As a resident of Elbert County, I find it necessary to voice my opinion on the recall of the Elbert County Commissioners. I recently attended several meetings held by various groups to learn more about the issues. I discovered that there are a lot of strong emotions involved and in my opinion, the emotion is clouding and distorting facts upon which decisions must be based on.

For the record, I do not support the recall of our Board of County Commissioners for several reasons which I will share below.

The basis of this recall is over the approval of County Road 178. I was originally against 178 being built and personally felt that it should be built farther north. However, due to restrictions and property owners’ rights, that could not be accomplished.

A proper request was submitted for 178 which was approved by the planning board and sent to the Board of County Commissioners. It is important to note that the BOCC has to look at the bigger picture and just can’t simply say no without just cause. This protects us even though we may not like it at times and I feel like the BOCC had no choice but to approve.

Next is the cost, timing and division of a recall. It will cost the taxpayers more than $60k for a recall. That is a lot of money that could be used for repairing roads or things to improve our county like our justice center.

Timing is also an issue, let’s just say for the sake of argument that the recall is successful. By the time all is said and done, we will only be a few months away from a general election.

This recall is only going to increase the division in this county at a time when we need to be focused on things such as maintaining our rural communities and working together for smart growth, preservation of our water, etc.

Byron P. McDaniel

Elizabeth