Candidates clash at debate hosted by local Republican Party

Interested citizens packed out the Parks & Rec meeting room last Thursday night, as the Lumpkin County Republican Party hosted a lively forum open to all 16 local political candidates.
Among the nine unopposed candidates, three attended and used their three minutes of allotted time to address the crowd: incumbent County Surveyor John Gaston, incumbent County Coroner Mark Cox and incumbent County Commissioner for District 1, Tucker Greene.
Of the seven candidates running opposed, all were in attendance except for County Chairperson candidate Steve Shaw. Lumpkin County Republican Chair and debate moderator Katherine James told the crowd that she had received conflicting messages from Shaw ahead of the debate.
The candidates for each office were given three minutes to introduce themselves, with new candidates going first, followed by the incumbent.
Following the introductions was a final question-and-answer portion of the debate, where James accepted written questions from members of the audience that could be directed towards one or more of the candidates.
Most candidates leaned heavily on their experience during the introductory remarks, with several incumbents using the bulk of the three minutes to highlight their lengthy professional resumes.
When the candidates spoke about their platforms, a central theme emerged around the local hot topic of growth: how to properly direct and manage the inevitable expansion of the county without diminishing its natural beauty.

WARMING UP

After City Councilman Ross Shirley led the group in prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance, James kicked off the event by thanking all of the participants.
“I want to start with a big round of applause because these people are putting their necks out, y'all; they’re running for office,” James said.
“I don’t care who your opponent is, it takes a lot of courage to run for office so please give all candidates a round of applause,” she added as the crowd eagerly obliged.

COUNTY COMMISSIONER

James then introduced the District 2 County Commission candidates, beginning with Jeramy Nye.
“I’m running for two reasons, initially. One: my property taxes are atrocious and I’ve been slammed by the federal, state and now the local level. And the second is that every time I go out and look around the neighborhood it’s changing. You see, the rural nature of this environment that I moved here for, I moved my family here to grow our children, it’s changing. We’re starting to look a little bit too much like Dawsonville. Well I don’t like that, and I don’t want that in our county,” Nye said.
Next to the stage was Matthew Cootware, who said growth in the county is inevitable, but ultimately controllable.
“We can manage that growth. It doesn’t have to overpopulate us here in our beloved town,” Cootware said.
“We can actually take it out there at the 400 Corridor where we can actually get most of their people, also, because we have two other different counties: Union County and Hall County. They can spend their money here, in Lumpkin County … They’re not spending it here because we don’t have a lot to spend in this county. We don’t have it. I want to come in here and help us build this county the right way, and get us to where we need to be,” he added.
Incumbent Commissioner Dr. Bobby Mayfield was last to speak.
“When I first got elected, everybody wanted to kill the senior tax exemption and I told them about the plan: we’re going to develop Highway 400. Me and my fellow commissioners are going to come up with a whole bunch of rules and regulations and plans to make that happen, and make it happen smartly, so everything looks nice and it doesn’t look like the county to the south of us,” Mayfield said.
“And that SPLOST revenue is what’s going to offset all that, so we can keep our senior tax exemption and we can also lower property taxes as soon as we get everything up and running. Publix is starting to fire up and so is the hospital, and that whole 400 Corridor is going to catch on fire. Vote for Mayfield,” he concluded.

COUNTY CHAIRPERSON

Next James asked if Steve Shaw was in the audience.
“I got a couple of e-mails from Steve, one saying he was coming and one saying he wasn’t. The last one said he was coming,” she said.
When Shaw did not appear, James called incumbent Chairman Chris Dockery to the stage instead.
The Nugget’s attempts to contact Shaw before press-time were unsuccessful.
Dockery told the audience that county land use regulations are not the only management tool the Board of Commissioners is using to deal with the coming growth.
“We’ve got to continue to upgrade those regulations, but what we have done as a board that gets buried, and that’s something everyone in this room needs to know, is we have been very selective where we run infrastructure: where we run water, where we run sewer. And in order to have high density development, you have to have that infrastructure. If you don’t have that infrastructure, you’re not going to be able to make those numbers work. Guess what folks? We’re very selective of where we’re running that water and sewer and very selective of who can tie into that water and sewer. And that, my friend, is our plan to curb the growth in Lumpkin County,” Dockery said.

COUNTY SHERIFF

The final group of candidates to introduce themselves to voters were the two candidates for sheriff.
“I don’t know why the sheriff always seems to be the most important one, but it always seems to be the highest level one,” James said before introducing candidate Matt Cook.
“I enjoy motivating my team, my crew, to better themselves, not to become stagnant, to always be pushing forward. Because that’s what growth is. If you become satisfied with where you’re at, you’re not doing anybody any service. You’re not doing for your people, your employees, any justice and you’re not helping your community and that’s what I want to bring to Lumpkin County to the Sheriff’s Office,” Cook told the crowd.
Incumbent Sheriff Stacy Jarrard was the final candidate to introduce himself.
“My vision is to continue to keep this community safe. I will continue growing with the Sheriff’s Office, and I want to continue to be here to strive in the right direction for that, to keep you all safe with that. I will stay on the state boards that I’m involved with, where I have all this access that I can reach out when we have something in this community that I need help for. I make a couple phone calls. That’s what it takes when you’ve been sheriff for 16 years. You meet a lot of people along the way, where you can reach out and they will send help,” Jarrard said.
As an example, Jarrard cited his department’s response to a planned protest in Dahlonega back in 2019.   
“We had I think 600 officers here to protect us when this event happened. When we needed them they was here to help us with that. It was just one phone call, and the troops come,” Jarrard added.

DECISION TIME

Citizens will select their preferred local candidates when they head to the polls to cast their votes in the General Primary on May 21, 2024. Early voting is set to begin on April 29.
Also included on the primary ballot will be a referendum on whether or not to approve the continuation of the one percent Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (SPLOST) for a period of six years in order to fund $33,325,560 in combined City and County capital outlay projects.
Voters will make their final candidate selections in the General Election on November 5.