Wednesday, June 13, 2001
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Wednesday, June 13, 2001 |
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Choosing best 1 from the field of 5 in Tuesday's county race By CAL BEVERLY It's election time in Fayette. Because of Harold Bost's sudden departure from the county commission post to which he was reelected just last November, five candidates are competing next Tuesday for the remaining three-and-a-half years on Bost's unexpired term. Bost served first as an opposition candidate in the late 1990s, opposing nearly unrestricted rezonings inflicted on the county by the notorious Gang of Three, two of which were voted out of office unceremoniously the next time they faced the voters. The third decided not to run for another term. During Bost's first term, he served as chairman of the commission and spearheaded a slow-growth movement that now has a majority on the commission.
Now, we face uncertainty in a field of five. The candidates are, in alphabetical order, Brian Bischoff, Scott Gilbert, Charlie Mask, Stephen Ott and Peter Pfeifer. Let's take the senior candidate first. He is 70, a semiretired barber. Charlie Mask is the Ghost of Fayette Past. He served one term on the commission in the 1980s. That was enough. Brian Bischoff I haven't met. I do know and respect his campaign manager his dad, Jim Bischoff. Jim is a good attorney and a fine man. Young Bischoff, like his daddy, is a fresh-minted attorney who has worked in his dad's Fayetteville law firm since February of last year, just before passing the bar exam, he told me. He is also young, 26, while the other attorney candidate, Steve Ott is 33.
I have met Ott. He was involved as a volunteer at the American Cancer Society's Relay for Life last month. I told him I recognized his name from the libel suit he filed against me and The Citizen last year on behalf of Peachtree City Attorney Jim Webb and Webb's firm, for whom Ott worked at the time. He said he was sorry about that notorious lawsuit (later dismissed), and I believe he is. Both Bischoff and Ott are attorneys and both are relatively young. Neither has run for public office before. Both make the "right" assurances about "controlled growth" and "sticking to the land use plan." So why am I nervous about those "assurances"? Maybe it's the gray in my beard, but I would wish for a little more age and experience and yes wisdom, in a person who would lead the county through some difficult years ahead. And I have to admit to a certain wariness about attorneys in public office. Attorneys already interpret all our laws, and, thanks to a General Assembly loaded with lawyers, attorneys mostly write all of our laws. The unheralded "sixth" commissioner on the five-member county commission is County Attorney Bill McNally, who has held that slot since the very early 1980s. He has written a lot of ordinances and made a lot of decisions on water line locations and reservoirs and whispered into a lot of commissioners' ears in these intervening two decades. Since we already have an unelected lawyer on the county commission, do we really need another attorney there? That leaves two. Although you won't see it in any of his campaign literature, wrecker service owner Scott Gilbert also serves as an officer of the local unit of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. Questioned about his support of the Rebel battle flag emblem on the Georgia flag, Gilbert said he wouldn't bring it up as a member of the county commission. "But if a constituent brought [the flag controversy] up, well, then..." Gilbert told me. Gilbert, 37, moved to Fayette about five years ago from Henry County, where eight generations of his family have resided. Having seen the explosive growth in an unprepared county, Gilbert wants to make sure Fayette stays on track with its current slow-growth approach. Peter Pfeifer has been the local GOP's man behind the scenes in several elections, including campaign manager for then-state Sen. Rick Price in a losing campaign last summer. Pfeifer, 53, a manager of Contract Product Group in Peachtree City, says he is a slow-growth advocate and is the only candidate talking about the county's responsibility to take some positive steps to improve traffic and transportation. He also pledges to work more constructively with the cities on thorny issues like tax equity and county services. I would not recommend a vote for Mr. Mask. So, which one of the remaining four will I vote for? The race offers some interesting choices. My guess is that Bischoff, Ott and Gilbert are good men who would serve the county according to the perspective and wisdom each has gained at this point in their lives. They just haven't been around long enough to be wise enough for my taste. Gray beard that I am, I have to pick a seasoned, conservative political veteran to make the tough decisions on behalf of the people of Fayette County during the next three years. I will mark my ballot for Peter Pfeifer.
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