Commissioner Bradshaw gives update to Towns County Democrats

     Towns County Sole Commissioner Cliff Bradshaw provided an update on several county projects when he met with Towns County Democrats on Thursday, Feb. 10.

     Prominent among them was upcoming renovations to the county courthouse in Hiawassee.  The renovations are being funded with proceeds from a 1% Special-Purpose Local-Option Sales Tax (SPLOST) approved by voters in 2020.  While the coronavirus pandemic and resulting supply-chain problems have delayed the project’s start, the interest accumulating on the $2.3 million now in the SPLOST account have been a silver lining in face of inflation, which has raised the courthouse project cost from $8 million to $9.5 million, Bradshaw said.

     “We’re gaining interest, not paying interest” on a bond that Bradshaw said he purposefully did not secure due to the pandemic’s uncertainty.  “The county is doing very well financially.  We have been very frugal since COVID hit,” he said.

     The courthouse renovations are expected to take 12 to 14 months to complete.  County offices will vacate the building and move into the old county recreation center, where improvements to the HVAC system will begin within the next two weeks, resulting in a bonus of better air conditioning for local pickleball players when they resume rainy-day matches there.       Bradshaw also reported that a new covered pavilion with restrooms and picnic tables will be built at the Towns County Pickleball Complex.  He did not give a timeline for that project.

     As the SPLOST is a six-year tax, Bradshaw said funds generated by it will be available to replenish the county’s “rainy-day” fund from which money may also be drawn to pay for the courthouse and other projects.   “We hope to have [the courthouse project] paid for in full, with no loans and no interest due, by opening day,” he said.

     In the meantime, Bradshaw said he will continue to improve county wages, which he noted have increased 50 cents per hour each year since he took office in 2017, and to upgrade all of the county’s equipment.

     As the county grows, Bradshaw said “We are trying to stay ahead of the growth that we know is coming.”  As a result, he said the county will be updating its ordinances and will take steps for stricter enforcement of its permitting process, particularly building permits, and enforcement of such measures as the Mountain Protection Act which limits the amount of soil, trees, and vegetation that can be removed from land above 2,200 feet in elevation.

     “We’re not going to let people move up here and scalp our mountains and decrease our property values,” he said, adding that doing so would damage the very things that attract newcomers and visitors to Towns County.

     Another update Bradshaw mentioned was a change at the county transfer station, i.e., the county dump, where residential and commercial garbage are now disposed of in separate and distinct areas.  Anything bagged is considered residential, he said.  The new system should result in a cleaner and faster experience, he said.

     In response to a question about the potential for crypto-mining facilities coming to Towns County, Bradshaw said the county is looking into a 120-day moratorium which could be considered at the next commissioner’s meeting.  The moratorium would be followed by an ordinance “that would make it so strict they would not want to come here,” he said. 

     “I still love coming to work every day,” Bradshaw concluded with obvious enthusiasm.

     Towns County Democrats meet the second Thursday of each month at 6 p.m. at the county civic center in Hiawassee.

     County Chair Charlotte Sleczkowski reminds voters that applications for absentee ballots for the May 24 primary will be available starting March 7 and the application period will close May 13.  She emphasized that the application period is shorter this election cycle than in previous years because of Georgia’s new voting law.

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Applications for absentee ballots for fall municipal elections being accepted

 Charlotte Sleczkowski, chair of the Towns County Democrats, reminds voters who wish to vote by absentee ballot in the November non-partisan municipal elections in Hiawassee and Young Harris they may now submit an application.

At the Democrats’ August meeting, Sleczkowski noted that the application period for absentee ballots opened on Monday, Aug. 16, or 11 weeks prior to the Nov. 2 municipal elections. The opening date for requesting applications is later this year as provided by Georgia’s new election law. The previous opening date was 180 days prior to the election.

Applications may be obtained in person at the Towns County Board of Elections and Registration in Hiawassee or through the Georgia Secretary of State’s office website.

Sleczkowski noted the last day to request an absentee ballot application is Oct. 22, 2021, or 11 days prior to the election. This is also a newly mandated deadline, as the previous last day was one week prior to the election. The additional time gives local elections officials extra time to process absentee ballots.

