MONROE — A former county commissioner will try to retake a spot on the board in 2010.

Roger Lane served one term — including a stint as the board’s chairman — that ended when he decided not to seek re-election.

“I’m back and ready to go,” he said Saturday.

Lane, who is retired from teaching and the U.S. Air Force, was widowed in his first term and chose to not seek re-election.

Now remarried, he said he can focus more attention on politics.

During his first term, Lane joined the board as part of a three-member majority and often voted with then-Commissioners Hughie Sexton and Richard Stone.

Two years into his four-year term, the majority swayed with the addition of Commissioners Allan Baucom and Parker Mills, who found common ground with former Commissioner Kevin Pressley. Some of that board’s first actions were firing County Manager Mike Shalati and suspending an adequate public facilities ordinance designed to limit growth in areas of the county where public schools were already over capacity.

The shift left Lane sharing frequent minority votes with Commissioner Lanny Openshaw. Lane and Openshaw accused the other three commissioners of ethical violations and pandering to special interest groups that included developers.

After the 2008 election, a majority that included Openshaw, Tracy Kuehler and Kim Rogers took over and has dedicated $10,000 to an investigation of the previous board’s practices in making contracts and its county-funded legal fees.

Openshaw, Baucom and Mills are up for re-election next year.

“I thought that when (Lane) was in the majority, that that was the first board that started to deal with our issues,” Openshaw said. “They started to deal with some of the obvious issues that we had and started to bring the focus of county government on the citizens of the county instead of just the special interests. They focused on the average citizen of the county. ... I think those years were probably under-appreciated.”

Openshaw declined to comment about whether he will seek re-election.

Lane said that if Openshaw does run, the two would not campaign together, even though he said, “Lanny and I were usually in concert on the major issues.”

The commissioners’ race has been decided in the Republican primary since 2006 because no Democrats have sought election. It is an at-large election, pitting the full field of commissioners against one another.

If he takes a seat on the board, Lane said his main focus will be on expanding Union County’s water and sewer capacity. Lane said the county should more aggressively pursue water capacity from Anson County and bolster its relationship with the Monroe City Council, the only other water and sewer provider in the county, to provide both water and sewer availability.

“The main thing is the development problem,” Lane said. Curtailing unchecked growth has been a mission of Lane’s for years, he said, and he and the current board majority have often cited the quick and unregulated growth as the main reason for the county’s spiraling costs.

Looking at the current board, Lane had no real criticisms except for the hotly debated sale of the county-owned hospital building and grounds in Monroe, which are leased to Carolinas HealthCare System. The board decided to pursue selling the hospital lease, appraised at about $250 million, but have not committed to the sale. Lane said he does not oppose the sale, but wanted to have more cost-benefit information.

“I feel that I have a good vision for the county and for the future and plan to implement them,” he said.