Editor’s note: The following is a letter to the editor sent to The Community Journal by Walker County Sheriff Nick Smith. Letters to the editor can be sent to The Community Journal via private message on its Facebook page or by email at [email protected].
The upcoming elections are important ones. The decisions the people of this county will make regarding who leads it will affect departments and communities all across the county.
I have my choices for the positions that are on the ballot, and this letter isn’t to try and sway anybody to support any candidate. It’s just a little food for thought for the citizens that will be voting.
My questions mainly lie with the chairman’s race. We’ve got one candidate saying that they brought us back from the brink of bankruptcy, everything is fine, and the county is on good financial footing. We have two candidates saying that we’re on the precipice of collapse, especially regarding garbage pickup and rates. Either way, somebody is wrong.
I consider myself a little more informed than the average voter. Considering it’s my job to keep up with these kinds of things, I’m pretty well versed on the status of the county. So if I’m informed, let me just state the things that I know for a fact. I know that my deputies make so little money that they qualify for food stamps. If the county is doing so well and we have so much extra money, why is that still the case?
I know that when the current commission chairman took office in 2020 that there was $4.5 million dollars in reserve CDs, so if there’s $5 million there now, he only added $500,000 to the county reserves.
I know that the landfill will close in 2025, and when it does, the county will have to come up with extra money to have our garbage hauled to another county. I know that when it does close, all county employees will lose the Christmas bonus they buy gifts for their families with and I know the only way to come up with the extra money for that garbage haul off is to either lay off employees or increase rates.
With all of that being said, I know that one of the candidates for commission chairman is right, and I know one is wrong. Which one you believe is up to you.
These are all facts that I know are issues in this election, but let me tell you something about this election that scares the heck out of me. I’m scared that once we get to the point in 2025 when that landfill closes and we find out which one was right and which one was wrong, it will be too late and the employees and citizens of this county will be left to foot the bill.
- – Sheriff Nick Smith
