Wednesday, December 24, 2003

Critic is off-base on Solicitor Harris’s car

Mr. Myers, shame on you. I don’t know who you are, and I have never seen you at any of the county Republican breakfasts, meetings, or other political events. I bet you don’t even live in Fayette County, but instead in Upson County, because you have no clue as to the services rendered by my husband, Steve Harris. I tried to look up your name in the phone book, but it wasn’t listed; ours is.

You are right, you don’t know what a solicitor general needs a car for, but I will try to educate you.

Yes, I am his wife, and he doesn’t know I am writing this e-mail, but he will soon. You don’t know that he has run the solicitor’s office from its beginnings without an investigator, as found in virtually every other solicitor’s office.

You don’t know he does his own investigations. You don’t know that for over a year, he ran his errands for this county in our car, and never submitted a request for mileage reimbursement. You don’t know that he works weekends, and evenings in that car and at home, visiting crime scenes, victims’ homes, meeting with witnesses, and picking up and delivering items to the police departments in this county.

You don’t know that its is usually dark when he leaves for the office in the morning, and dark when he returns home. You don’t know that just last week, he learned at 5 p.m. of a potentially innocent man charged with a crime who couldn’t make bond, and he used that county car to find a judge in Fayette County that night to sign an order to allow that man’s release, because it wasn’t right to have that man spend one more night in jail just because it was the end of a “normal” business day. (Finding a judge in Fayette County isn’t easy when three of the four superior court judges live in faraway Upson County.)

You don’t know that when the car was purchased in 1998, he ordered the cheapest car available with no options. You don’t know that he doesn’t use it for personal business. You don’t know that he has been paying taxes for the times he drives it home. You don’t know that every law enforcement department in this county has our home phone number and address, and they use it.

You don’t know the personal and financial sacrifices he made in order to make a difference in the lives of the people of Fayette County over the past eight years. You don’t know of his personal integrity.

I don’t know your political motives, but I do know you are way off base. Shame on you.

Lynn Harris

Fayette

believeinsteve@earthlink.net