Howard Sanders defeated incumbent Phil Sanders by seven votes to win the District 1 seat in the runoff last week. (Photo/Wade Cheek)
Howard Sanders won the District 1 runoff for the Oglethorpe County Commission last week. The 63-year-old poultry farmer and former county coroner has lived in Oglethorpe County most of his life and now resides in the Salem community. He’s married with four children and 10 grandchildren. Sanders spoke with The Oglethorpe Echo about his new position and what he views as the biggest issues facing the county.
Comments edited for length and clarity.
Q: Why did you run this year as opposed to previous years?
A: Well, I actually was asked to run. My cousin John Bridges was the commissioner in our district for a while, and he was moving out and stepping down. He called me and asked me if I would be interested in running and at that time, I was heavily involved with the volunteer fire department in our community and also with an ambulance service in the county, and just really weren't interested at that time. So he asked my third cousin Phil, and Phil ran and he won. This time, I've had several people call me on the phone. A couple people stopped by the house and asked me if I would consider running. This all started back in February of this year, and I was like, you know I've only got two more years as county coroner and I had planned on at the end of this coroners term retiring because I'm 63 now. And then I was planning on retiring, and at 65 start drawing my retirement. I talked with my wife about it, and then I prayed about it and thought about it for a long, long time and just decided maybe I'll give it a shot. We'll see.
Q: What do you think the biggest issues facing the county are?
A: The property taxes. I know most people are concerned about the assessment that they got, but we have to realize that it’s just an assessment. That’s nothing written in stone yet. Property values have gone up. I know of several people that bought homes in the county, say 5-10 years ago, and they have recently sold them for more than double what they originally paid. If I was selling my house and one or two houses right around me sold that were of comparable value, they're going to base what my asking price is of what those homes sell for. When property values go up, property assessments are going to go up. I do think that we need to try to come up with ways to curve the tax burden on the taxpayers, but if there's no income for business to help take some of that burden, then there are expenses of the county that have to be paid. I pay a lot of property taxes and mine went way up this year. Am I happy about it? No, I'm not. But the money that has to come from somewhere. And I'm not saying that I'm gonna get in there and I'm gonna lower your property taxes. I'm not. I will look at all issues from as many viewpoints as possible and then try to make the best decision. The farmers in Oglethorpe County tote a huge portion of the tax burden because they own a lot of land. We need to seek avenues to try to bring more business into the county, but we also need to keep the county rural. So, it's a give and take situation.
Q: What is your philosophy on growth in Oglethorpe County?
A: I want Oglethorpe County to stay rural. People move here because it is rural. It is a country setting and life is a lot slower paced than it is in Athens-Clarke County. I like Country life. I like sitting out on my front porch and not seeing 1,000 vehicles go up and down the road in a day’s time. But, money has to come from somewhere. We need to seek all avenues.
Q: What are your plans to bring broadband to the county?
A: Again, I'm not in the commissioner’s office yet, so I don’t know much about the topic. We need to study that. Where I live, I have Windstream, and it is horrible. I have to get up early in the morning around 5 a.m. just so that I have the internet. The internet in this county is horrible. But there again, we are a rural county. The cell phone service in a lot of these areas is also terrible. We need better service. We have to look into it.
Q: What are your thoughts on the sludge issue in the county?
A: I am 110% against sludge being brought into any part of this county. It was sprayed on property that adjoins my property around four to five years ago. For three days, we could not stomach going outside. I saw them putting it out and it is black as coal. It is nasty and I don’t see the benefit. I don’t care if they are paying $10,000 a load to dump it. It will never be put on any piece of property of mine. My understanding of sludge is that the issue is more of a state environmental issue. I don’t know as of yet what the county can do to stop it. But we need to maybe lobby the state to stop it. Some people are going to say “well they have to put it somewhere.” Don’t put it here, we do not want it. There’s not a citizen in Oglethorpe County that I think wants it here. I know there are some people that are putting it on their land, but I don’t think that it’s good for the soil, for our water table and it’s not good for breathing.