After the completed application is filed with the local elections office, an absentee ballot will be mailed to the requesting voter beginning Oct. 12, which is three weeks prior to the election. Completed absentee ballots must be received in the elections office by 7 p.m. on election day.

At the Democrats’ July meeting, Dr. Janet Oliva, chair of the county elections board, said “rollover ballots” are still available to voters age 65 and over and to disabled voters who mark their absentee ballot application accordingly. The rollover allows the eligible voter to continue to receive absentee ballots throughout the voting cycle without reapplying, such as for a runoff municipal election which would take place on Nov. 30 if needed.

Sleczkowski stated that voters will need to reapply for absentee ballots for the 2022 cycle of elections for state and federal offices.

The county’s single drop box for completed absentee ballots will be available only inside the elections office in Hiawassee only during the office’s business hours, which typically are 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., according to local elections officials. The drop box also will be available during early voting hours, including Saturdays (Oct. 16 and 23). In Towns County, early voting hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and start Oct. 12. Election-day voting hours are 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. 

Elections board chair makes plea for more poll workers

Administration of elections under Georgia’s new election law will make some aspects easier but will be more challenging without additional poll workers, Dr. Janet Oliva, chair of the county elections board, told Towns and Union County Democrats at a combined monthly meeting on Thursday.

Dr. Oliva, who was joined at the meeting by county Elections Supervisor Rachel Edwards, said some aspects of the new state law — known as Senate Bill 202 — in her opinion will make upcoming municipal elections in 2021 and state and federal elections in 2022 easier for the small Towns County staff to handle, but without more poll workers some of the shorter deadlines set by the new law will be challenging.

“We have been working with a staffing shortage since before the 2020 election but have not been able to increase it,” Dr. Oliva said. The elections office staff is supplemented as needed by poll workers who are paid by the county. Although the county is budgeted to hire more poll workers, Dr. Oliva said the elections office is constantly recruiting poll workers to meet the needs of each election.

“We don’t yet have enough poll workers for the municipal elections this fall,” Dr. Oliva said. However, she added the county is in the process of recruiting poll workers to ensure the city elections are managed properly and in compliance with state law.

The county elections office provides on-site training for poll workers, who are compensated for their time by the county.

One new deadline set by the new election law that will challenge the county elections staff is a requirement to report election results as of 10 p.m. to the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office on election day. Dr. Oliva explained that every county will have to report the number of votes counted by 10 p.m., not that this would be a county’s final vote tally. Also, the county must certify election results in 5 days after the election versus previously 10 days. 

Some of the most far-reaching changes in the new election law apply to absentee ballots, which Dr. Oliva said were related directly to the “unprecedented” number of absentee ballots cast in 2020 when the COVID pandemic was raging. “We were unprepared for that volume and it was very challenging,” she said.

She assured the Towns and Union voters that “rollover ballots” are still available to voters age 65 and over and to disabled voters by marking their absentee ballot application accordingly. The rollover allows the eligible voter to continue to receive absentee ballots throughout the voting cycle without reapplying. 

The earliest an absentee ballot may be requested is now 11 weeks prior to an election. Previously, the start date was 180 days. The last day to apply for to an absentee ballot is now two Fridays before an election. The previous deadline was the Friday before the election. Dr. Oliva said the extra week’s processing time provided by the new law will “help to ensure the integrity of the election.” 

Voters will have to be proactive in requesting an absentee ballot, as under the new law state and local governments cannot send out unsolicited applications, as occurred in 2020.

Dr. Oliva said the elections office will start mailing out requested absentee ballots four weeks prior to the election. A voter who waits until two Fridays prior to the election to request an absentee ballot could have less than two weeks to return the completed ballot to the elections office, Dr. Oliva confirmed in response to a question. Absentee ballots must be received in the elections office by 7 p.m. on election day.

Dr. Oliva noted that historically, in Towns County, the U.S. Postal Service has delivered absentee ballots directly to the county elections office without requiring them to make the journey to Atlanta and back as does other mail posted locally.

The county’s single drop box will be available only inside the elections office in Hiawassee only during the office’s business hours, which typically are 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., according to Ms. Edwards. The drop box also will be available during early voting hours, including two Saturdays. In Towns County, early voting hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. but may be extended by the board of elections. Election-day voting hours are 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. 

