn’t understand the expectations of how government and business is conducted even in the sunshine.”

McCarrier accused Eckstein of slandering county officials and employees on a regular basis.

Eckstein said he’s never slandered anyone. He maintains his innocence in two defamation lawsuits filed against him last year by Pinkerton as well as county personnel director Lori Altman and her husband, state police Trooper Scott Altman.

McCarrier said Eckstein costs the county money by holding up checks for paying bills.

Eckstein denied that was the case.

“That is unequivocably false,” he said during the interview.

According to McCarrier, Eckstein wants to cut costs countywide with the exception of himself.

McCarrier pointed out Eckstein never honored a campaign pledge to donate $12,500 of his salary annually to Sunnyview Nursing and Rehabilitation Center.

Eckstein maintains he can’t afford to make that annual donation due to the legal costs of defending himself from two defamations lawsuits.

McCarrier said Eckstein benefits from not taking a county pension because $7,200 of his salary is not deducted as a result.

The chairman stressed he and Pinkerton declined any pay hike this year while Eckstein accepted a 2 percent increase.

McCarrier also said Eckstein retains another $2,400 annually because he is on his wife’s health care plan instead of the county’s.

The commissioners’ bickering resumed after public comment when Eckstein kept responding to criticism from individual speakers.

Pinkerton made a motion to adjourn the meeting while Eckstein was talking. Over Eckstein’s protests, McCarrier adjourned the meeting.