What about roads now?

Greg Dunn has managed to make himself quite a reputation at the state level. A good one. He figured out how to get road money for the county and how to work the system to keep it. He hasn't gotten much credit. Eric Maxwell kept talking about all the traffic saying something like growth can't be down, just look at the traffic. Talk about lawyer-speak. Of course traffic is worse. More people are coming into the county to shop because the CITIES have allowed all kinds of shopping magnets. Of course traffic is worse. The CITIES have increased density and annexed tons of county land.

The fact is that growth is DOWN in the unincorporated county.

The county (in particular Greg Dunn) has fought to get road money so that roads could be improved.

Geez louise. It doesn't take much sense to figure out where the traffic is coming from. It ain't from the unincorporated county.

Is there anyone on the upcoming new board of commissioners whos going to be able to go downtown and keep the government types from taking away the money thats in the state plans? Herb Frady? Robert Horgan? Eric Maxwell? Peter Pfeifer? Linda Wells or Jack Smith? They all have full-time jobs except Herb and he can't remember how he voted from one time to the next.

Who's going to get us our road money now? Who's going to stop the powers-that-disperse from taking "our" money and giving it to whoever yells the loudest from some other county? Dunn managed to make Fayette County a player at the big table for the first time in history.

Did Fayette County blow it?

Around 12% of the voters in Fayette County just elected a new County Commissioner. Before that about 4% elected the replacement for A. G. VanLandingham. The sheriff was behind both of the new guys.

There are somewhere near 70,000 registered voters and over 100,000 people in the county. Why didn't people vote? Complacency? Laziness?

Did we blow it with the vote? Did we just lose the county because nobody cared enough to vote?

The new guy, Eric Maxwell, probably wouldn't have had a chance if the Sheriff wasn't behind him. The Sheriff has been around for somewhere near 30 years and knows a lot of people. He has over 200 people who work for him.

The word is that the Sheriff doesn't use the county motor pool or buy gas from the county so he can build relationships with businesses so they'll support him. Nuff said on that one. And the Sheriff is supposed to be a very likable guy. It was probably pretty easy for him to dig up enough voters to make a difference.

Anyway, it looks like it was the Sheriff who won, not Eric Maxwell. I know I haven't found a single person who thinks that Eric should have won or would have won if the Sheriff weren't out getting voters riled up. I've found a lot of people who didn't expect him to win. But over 5,000 people voted for him so I guess there were enough out there to make the difference.

Looks like we're in for growth like we haven't seen since Burrell and Sprayberry. I don't even know if it will be deliberate. He's promised a kinder gentler county commission. In the old days the county gave the cities anything they wanted. Kinder and gentler. Personally, I don't want a kinder and gentler, I want someone with backbone who will stand up for what is right, not what is easy. I'm tired of people who do anything to get re-elected and who don't have what it takes to see the long-term affects of their decisions. Like that thing Eric said he'd do with the sewer. Bad news.

Guess we'll find out next year how things are going to be. I'd wager they won't get better.