In response to a question about the possibility of extending or changing either office hours or early voting hours to allow people who work during the day more opportunities to deposit absentee ballots, Dr. Oliva said if the local elections board decided to do that, funding for the staff needed for those hours would have to be provided by the county. 

Democrats in Towns and Union Counties urged to educate voters on new voting law

Democrats in Northeast Georgia need to mitigate the damage done by recent changes to Georgia’s voting laws by educating them on how the changes will affect their right to vote, Mike Cobb, vice chair for voter protection in the Ninth Congressional District, told a gathering of Democrats from Towns and Union counties on May 13.

Cobb’s job is to help individual counties assemble task forces to carry out mitigation and education efforts in the 20 counties of the ninth district. He also serves as second vice chair of the Fannin County Democratic Committee and said each county is encouraged to organize either a task force, as Fannin is doing, or subcommittee with responsibility for education efforts.

“We call ours a ‘task force’ for a reason. We plan to get things done and are action-oriented,” he said.

Towns County Democratic Chair Charlotte Sleczkowski said Towns County Democrats will be participating in this statewide effort led by the Democratic Party of Georgia and will establish task forces to carry out plans to help local voters navigate this new system. Towns Democrats will meet next on Thursday, June 10.

Three areas where changes will affect local voters are in absentee voting procedures, early in-person and polling-day voting, and how county boards of election will be managed and overseen by the State Election Board, he said.

“These are onerous and draconian provisions,” he said, describing the changes. “The Democratic Party of Georgia has scoured SB 202 and looked for ways to mitigate [its effect on voters] and mobilize registration and get out the vote efforts.”

Changes to absentee voting will reduce the time voters have to apply for an absentee ballot to a narrow window beginning 78 days and ending 11 days before an election, he said. Voters are used to the application period opening 180 days before an election and may not realize the earlier closing date means they can no longer apply for an absentee ballot as late as the Friday before an election.

Also, voters will have to include either a driver’s license number or a Georgia voter identification card number on the application. In the past the voter’s signature was sufficient. Voters without these forms of identification will have to submit a photocopy of one of the other authorized forms of photo identification specified in the law.

For Union and Towns counties, which in the 2020 election had only one absentee ballot dropbox, new restrictions on the availability of drop boxes will have little effect. However, the dropboxes will not be as convenient since they can no longer be located outside and thus available when convenient for the voter. Instead, the boxes must be inside a polling place or government building, be monitored, and will be available only during business hours.

“Dropbox availability will be a huge issue,” he said, since it will affect the ability of people who work during the day to turn in their absentee ballot. Additionally, a third party can no longer legally drop off an absentee voter’s ballot, Cobb said.

One offset to the restrictions imposed by SB 202 is expansion of early in-person voting, he said. Voters will have two mandatory Saturday voting hours and election boards have the option to have polls open for two Sundays.

However, voters who go to the wrong precinct will no longer be able to cast a provisional ballot unless they show up after 5 p.m. on polling day. This will affect the ability of people to vote. “Polling places change, and voters may not realize their precinct polling place is different. We have to educate voters, so they know where to vote,” Cobb said.

SB 202 hands the Republican-controlled legislature control over the State Election Board, he said. The State Election Board now has the power to suspend up to four county election officials and take over the local election.

“What are the four counties you’re going to do this to?” he asked and then answered his own question: “Fulton, Cobb, Gwinnett and DeKalb.” The four counties have large minority populations and voted overwhelmingly for President Joe Biden in the 2020 election.

John Andrews, chair of the Democratic Party of Union County, in introducing Cobb said changes to the State Election Board worried him. “It gives power to the legislature, the people whom we pay, but they don’t listen to us,” he said. “We need to learn how to work within [SB] 202 to turn people out [to vote].”

Two provisions of SB 202 that Cobb said are unlikely to survive court challenges are the change to the federal election runoff schedule and the voter fraud hotline to the attorney general. Changing the schedule for federal runoffs from nine weeks after the election to 28 days will prove unconstitutional, he said. This is because it does not provide enough time to send and allow return of absentee ballots to military overseas voters and, therefore, creates two classes of voters who are treated differently.

He also does not expect the hotline to be implemented because the Attorney General’s office does not have the manpower to screen every complaint. The State Board of Elections already has a hotline and most of the calls it receives are dismissed with only a few being substantive enough to be forwarded to the Attorney General for further investigation.

