Date: Wed, 29 May 2013 23:09:26 -0400
From: chathammatters
Subject: Responding to Meg Miller and Virginia Penley
Responding to Meg Miller and Virginia Penley
You will be relieved to learn that none of the conservative commissioners met behind closed doors to request the bill asking for a special election be pulled. Commissioner Bock wrote an email to Deb McManus and the legislative committee chair expressing his personal opinion about funding a special election after circumstances changed. He cc’d the other county commissioners, board of education members, and others. Commissioner Petty followed up with his own email expressing a similar view. Commissioner Stewart has not expressed an opinion one way or the other, nor did she discuss this with any other Commissioner.
You have said there was a third commissioner who expressed this view to Deb McManus, since it wasn’t Commissioner Stewart, it must have been one of the two Democrats… please tell us which one it was? Or were you merely repeating someone else’s fabrication, or telling your own?
Perhaps you should get your facts straight before making accusations.
The third commissioner was Pam Stewart. She did not contact me; she attempted to contact, and left a message for, the Finance Committee Chair, Rep. Julia Howard. Rep. Howard named the three commissioners that had contacted her right before my bill was pulled. Rep. Howard said “your commissioners don’t support this bill and they don’t want to pay for this election so I can’t let this go forward.” When I argued that their Board had passed a resolution in support of the election, had not discussed this in a public meeting since, and I had only heard from two commissioners who had changed their minds, she said she had heard from three and named them.
Each identified himself or herself as a Chatham County Commissioner. When Commissioner Petty told me that he had the right to speak as a private citizen, I asked if he identified himself as Board Chair when he contacted the committee chair. He conceded that he had.
While I have no idea how either of the referenced ladies knew about this, those are the facts.