The County needs to have a comprehensive and supported plan to grow private sector jobs. Again not an easy problem to tackle, but one the citizens of Beaufort County deserve to have tackled.

Economic development requires that we understand the needs of companies and work with them to meet those needs. It requires that all the players’ work together to support the plan. Most importantly development or job growth requires a workforce capable of meeting the demand of business. Working with the School District and the Community College we can and must have a ready workforce. More about that next.

The number one Item I am working on is to grow the tax base in Beaufort County.?  What does that mean? It means to increase the taxable value of the real/personal property in the county by expanding existing businesses, growing new business and homes. The Commissioners have raised the tax rate over the last six years partially because we have not grown the tax base.
Since 2016 the County has lost $367,491,540 in taxable property and that equates to $2.5 million in tax revenue.
I want to change this direction and begin to grow the tax base. When I became a Commissioner 10 months ago I began visiting manufacturing businesses in the County. The all voiced the same message, WE CAN EXPAND OUR BUSSINESS AND EMPLOYEES IF WE COULD FIND WORKFORSE READY PEOPLE. Business and employee growth equal an increased Tax base.
So how does that work? We need to build a partnership between the Beaufort County School District, Beaufort County Community College and business to produce the students that business’s needs. We cannot continue to ignore the needs of local business. I have been and will continue, if re-elected, to advocate for that partnership. We can provide good paying jobs for the youth of this county; we can keep them in Beaufort County and we can grow the tax base.
By focusing on increasing growth, we will not have to increase the tax rate, in fact if strong enough it could actually decrease the rate. This is a longer process than just raising the rate but it’s is well worth the results.

Meeting the workforce needs of business requires we improve the School District performance. As you know the Beaufort County School District is rated just average by the State. We can do better – your children deserve better. The first step is to begin talking about the issue. We all share in this and in the responsibility to improve the performance because we all share in the results.

Once again, we cannot have Economic Development without a workforce capable of quickly adapting to the technology companies use.

A lot has improved in recent years with our First Responders’ skills and techniques. They are saving the lives of Beaufort County residents. I will work against any attempt to lower the quality of the services they provide.

All the citizens of this county deserve a high level of service.

The second thing on my platform is the protection of the quality of the service of our First Responders. This brings us to the faceoff between the and the Sheriff’s Office on October 5th. Back in March, with the Covid outbreak, the Commissioners placed a hiring freeze on all County departments including five open positions in the Sherriff’s Office. We did this because of dire revenue forecasts and to avoid layoffs if those forecasts are accurate. As most of you know, the Sheriff demanded the Board unfreeze those five positions. Unfortunately, this became strictly a political issue and not about doing what is in the best interest of the residents. Go figure, I think there is an election upcoming.
At current staffing there are only five deputies on the road at any one time covering the 850 square miles of the county with a river running down the middle. I am not interested in the power fight between Hood Richardson, the Democrats and the Sheriff. I am interested in doing the right thing for the residents of the County. Therefore, I support re-instating these deputy positions. The money is there. We have authorized the filling as many as 12 positions that have become open since the freeze, denying none. In June, the Board passed a resolution that in part said “That Beaufort County’s Commissioner’s promise the Beaufort County Sheriff the Commissioner’s full support.” How quickly we forget.
It is interesting to me that in this County I am opposed by Republican Candidates that do not support the Republican party, run attack ads and make faults statements.
I’m asking for your support because we can move this county forward.

…once and for all.

From my first day as a County Commissioner this issue has been raised by citizens, staff and other Commissioners. A lot of people have their idea of what should be done and they are all over the board. We need to start from the beginning, identify the extent of the problem and what it is costing the county. Believe it or not, they can’t tell you.

As a member of the Jail Committee I pledge to be methodical about our investigations and not jump to solutions. We need to review all costs and options. Our job will be to determine the right solution for the residents of the county. It may range from doing nothing to building a new jail, but there are a lot of options in between.  We do not need the state shutting down our jail as they did in Nash County.