Towns County Democrats hear from AG candidate Bailey

Trial attorney and former Fulton County prosecutor Charlie Bailey was guest speaker when the Towns County Democrats gathered April 8 at Mayor’s Park in Young Harris for their monthly meeting. His brief address to the group focused on values he said Georgians share: respect, fairness, protection of civil and voting rights, affordable health care, and safety.

Charlie Bailey

Bailey noted the lack of both a civil rights division and an organized crime division in the Georgia attorney general’s office, which he said he believes should serve as the people’s lawyer and advocate for the citizens of Georgia against such practices as predatory debt collection, corporate pollution, and pharmaceutical price-fixing. With a civil rights division, the AG office could focus on unfairness in housing and rogue police departments, he said, and an organized crime division could focus on more than just gangs and instead go after the leaders of crime syndicates. Bailey said he agrees with the nation’s FBI director that domestic terrorism is the greatest threat today to public safety.

Bailey speaking in YH

In coming months, Towns County Democrats will focus on the impact of the state election bill recently signed into law by the governor, said county Chair Charlotte Sleczkowski. She noted several areas of emphasis that the voting public will need to understand prior to 2022 statewide elections, including changes in identification requirements, out-of-precinct voting, early voting hours, absentee voting, ballot drop boxes, and others. 

Towns County Democrats meet the second Thursday of each month. Time and location of the May 13 meeting will be announced. 

2021 Executive Board Elected

Towns County Democrats have elected a new executive board for 2021. They are, pictured from left, Liza Strub of Hiawassee, treasurer; Laura Anderson of Hiawassee, second vice chair; Charlotte Sleczkowski of Hiawassee, chair; and TerryLynne Marshall of Hiawassee, secretary. Not pictured is Albert Jones of Young Harris, first vice chair. Also pictured at right is Loretta Youngblood of Hiawassee who was re-elected to another term on the Towns County Board of Elections and Voter Registration.

Give To Hope (Use Your Stimulus Check to Help Others)

Published in the Towns County Herald January 6, 2021

 Dear Editor,

                Without regard to whether the stimulus check each of us will receive is $600 or $2,000, those of us who do not need the money can make a choice about how to use it and thereby correct a flaw in the program’s design.  Instead of spending the money on some frivolous thing or activity consider donating it to a local charity or food bank.

                I understand the rationale for stimulus is to encourage spending that will boost the economy.  In the early days of the pandemic that was a sound goal.  However now I find myself agreeing with Senator Pat Toomey (R-PA) who was recently interviewed about his opposition to the President’s demand for increasing the stimulus to $2,000.  Too many people who will receive checks are doing well and therefore are already able to spend on their needs and wants.  Handing them free money does not guarantee they will spend it in a way that alleviates existing weaknesses in our economy.  It is equally likely these people will save the money rather than spend it, meaning it will not directly benefit the economy at all.  Meanwhile, the checks drawn from an already overextended Treasury will drain federal resources from critical health and public safety programs.

                The stimulus checks should have been targeted to people working in depressed areas of the economy such as restaurant and hotel workers.  They are suffering during the pandemic because of reduced income from shorter hours or no income due to being laid off.  These workers are some of the lowest paid in our economy to begin with and often do not have savings to fall back on.  They nonetheless have rent to pay, heating bills due, and children to feed and clothe.

                The problem of an indiscriminate distribution of funds without regard to need or effect does not have to result in the funds wastefully going to frivolous spending or worse into savings that would have no immediate impact on people suffering in weak areas of our economy.

                The Scriptures tell us that when we meet the needs of suffering people, we are serving God.  For my household, our stimulus money will go to Hope House in Union County.  Hope House meets the needs of people faced with the crisis of eviction, loss of heat, or other financial troubles when events such as sickness, job loss, or unexpected bills conspire to overwhelm them.  It was formed when churches in Union County came together to pool and better administer resources for showing Christ’s love to the neediest members of their community.

                For those who have enough, I hope you will also consider contributing your stimulus check to one of the many organizations – your church, a local charity, or a food bank – which are meeting the needs of the disadvantaged for housing, warmth, and food this winter.

David Plunkett