My thing with this story is that no part of it has anything to do with him being a county commissioner; it's just added to the narrative because it makes it sound like he should have been authorized to do this.

I share the same thing. In fact, being a commissioner he was probably explicitly warned against taking any action into his own hands.

A commissioner can easily mess things up and get sued trying do work on their own. Say they try to “repair a playground” by replacing a missing bolt. Well, were they qualified to do that? Do they have insurance? Was the action approved by a properly filed motion? Etc etc etc

I learned this is why it costs my town egregious sums to do simple maintenance work; the only companies willing to put up with all the red tape of working with the government have to charge a premium.

The part about him being a commissioner smells like a simple publicity stunt.