County Commissioner's Office

County Talk
By
Lamar Paris - Commissioner

(con’t from last week)

The following questions are in response to an advertisement by Tony Dyer, one of my opponents in the upcoming primary election in July.  I am paying for this space.  I will not respond to all of his remarks as there are too many.  However, you should know that I do not mind opponents disagreeing with my way of governing, but I will respond when that involves them twisting the truth or making statements that are outright mistruths.

Q. Mr. Dyer stated, I for one do not trust his (the commissioner-me) question and answer session so how do you expect me to trust him to be fiscally responsible with our $ 14,000,000 annual revenue?

A.  I have managed to be responsible with our revenue for the past seven and ½ years with our county always balancing the budget and being in exceptional financial condition with very low debt and very reasonable property taxes.  I do not know why Mr. Dyer thinks that is going to change just because he has decided to run for commissioner.

Q. Mr Dyer then questions, in his ad, whether you know and understand campaign finance law. Do you?
A. Here again, I have understood it for the past seven and ½ years and still do.  There is nothing improper about me addressing questions in the newspaper related to his advertisement.  It is up to the newspaper as to whether they want to charge me for an ad.

I have been responding to questions in the newspaper for over seven years. I have answered nearly 2000 questions over that period of time.  I have not shied away from any question.  This has been done to keep the taxpayers informed about what goes on in county government.   There is not another county out of 159 that keeps the public informed this well.  It is a way of explaining government.  It is also very time consuming.
I have said several  times during the years in my column that most of the questions come from the public, but occasionally I add questions to help explain a subject, as I am in this column.  Several of these questions have been brought to me and others are simply my response to mis-information being presented about Union County government.

Q. Mr. Dyer remarked about a previous column of yours where you stated that the majority of what he suggested as his platform you were already doing. He then suggest that , “Could it be that he (commissioner) likes my platform but doesn’t want to admit it?”
A.  Just the opposite is true.  Most of his bullet points in a previous ad are exactly what we are already doing in Union County government, so it is pretty amazing that he thinks we are copying his platform, when he is really using ours. Here are some examples of what he said - paraphrased. Mr. Dyer :
1. Will use reasonable practices when setting the county’s property tax millage rate. We already do that and have one of the lowest tax rates in Georgia.
2. Will deliver 100% fiscal responsibility of county revenue. We already do that. Seven straight balanced budgets and closely watching expenses is why we have the low tax rate.
3. Will promote positive economic growth through good leadership and fair management practices. We already do that. Many new jobs have been brought to this county through the Development Authority, not to mention the new Wal-Mart.
4. Will promote open and honest county government and a county web site. You can not have more open government than we currently have. We already have a county website, so we do not need a new one. It also includes all the county ordinances that my opponent does not think are necessary.
5. Will have reasonable and common sense approach when proposing and implementing regulations and ordinances. We have always done that and usually by utilizing citizen committees to make them reasonable and fair.
6. Will bring principles, dignity, and integrity to the office. We do that on a daily basis. I question  where Mr. Dyer has been working for the past several years that he does not understand how professional our office is operated – with integrety.  .
7. Will properly fund our infrastructure. We are already doing that. We carefully walk the fine line between having to raise taxes and providing necessary infrastructure. The fact that we have unparalleled services for our citizens at one of the lowest tax rates should be ample evidence.
8. Will work to get our financial status out of the red and back into the black. This disturbed me the most, but now I understand why he made that statement, since he seems to be unable to understand the county audit, maybe he thinks we are in the red.  It is interesting that someone who does not understand the county finances or audit, feels qualified in both his literature, his ads and his conversations to belittle me and Union County, when we are very strong financially.

CLOSING STATEMENT

I will  not respond to every accusation posed by my opponent.  When he first came to me to say he was going to run, he said it would be a clean campaign and we would be friends when it was over.  I appreciated that and hope it will be true, but the ink had not had time to dry before he was handing out literature in the county and out telling people mis information about me and the county.  Some issues may have simply been his misunderstandings about what is really going on in Union County government, but there is no way he should want to put into print that Union County is in the red financially and he will get us in the black, with a straight face, because it is simply not true  He accused me of deceiving the public, but what is he doing?  

We have a great county, great employees and great citizens.  I, along with all the dedicated county employees  have worked too hard to help make Union County  one of the best in the state. I will not sit idly by while someone twist the truth and / or simply does not tell the truth in order to try to gain some political advantage.   I do not want to run a negative campaign, but I will respond to twisted and mis- information as I have always done for the past eight years.  In my opinion, making outrageous, uninformed and untrue statements are not a way to campaign for commissioner or any other position.

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