District 4 hopefuls talk controversial issues, transparency

Harvey
Williams

The Putnam County Commission candidates for District 4 closed out the second political forum of the season Monday night telling residents how they would help to improve Putnam if elected.

Incumbent Commissioner Larry Harvey answered questions alongside opponent Tom Williams, who is chairman of the county’s Republican Executive Committee.

Moderator Ron Brown, an attorney with St. Johns River State College, asked the candidates multiple questions.

Q: When did you choose to become a member of the political party you’ve chosen, and what made you choose that party?

Williams: “When I turned 18 years of age, I went and signed up as a Republican I’ve never changed, never wavered from it. My conservative values and my faith coincides with the way they believe. And that’s why I did it. I just never changed. I never wavered from being a Republican or conservative.”

Harvey: “Back when I got out of school and registered to vote, you had to be a Democrat here, a southern Democrat, in order to really be a part of anything … And we’re not going to cut down at 8,500 people who have switched their party from the Democrat to Republican. Those people made a choice because a lot of times the party left them; they didn’t leave the party. So, to answer your question, back in 2012, I felt very led to run for Supervisor of Elections against my friend, Mr. (Charles) Overturf. He’s a dear friend of mine. I was running as a no-party affiliate for that spot. And as soon as that race was over with and I was unsuccessful, I changed the Republican Party because my values were there. And most of us in this room, and throughout the viewing audience, their values were there, too. So this county has seemed to shift because of what I would say as the party left us. We didn’t leave the party.”

Q: What would you say are the three most prominent values of your party?

Harvey: “I think when you look at the values of Republican Party, we invite people in where you have a voice there. You’re not subservient to others. You’re not beat down. We respect the ideological differences. But we also we love our freedom. We love the freedoms that we have. And we encourage that. So when you look at the Republican Party, today’s Republican Party, you look at the freedom, you look at the advancement of people, you look at that everybody’s invited to the table. And I believe that’s what… drew me to it. Plus, the decline of the morals of the other party on a national basis, just turned me off, and it turned a lot of people off. And you couldn’t relate to that party. So I can relate to the Republican Party, because I do feel like I have a voice now.”

Williams: “I think the Christian values, that they have the moral values.They believe in life, not death, for our babies. Basically, that, I think that’s it, you know. They have strong Christian values, they have strong moral values, family values, and they believe in life, liberty.”

Q: The Republican Executive Committee is expected to vote on whether to endorse candidates in the primary. How do you feel the committee should vote, and please explain why you feel this way.

Harvey: “I don’t think the committee should vote at all. I think they should stay out like they have in the past. And let the primary take care of the primary. That’s why we have a primary. I made that very clear in a letter back in March when I was getting on a bus to go to a Kat Cammack and Jim Norton rally and was told, this is why we’re doing it … ‘so we can kick you incumbents out.’ And that’s what I was told. That’s not fair. … We’re not gonna let 17 people, of this Republican Executive Committee, dictate what the party is going to do, and what the public is going to do. That’s not fair. And believe me, what happened last week or two weeks ago was a travesty in this county, and it should never happen again. That’s why we have primaries.”

Williams: “Well, Mr. Harvey is a little bit incorrect on that decision. First of all, I am the chairman of the REC. I did not make that decision. I only run the REC. … The REC’s job is to educate the public, educate the public so they can vote. … The public out there has no idea, sometimes on whose values and whose policies that they want to follow. It is the REC’s responsibility to let the public, the citizens of the particular counties know what’s going on and know who they think should be running. It’s no different than being endorsed by the newspaper, if they were going to do it, or being endorsed by the (Northeast Florida Association of Realtors), which did endorse some two people today. … It is the job of the REC to educate the public, whether someone gets a little bit upset about it or thinks it’s not going the right way. I walked into that (Northeast Florida Association of Realtors) conference the other day knowing exactly who was going to be picked. I didn’t go there and act like a two-year-old child, which is what’s happening right now. So it’s our job as REC to educate the public. And that’s what we’re doing. No one even said they were going to endorse anybody. There’s a possibility someone may be endorsed. … They’re acting like (a) two-year-old, or second graders, which is what was said in the paper. It’s a joke.”

Q: Do you feel the county could do more to keep the public appraised of consequential issues and, if so, what specific actions should the county take?

Williams: “Not being a member of the county commission right now, I don’t know. … I can tell you the perception. … The perception is the citizens aren’t taken care of. And they feel like they’re neglected, especially out in our district. As far as transparency, … have a web page, we can put everything out there. We need to have the people’s participation at the beginning of the meeting, not at the end of the meeting where everybody gets upset and goes home, instead. We need to listen to them. … There’s a transparency problem. And we need to, we definitely need to address the transparency, I will listen to you and I will respond to you.”

