Katie Green, seeking to fill open Post 5 on the Oconee County Board of Education, asked those present at the Democratic Party meeting last month if they had ever attended a Board meeting.
“They're really weird,” Green said. “The people who sign up to speak for three minutes, they get their three minutes to speak, and then there's just silence.”
“Nobody responds and nobody talks,” she said. “There needs to be a lot more communication and a lot more transparency.”
Green said those are the issues that she is focusing on in her campaign.
Green was one of three candidates who used the opportunity at the party meeting to provide an update on their campaigns.
Eric Gisler, the party nominee for the 121st House District, which includes most of Oconee County, said he is focusing on three issues in his campaign: Medicaid expansion, reproductive rights, and gerrymandering.
Gisler told the group that, given the national Democratic ticket and the energy it has generated, he believes he can unseat incumbent Republican Marcus Wiedower in November.
Deborah Gonzalez, incumbent Democratic District Attorney finishing her first four-year term, asked the audience “to stick with me as your district attorney so that we can continue the reforms that we started.”
Green On Transparency
Green said at the Aug. 15 meeting of the Oconee County Democratic Party that she is running against Republican Brock Toole for Post 5, and “I'm going to need all the Democrat votes and some of the Republican votes” to defeat him.
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| Green 8/15/2024 |
She said she has been meeting with Republicans in the county, “emailing with some,” and talking to the parent-teacher organizations in the schools “to get some ideas about what's going on in the schools, what teachers may like.”
“But my biggest platform focus is transparency,” she said.
Green said the Board just renewed the contract for Superintendent Jason Branch.
“It's a three year contract,” she said, “but they're renewing it every year when they don't need to renew it. So there's just not very much transparency.”
Green said Branch’s salary was $275,000, but the base contract figure is for $267,039.
The contract calls for a number of benefits, however, and the total budgeted compensation package is $301,633.
“It doesn't feel good when you go to the meetings,” Green said of the Board. “It doesn't feel good to citizens. And I would like to help change that.”
“I would only be one person on the Board of five,” she acknowledged, “but I'm pretty persuasive when I need to be...I think I can make progress with the Board.”
Gisler On Platform
Expanding Medicaid is a “no brainer,” Gisler said when he came to the front of the meeting room at the Oconee County Library in Wire Park to speak.
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| Gisler 8/15/2024 |
“We are one of nine states in the country that hasn’t done it yet,” Gisler said. (Most counts list 10 states.) “You see the impact. We’ve had rural hospitals closing like crazy. It makes access to health care very difficult and increases cost.”
“I want to repeal the six week abortion ban,” Gisler said.
“I also want to put in place a Constitutional Amendment,” he said, “which will take the entire Georgia assembly to agree with it, but put a Constitutional Amendment on the ballot for people to vote on to protect abortion, contraception, and IVF” (in vitro fertilization).
“I want to end gerrymandering,” Gisler continued. “I think we need to have independent redistricting commissions.”
“I'll say too, before I pass it on to the next speaker,” Gisler said, “this seat is winnable.”
“You know, they tell us that it's not,” he said. “They tell us we're in a red district. They tell us it's gerrymandered. And it is gerrymandered.”
“But a year like this, where you've got Kamala Harris at the top and all this Democratic energy and such a horrible Republican ticket, and I mean all the way down the ballot,” Gisler said, “this district is flippable, we can make it happen.”
“I just need a little bit of help,” he said.
Gonzalez On Reform
Gonzalez also began her comments by referencing Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party nominee for president.
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| Gonzalez 8/15/2024 |
“Just like Harris tells you,” Gonzalez said, “we're not going back. We're not going back. Because that's exactly what my opponent wants to do, is to take us back four years ago before we had a say on justice.”
The Republican Party did not nominate anyone to run against Gonzalez, who represents both Oconee and Clarke counties in the Western Judicial Circuit.
But Kalki Yalamanchili has qualified to run as an Independent. Yalamanchili served as assistant district attorney under Gonzalez’s predecessor, Democrat Ken Mauldin.
“I am proud of the work that we've done,” Gonzalez said, “but we just started.”
“Everybody thinks that you get into a seat and you're going to do that position and just run with it,” she said. “But it takes time to build the right team. It takes time to learn the system from the inside so that you know what it is that you can change.”
“So what I'm asking you to do is to stick with me as your district attorney so that we can continue the reforms that we started,” she said.
“We’ve got a second chance to get the first female president,” Gonzalez said. “And what an incredible candidate she is.”
“But you know what? The key is locally down ballot,” she said. “And we've got to get that message out there. Every single voter, don't stop at the president, don't stop at Congress.”
“Bring it all the way down,” she said. “State reps, state senators, school board, DA. We have got to bring it all the way down.”
Indivisible GA 10
Gisler, Gonzalez, and Green spoke at the August meeting after Barbara Burt from Indivisible GA 10 gave an overview of the history of the parent organization, Indivisible.
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| Burt 8/15/2024 |
Burt said she got involved with Indivisible “in 2017 after the Women's March.”
“There was extreme depression, let's say, after the 2016 election,” Burt said. “Shock. Shock.”
“And two congressional staffers decided to write a handbook on how you could advocate in your own state and in your own locality to stop the efforts of the Trump administration,” Burt said.
“And they wrote this handbook, called it The Indivisible Guide, And it took off like wildfire,” she said.
Burt said that the Google doc “was just sort of a playbook, how you advocate. So many of the people who were in the Women's March, and who were so upset, actually hadn't been very politically active.”
“They had voted, but they hadn't really done anything else,” she said. “And they certainly probably hadn't come to a meeting like this.”
“So they read the book, started learning about all the different ways you can actually impact what happens in government. And groups began to form all around the country,” she said.
What Indivisible Does
Burt said of those involved in Indivisible, “They were Democrats, Independents, Republicans. A lot of women, but there were men there too.”
“A lot of times we bring in people who haven't thought they were political,” she said. “They voted, but they didn't think that they really cared about politics that much.”
“But there were a couple of things that brought them in,” she said. “One was that they cared deeply about an issue. So they wanted their voice to be heard about that.”
“But also they found out that it's kind of fun to do stuff with people,” she said. “When everybody is getting together with a single purpose of passing a law, or stopping a law, or getting a candidate, elected, all those things. It's really fun.”
“There's a lot of energy and excitement that happens,” she added.
“To be a member takes nothing,” she said. “All you have to do is show up. You don't have to pay dues. You don't have to make a commitment of any sort.”
“You just have to be a participant, and you can do it as much or as little as you want,” Burt said.
Indivisible 10 GA represents all of Congressional District 10, which includes Oconee County.
Indivisible partners with the Oconee County Democratic Party in peaceful demonstrations on Main Street in Watkinsville.
Video
The Oconee County Democratic Party’s next meeting begins at 6:30 p.m. at the Oconee County Library in Wire Park in Watkinsville.
Charles Hayslett, who writes the “Trouble in God’s Country” blog, will be the guest speaker. The blog explores the challenges confronting rural Georgia.
As my request, Thompson placed my camera and tripod at the rear of the meeting on Aug. 15, producing the video below.
Burt began her comments at 5:39 in the video.
Gisler began speaking at 38:30.
Gonzalez started to speak at 43:46.
Green began to speak at 51:19.
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