[Mr Shearin]

I have heard that Mr. Shearin has a relative involved with water in the county or Cobb Co. Is that true?

[August 10th Runoff Vote]

Without it, rates will still be high since we have to buy water from Cobb.

 

Yard art for several more months!

PC charges us about 4 times what Cobb charges the county. That tells me their is poor management or someone's pocket is padded.

 

If JS cares anything about the county over himself he will get those ugly signs down. His opponent does not have any up. He knows he will win since the majority of the voters in PC vote a straight ticket.

 

But I have not seen anything from JS that tells me that he cares more for the county than his self.

[August 10th Runoff Vote]

Now that Shearin has won I hope he will do something about the second highest water rates in metro atlanta and these signs that make the entire county look like a county-wide dump. He could help if he would start taking down his HUGE signs on Wednesday.

[Mr Shearin]

Get ready to be assailed if you do not fully support a particular candidate for Chair, or even sound like you don't here.

 

As a totally separate issue from anything else, I agree 100% with your analysis of this campaign. WAY OVERBLOWN for such a little county, even if the population has doubled.

 

Ambassador: assuming you are not here just to post an anti JS message (and we should all have benefit of the doubt)- Hang in there and don't let major negative reactions deter you. Been there.

 

This is generally a pretty fair site, with mostly very reasonable folks. You just have to stand your ground now and then.

chrisjman:

 

Thanks for the support. It will take more than some comments to run me off. I have thick skin. I was born and raised in politics. I just returned to Paulding County from Boston where I attended my 13th Democratic National Convention. I have been at every convention since 1956 when my uncle was one of the keynote speakers. When you become used to waking up with a smelly newspaper on the stoop which was there to criticize your family you become used to jabs from people.

 

I do not have a dog in the fight for Chairman. Except to say I do belive in the old saying "Through the rascals out." Elections are about inclumbents plain and simple. If the inclubent is not doing a good job, like the current chairman, then through him out and get someone else. But I have already voted and did not vote in the runoff for Westbrooke either. So my only dog in this fight is what I think is right for Paulding County.

 

I will be around as much as time allows me. I am semi-retired but I do have have activities that keep me busy politically, but no longer as a campaign consultant. I do some work for a major profeessional political publication as a writer and consultant. So I will be here as much as possible.

 

I found out about this site when I voted early last Friday. Then tent for Paulding.com was set up in the parking lot I parked my car in.

[Mr Shearin]

While we're working hard to fill that vacuum with Paulding.com, the reality is that reaching the public here is a difficult task and is the reason for much of the direct mail, phone calling and road signage.

 

My gut is that with increased popularity of Paulding.com, we can cut back not only the cost of campaigns but ultimately have a prettier county.

.

Publisher:

 

I am a big believer in direct mail. In a race where radio and TV is not a good idea or too expensive for the candidate I highly recommend direct mail and in some cases direct mail makes more sense than radio or TV. In would not be a good idea to use radio and TV in this race for chairman. The media cost to much money in the Atlanta market for a race in Paulding. We do not have a popular radio station aimed at the county. But I would have recommended high use of cable TV in the chairman's race. Cable TV is a good bye in Paulding.

 

I also believe in the use of yard signs and I mean yard signs. I think it should be illegal and enforced to put signs in rights of way and on public land. The fine should be $100 per sign. There should be a limit on the size of sign that is not on a rented billboard. That limit should be the normal yard sign size.

 

Fayette County, a county about the same size as Paulding, does not have any better way of communicating with voters and residents. They have at least one very small daily paper but few people subscribe. The weekly paper has more readers and is really the political organ. But they use direct mail and the candidates do not raise or spend lots of money. You do not see such huge campaigns in Fayette and they have a larger turnout. But they do have a much higher literacy rate.

 

I wish you well with this bulletin board. But you will need more computer use and a higher literacy rate for a computer BBS to be a huge political influence. We are seeing this year that BBS and blogs especially are very politically influencial on national politics, especially in the Democratic Party. The Internet will become more influential in local politics in the next 5 to 7 years. But I am really destressed with the high school graduation rate and college grad rate in the entire population of this county.

 

My mother is from a rural county in Arkansas with a population of about 10,000. Over 90 percent of the people in that farm community graduated from high school. Paulding is no where near 90 percent. Just look at the 2000 census.

 

The new commission needs to work on making this county look better so people will bring more money in here. The school board needs to have a large night school program. They have that in Fayette and that county has the highest SAT scores in the state and ranks in the top 98 percentile in the nation.

[Mr Shearin]

Ambassador... why do you say:

 

 

 

Wouldn't it be appropriate to say that both Mr. Westbroke and Mr Shearin are making the place look like a dump? I think you are just here to take a jab at one of the canadatites with your first post and all.

I do not know either candidate. But Mr. Westbrooke is not the incumbent who has been charged with enacting legislation and approving zoning requests for the past four years. Mr. Shearin and his cohorts are responsible for not having laws that control these ugly signs that cause traffic problems. They have not acted to control the signs and it appears they did not so politicians could polute the county with the largest campaigns signs I have seen in metro Atlanta or any other metro area I am familiar with.

 

The rural areas have more laws controling signs that Paulding. Does a member of the commission or a member of their family own a printing plant? I do not know I am just asking? There has to be a reason they allow this junk to overtake Paulding County. They do not even enforce state laws relating to campaign signs in rights-of-way.

 

Mr. Westbrooke does not have the ability to do anything about this. He is not a member of the Commission.

[Mr Shearin]

I was wondering recently why such a small county with such a relatively small government has campaigns with HUGE budgets....  I have NEVER seen so much pre-election paraphernalia even in much bigger cities, which leads one to wonder (not for just any one candidate, mind you) where the funding comes from? what corporate or other donors, etc?

I am fairly new to this county. I moved here a year ago from Fayette County. Fayette is the wealthiest county in GA per capita. You do not see campaigns there with such budgets and such huge signs. They have regular size yard signs. It seems Chairman Shearin and his cohorts are trying to brag about how much money they have instead of spending it in a sensible way.

 

I have managed campaigns in 5 states and I have never ordered such huge signs except for billboards. I can not wait to see Mr. Shearin's final campaign finance report to the state. Mr. Shearin would have done better with all his development money to hire a professional campaign manager. A good manager would not have let him spend money like a drunk on a Saturday night.

 

Mr. Shearin is letting the developers make this county look like a large county dump. I sent pictures of all the signs for politicians and developers to friends around the country. One said,

"The printers must have the best lobby in the state in Paulding. They are making a fortune there."

 

I counted 28 signs within one block near 92 & 120. We need a sign ordinance prohibiting these signs from developers, businesses and politicians. Fayette County is also developing and they do not allow all of those signs and they houses sell there without a problem. They even get about $25,000 more for they same size house.

 

Ambassador

near Hiram