Harvey: “Well, we live in a communications world. How many of us really communicate by text, email, phone calls, Facebook, YouTube? It’s hard to get the message out because we don’t know how you’re going to receive it. We put it out there in all kinds of formats. You can watch it anytime you want, you can participate anytime you want. And we did increase public awareness and public participation. But what had happened is we had a lot of people who have come in and tried to hijack the meeting … all we did was say, if you’ve got a public comment on agenda items, come on in. But it was so rude of us to sit there and allow those people, you, who had stuff waiting for us to deal with being hijacked for hours until the end. So now we move that to the end. And yes, I’m proud of that. But we gave people to opportunity. And not only that, we as a chairman, when I was chairman and our current chairman, we still stopped the meeting, we take many public comments, you can watch it online. So my point is very simply this we got to find the avenue that you want your information giving to you, whatever that means, and however you want it, we’re there for you. Some people wanted the paper; some people want to email; some people want to watch it; whatever we can do to make that happen. That’s what we need to be about doing. And that’s what we’re currently doing. And I’m excited about the new format. But again, you can lead a horse to water. You can’t make him drink. If they don’t want to participate. They’re not going to participate. … But right now, transparency, what we’re doing, is working. And we just got to find the avenue for what you want to receive that information as, and not how we (want) because sometimes we believe our own press releases, like we’re doing a good job. But if you’re not receiving that information, it’s not very good. And my pastor says, ‘I know what I said. I just don’t know what you heard.’”

Q: The creation and continuing addition of high-paying, non-governmental jobs and housing is vital to this county. In your capacity as an elected official, what would you personally do to help improve this effort?

Harvey: “You know, we just recently dedicated the Mill Road if you will, again, and I remember Commissioner Pickens saying back in the (1940s), when the Economic Development Council gave Hudson Pulp and Paper $30,000 for land, and 255 jobs came to Putnam County, that was a big deal. That’s still a big deal today. And we need to be going out there promoting Putnam County, like I do to everybody, asking them to look at Putnam County. When I see is our port, I think that’s going to,I know that’s going to, be a fabulous addition to Putnam County, and the way that we can do business here in the county, and we can encourage that port, and really strive for a better situation. … But I’m gonna be honest with you, I like our rural nature. And I don’t want to see that go away. Government has no responsibility, in my opinion, in housing. We have a very little part to play. … I’m not going to go out there and spend taxpayer money to build housing. That is a capitalist society, we should let the capitalists do that. And it should not be fall back on government to take your tax dollars and build somebody else’s house because they didn’t do that for me. They didn’t do that for you. We worked our way, we bought a little place and we worked and worked. And we sold that little place and bought a bigger place. That’s what happens in our world today. And we needed to get back to that… And some of our employers are actually right now thinking about building homes for their employees when they bring their businesses to Putnam county.”

Williams: “Well, first of all, I think we need to get our infrastructure together. We really have nothing to offer these people that they come in here. If you were trying to build a restaurant right now, with the septic system that you have to put in will cost you 20, 30 $40,000 just for that .We need to get the infrastructure first to have something to say, ‘here, this is what we have to offer you if you bring your business in here.’ And along with that … I’m all for giving tax breaks for certain companies. … When you bring tax breaks into a company and they hire enough people, it all comes back on the other side. You get people in here … they will get the homes built. Our problem is we have no interest or we don’t have anything to offer them, to bring, to entice them, I should say, … so we need to get our infrastructure done. We have a water treatment plant that has about 1/3 of the capacity of use. The county pays for that. ... So you know, infrastructure is first. We have to have some to entice you to come here … We need to have something here. We need to do our infrastructure. And we need to entice them. We need to have vocational training for once they get here. We don’t even have the workforce. I’m 70 years old. I have never in my life seen so many help-wanted signs out there. We have no workforce anymore. … We taught everybody to go to college and get a degree. We gave them degrees in what they can’t really get a job in. We got to go back to vocation. We need something. Again, we got to entice these people. … We have a chamber of commerce … hopefully, we can work with them and they’ll work diligently to look for stuff to come in.”

Q: At times, the county board may be faced with a controversial decision. A prime example of this is the decision on whether to move the Confederate monument that stands at the entrance to the county courthouse. If elected, and a similarly controversial issue comes before you, what are the steps you would take to make sure your vote reflected what is best for this community?

