I happened to attend the “debate/forum” hosted by the Kiwanis Club and I was sadly disappointed. With all of the vitriol that one reads in the newspaper, you would think that some of the candidates would have taken their gloves off and let it all “hang out.”

My take on the program and the candidates:

Too short: Way too little time to hear their opinions. Of course, it lasted almost 90 minutes. I enjoy it when we give the candidates a chance to speak to each other, directly, not via a newspaper’s letter to the editor.

The candidates: Two of them were way, way, way out of their league. One doesn’t necessarily need to have a college degree to be a commissioner, but you could tell which of the candidates were educated.

Mr. Mack was pleasant, but who knows why he is running? He wanted to know what Dunn was going to do about a red light at the hospital. When he was told this was the city of Fayetteville’s jurisdiction, he just said okay.

If this is the best the Democrats can do, well, it will be decades before they ever win an election. Which brings us to those Democrats that now are running as Republicans.

Sam Chapman: I have no idea where to begin. He rambled on and on and on and on. He never made one cognitive comment the entire evening. When it came time to ask a “debate” question to his opponent, he instead questioned Dunn. I thought Wells was his opponent.

When he was asked a direct question, he just would ramble on with his prepared, run-on sentences about how he is a leader, that he is a banker, and that we need a horse park in the Kenwood area.

Yes, he thinks we need to spend perhaps millions of dollars so that we can have a horse park in the north part of the county.

One candidate told me that Sam loses more votes every time he opens his mouth than anyone he has ever seen. I suggest he should stop talking and keep putting another $75,000 into his campaign and post more of his cute smiling signs in the county rights of way.

When asked how he could justify spending money so that “rich” citizens who own horses could use the park, he just went back to his talking points about being a business man and not taking campaign donations.

Ms. Wells as usual was Ms. Wells. As she reiterated, she has been in the public eye for 14 years and if you don’t like what she’s done over those years, then don’t vote for her. But that she believes her votes have always had the best interests of the county in mind: Slow, controlled growth following the land use plan, low taxes that are spent carefully and plans for our future predicated upon reliable data.

Jack Smith was articulate and seemed at ease with the forum. He pressed his CPA background and his individualism in being a commissioner.

Mr. Dunn similarly stated that he has been there for eight years and his record is his record. He wants to finish the job, so he needs four more years. He believes that his three lawsuits filed in eight years of office were justifiable and that he has never interfered with the sheriff’s law enforcement duties, only his accounting procedures.

Eric Maxwell reiterated that he would uphold the strict growth controls currently in place, but that he’d stop the excessive legal fees by being less confrontational. He believes mediations are a good resource in resolving conflicts if both parties are reasonable.

All in all, no candidate stood out as a dynamic personality over any other. Well, Mr. Chapman stood out, but not in a positive way. The audience was found giggling and fighting the laughter over and over again as he rambled through the discourse.

I think Mr. Chapman should spend less money on campaign signs and more time on an education that might prepare him to govern. He may very well win this campaign by trying to associate himself with Hollis Harris, the sheriff or by attacking Greg Dunn, who is not his opponent, but that will be the electorate’s own fault.

One question that was never asked:

Mr. Chapman, have the shareholders of Talbot State Bank ever expressed a concern at the expensive ad campaigns recently enlisted by the bank that for all intents and purposes have been nothing more than a campaign expenditure for you?

The bank is called Talbot State Bank, not the Sam Chapman’s Talbot State Bank. At the Fayette Amphitheater your face and name are shown at twice the size of the bank’s name. This is also true of your other advertising.

If this were a federal campaign, then I suspect your bank’s expenditures on these “ads” would be closely monitored and challenged as improper.

If this is the way you manage your bank’s advertising dollars, i.e., as nothing but a promotion for your private interests, then why should we think you would govern Fayette County any differently?

If I owned shares in that bank, I’d be ticked. Then again if the only shareholder is your daddy, then I guess that’s okay.

Anyway, this campaign is not about campaign yard signs; it’s about substance. I hope that each voter actually investigates the substance of each candidate rather than the image that each want us to see.

Voting is a right, but it’s one we should not take lightly. We have a duty to investigate, contemplate, and then educate ourselves who is best able to govern our county and not by how many yard signs are blocking our view as we look to enter a roadway (again this is an opinion given by me as a private citizen).

Richard D. Hobbs
Fayetteville, Ga.

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