Board of commissioners chairman candidate Tom Crow accused incumbent Hunter Bicknell of trying to settle a lawsuit involving the Upper Oconee Basin Authority that would have cost the county millions of dollars.
Crow, who currently serves District 1 on the board of commissioners, brought the issue up during a political forum June 23 in Nicholson.
“One of the things that convinced me that I needed to get in this race was last year when I began to lose confidence in the leadership of our existing chairman,” Crow said. “I have an agreement that he brought to us to sign during an executive meeting one night. In this agreement, Jackson County would drop a lawsuit against the Upper Oconee Basin Water Authority. If we dropped the lawsuit, we would be losing millions of dollars.”
Bicknell said the offer was a proposed compromise.
“This document that Mr. Crow refers to was an offer of a compromise,” he said. “It in no way would have done away with the lawsuit. It would have suspended it for a period of time based on whether we would be able to negotiate. In the absence of that successful negotiation, the lawsuit would have continued.”
EMS Service
Crow also accused Bicknell of taking 3,000 county residents out of the EMS service area.
“I’ve made comments about 3,000 Jackson County citizens who have been taken out of the primary service area of the ambulance station,” Crow said. “I’ve got the map. You can look at it. This may be you. It may be relatives. It may be friends. This map will help you put a face on the area that I’ve been talking about that has been transferred to Barrow County.”
Bicknell responded: “As to his reference to an EMS station and 3,000 people not being served, that is erroneous. It is an arbitrary circle of three miles drawn around EMS stations. You are going to have to look at future developments and what you think the long-term prospects will be for serving the citizens of the county. You also have to look at roads, where entrances to the interstate are and how you are going to serve those areas also. A circle or a radius of that area is not the solution.”
Questions
Questions to the candidates dealt with teamwork of the current commission board, as well as how the county handles the bidding response.
As to the teamwork question, Crow responded: “This has improved greatly with the new county manager. One of the qualities I have found in the new manager is he counts five commissioners. Our previous county manager counted three commissioners and stopped. Unfortunately, commissioner (Dwain) Smith and myself were not always informed.”
Bicknell responded to the question on the county bidding process as follows: “I don’t think we need to change our bid process. There is a lot of misunderstanding as to how the county is handling it. Some of that is a result of a proposal that was sent out recently. Our staff handled the request for proposals in a way that would indicate it was a request for sealed bids. That confusion has been addressed and we have instructed our staff to handle it better in the future.”