Williams: “I think that comes with listening to the people. I would get out there before the vote and talk to the people, both sides, get their stories, find out what they really would like to do. And, you know, obviously, this side is gonna want to do this, this side’s going to want to do this. I think what’s best for the county is you have to respond to the people, you’ve got to listen and respond. … As a law enforcement officer, I made split-second decisions that altered a lot of people’s lives at times. I don’t regret any of them. I’ve researched them, the way they need to be (done). I use my common sense, I use my values. And I’ll make the decision that I think is best for everybody after I spoke to them, after I listened to them.”

Harvey: “You know, every meeting we go to we have some kind of controversy that happens. And that’s just the nature of this business. But you do, you try to get out there and you try to listen to the community. … And believe me, getting out listening, forming committees, in some cases, where the citizens can actually come to a member of their peers and talk to them. … I think we did as good a job as we could on a no-win situation. But I don’t shy away from it. I look forward to those controversial things all the time. Because with controversy, we have an opportunity to win. We can take people on a journey to success. And I really believe that, because it’s not just, it’s not just my way, or I’m gonna I’m gonna stop it right now before the conversation starts. Because we do want to hear from 73,321 employers of mine, who pay about 68 cents of my salary per year. And I want to hear what they have to say. And they can contact me by phone and believe me they do…. But I truly will say, getting out there listening to the people like we do, or I do, is very important for any controversial decision that might come up.”

Q: What is your level of confidence in the county administration? And why do you feel this way?

Harvey: “We have really changed the culture down there at the county level. And we have hired the right people and … not say anything about people in the past but it’s time, it was time, for a change. And we made that change. And we hired forward-thinking people, younger people who came on board. We rearranged the whole structure level down there. … I have full confidence and full faith that we have the right people on the right bus and the right seats at the right time of this county’s career.”

Williams: “ I don’t really know a lot about the staff, unfortunately, because I’m not in here. It’s pretty unfortunate, I guess, that within the last year, a year and a half, 113 people have lost a job with Putnam County or resigned from Putnam County. So I don’t know if it starts at the top or the bottom. I’m not familiar. … But when you’re losing in 113 people, something’s not right. If it’s money, that’s one thing, if it’s management or something else. So, that’s a tough answer for me to give you right now, until I sit in this seat. And then I’ll find out if there are problems or if they need to be changed. I don’t know but 113 people’s a lot of people.”

Q: As an elected official on a five-member board, you are a single vote. How do you plan to persuade and help draw a consensus?

Williams: “I’ve been in business and I’ve dealt with people over 45 years of my entire life. I have a fantastic ability to deal with people. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have a successful business. It’s going to depend on what it is and what you need to come to. … But again, I’ll go back to that survey that was published out, when you have 75% of the people that think something’s not right in the county, and it’s not going to get any better and you go back and look at the votes and it’s three to two, three to two, three to two, three to two, something’s got to change. The county needs someone to go in there and really look at the issues and follow through on them. I didn’t make this. I didn’t do the survey, I just read the survey. So, you know, perception … is reality with a lot of people. And right now they feel left out. The survey shows that they feel like the county is not going anywhere in the next five years. … And I’ve talked to the citizens, and I’m responding with them, I don’t think I have a better problem convincing the other (commissioners) that we need to do this for you, the people of the county.”

Harvey: “You have to know where people are at. Not everybody’s at the same spot you’re at in life at that moment when the decision’s made. … I’ll give you a case in point. I wanted to get a school crossing over on County Road 315 from the middle school to the library. Simple fix, right? But it was $38,000 for the official school crossing with all the lights and the bells and whistles that need to take place. And I couldn’t get the other commissioners to go along. (It) wasn’t their fault. They just said it was a lot of money for this one little area. So what we did is one day I was thinking, ‘Lord, how can I get this thing done?’ And we called it a pedestrian crossing. Pedestrian crossings cost $3,500. You know what the teachers come out, they stopped the traffic, the kids walk across the school, okay? That’s how you get things done. You don’t fall on the sword and go ‘my way or the highway.’ That’s ridiculous in this business. And if you’re gonna do that you’re not to be in this business because I’ve seen a lot of good ideas come in the last few years, and people fall on the sword. And it’s a sad state of affairs when you can’t have a conversation about how can we make this workable. If you just want to fall on the sword and (say) ‘my way or the highway, I’m the smartest one,’ I’m sorry that that doesn’t work for me. … I learned every day from every one of you out there. I learned something about this world. I learned something. I learned how to get along.