Thursday, March 10, 2016

Sarah Bell Files To Run For Post 4 On Oconee County Board of Commissioners

Two BOE Incumbents Also File

Sarah Bell today filed to run for the Post 4 position on the Oconee County Board of Commissioners, joining incumbent Mark Saxon in the contest for that sport.

Saxon qualified on Wednesday, as did Penny Mills and Mark Thomas, both seeking to fill the Post 1 position left vacant by the retirement of Commissioner Jim Luke.

Incumbent Board of Education member Tim Burgess qualified today to run for his Post 4 position, and incumbent Post 5 BOE member Wayne Bagley qualified to run for reelection to that post.

Incumbent Board of Education Chair Tom Odom filed for reelection on Monday, the first day of qualifications. Odom, as Chair, holds Post 1 on the BOE.

John Daniell qualified to run for the Chair of the Board of Commissioners on Tuesday. Incumbent Chair Melvin Davis has said he plans to retire.

All candidates who have filed in Oconee County to date will be running as Republicans in the May 24 primary.

Qualifications continue through noon tomorrow.

Bell, Burgess and Bagley

Bell lists her occupation as consultant. She holds a doctorate from the University of Georgia and formerly has taught English at what is now the University of North Georgia Oconee County campus.

Sarah Bell

Bell challenged Luke four years ago and Davis in 2008. She also ran for Georgia House of Representatives. She long has been a leader of the Oconee County Republican Party and active in county government issues. She frequently shoots video that I use on this blog.

Burgess is a retired from the University of Georgia as senior vice president for finance and administration and chief financial officer. He was appointed to the Board of Education to fill a vacancy in 2014.

Bagley was appointed to the Post 5 position in 2010 and was elected to that post in 2012. He is vice president of development for Lassiter Properties Inc. of Atlanta.

Mark Saxon

Other Candidates

On Monday, Sen. Bill Cowsert, Rep. Regina Quick and Rep. Chuck Williams, the county’s representatives in the General Assembly, qualified for the May 24 primary. So far, no one has qualified to run against them. All are Republicans.

The county’s four constitutional officers, Sheriff Scott Berry, Superior Court Clerk Angela Elder-Johnson, Probate Court Judge David Anglin, and Tax Commissioner Jennifer Riddle, also qualified for reelection on Monday. Anglin’s race is nonpartisan, but the other three will run as Republicans.

Mark Thomas

So far, only Sheriff Scott Berry among the four has opposition. Kevin "Chappy" Hynes, who lists his occupation as chaplain, qualified Monday to run against Berry in the May Republican primary.

Incumbent Ed Carson and Dale Rogers have qualified to run for Coroner, and the two will face off in the Republican primary on May 24.

Vacancies Created

Daniell had to resign his position as Post 2 Commissioner when he qualified for the BOC Chair race. Post 2 will be filled through a special election in November.

Penny Mills

Thomas, who has held Post 2 on the BOE, also had to resign when he qualified for the BOC Post 1 election.

The enabling legislation for the Oconee County BOE dictates that the Board itself fills vacancies.

Thomas sent me his picture before he qualified yesterday, but I did not use it in yesterday’s blog post because I had not been able to obtain a picture from Mills.

I obtained a picture from Mills via The Oconee Enterprise today. (I replaced that pictured with one directly from Mills on 3/11/2016.)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Bring on the candidate forums and debates! What are the candidates' visions for the future?

-Will they continue to allow out of county developer Frank Bishop and out of county realtor Jamie Boswell to run roughshod?
-Will they be transparent regarding county operations? How 'bout televising/podcasting county meetings, instead of forcing Mr. Becker and his crew to do so?
-Will they allow a department such as Public Utilities to fail for years, and place blame on previous employees, even though those employees communicated major problems to the BOC?
-Will they listen to county resident experts in their field, such as Russ Page (farmland preservation), or will they shuffle papers and avoid eye contact as the current chairperson does when he doesn't like what a speaker has to say?
-Why have the commissioners completely tuned out farmland & historic preservation?
-Will they spend over $4 million on a road that benefits Frank Bishop and only Frank Bishop, with little public discourse and a complete lack of transparency?
-Will they stand up to the judges and sheriff who want a $20-25 million dollars on a courthouse for a county of less than 40,000?
-Will they appoint responsible, reasonable appointees to the currently embarrassing, bickering Animal Control board?
-Will they actually spend the remaining amount of the previous SPLOST???
-Will anyone admit the return on investment promised on the millions spent on Caterpillar has not even been close to projection??!! Melvin, where are all those suppliers? Is there any adult in the room on this specific issue??!! Melvin made a promise, and will not admit his projections weren't even close.

Suggestion to candidates: Admit mistakes. Own your decisions.

Candidates: Get up your websites with your platforms, start holding listening sessions!

We need fresh perspectives in The OC!!

Anonymous said...

Would like to hear their take on the many conflicts of interest in Oconee, i.e. Jamie Boswell, Rick Waller, Abe A., etc.


Here's a recent comment from another blog post:

So, Abe Abouhamdan is the chair of the county's Land Use and Transportation Planning Committee and also the President & CEO at ABE Consulting, Inc, (civil engineering and surveying) which was just given approval for a $65,765 change order for design of the Parkway Boulevard Extension. Interesting.