By Dean Poling

The Valdosta Daily Times

VALDOSTA — Efforts to increase the size of the Lowndes County Board of Commissioners are nothing new.

A committee researched increasing the number of commissioners in 1980.

A dozen years ago the matter came to a referendum, but residents voted against the increase.

Two years ago commissioners agreed the commission needed more representatives, but they could not unanimously agree on how to increase their numbers.

The referendum vote in November will either mark the next step in increasing the number of commissioners, or it will be the latest chapter in failed efforts of expansion.



Take Five

In 1980, John H. “Jack” May, the late Valdosta accountant, was part of a local committee researching the possibility of increasing the number of Lowndes County commissioners from three to five.

“I contacted 11 counties in Georgia that had five or more commissioners,” according to an Oct. 17, 1980, letter to the Valdosta-Lowndes County Chamber of Commerce’s governmental affairs committee. “Many that were contacted had enlarged from three or five members to the present number.”

Based on all of the contacts and research he and his committee conducted, May advised, in 1980, “five commissioners seem to be the preferable number.”

If approved by vote and the Department of Justice, an increased Lowndes County Board of Commissioners today will have five voting commissioners and a non-voting chairman.

When Jack may wrote his recommendation, the commission had only three commissioners. In the mid 1980s, during a statewide move to governmental districts, Lowndes County opted to switch from three commissioners to the current system of a four-member commission with three district commissioners and a non-voting chairman. May meant five commissioners total.

Also, at the time of May’s recommendation, Lowndes County had a population of 67,972 people, according to 1980 census data.

Today, Lowndes County’s population is nearing 100,000. At three districts, this averages more than 30,000 constituents per current Lowndes County commissioner.

This district average is, in most cases, double the number of neighboring counties’ entire populations, meaning one Lowndes commissioner represents twice as many people represented by entire commissions in nearby South Georgia counties.

With Valdosta State University offering more programs, Moody Air Force Base’s changing mission, the economic engines of the region’s location, industry, and tourism, Lowndes County’s population will continue to grow and this growth will put more demands on local representation.



Then there were three

Prior to the 1980s, Lowndes County’s three commissioners were elected countywide, meaning each commissioner didn’t represent a proportioned district but all of Lowndes County.

If there was a problem in Hahira, for example, it got the attention of all three county commissioners, because each one represented Hahira as much as he did Lake Park, Valdosta or the Troupville community.

In the era of the three-commissioner board, the three candidates receiving the most votes became the commissioners. Chairman was determined by the candidate receiving the most votes.

In the mid-1980s, Georgia cities, counties and school systems made the transition to districts, essentially to better represent minority populations. In the midst of court challenges across the state, many counties adopted a four-district system with a fifth commissioner as chairman. Lowndes County, however, had several camps supporting different options.

A state legislator was quoted in The Valdosta Daily Times as opposing any dramatic increase in the Lowndes County Commission’s size. There was still the 1980 recommendation of Jack May for five commissioners, as well as the examples of many neighboring counties adopting five-member commissions. There was a call to split Lowndes into six districts, or three districts with two commissioners each, and a chairman.

In a 1984 federal court settlement, Lowndes compromised on the current system of three district commissioners and a non-voting chairman. At the time, it seemed a progressive step.

It gave Lowndes County a predominantly minority district, which elected a black candidate as the newest member of the commission in 1984. A January 1985 article in The Valdosta Daily Times noted that Lowndes County made a smooth transition and would be one of the first South Georgia counties to successfully integrate the district-voting system.

Lowndes County continued growing and, within a dozen years, would re-visit the issue of expanding the number of commissioners.



Lucky Seven?

In 1997, the General Assembly permitted Lowndes County a referendum vote to increase the four-commission system to seven commissioners — six districts and one chairman.

Proponents of this concept suggested Lowndes County could opt to keep its three districts with a seven-member commission. Each district would have two representing commissioners. Under this proposal, the commission could double its size but wouldn’t have to tinker with redistricting the county. Adhering to the current districts would likely minimize the role of the federal Justice Department which must review and approve all districting changes.

Two commissioners representing each district, however, could create new problems for the county rather than solutions, according to opposing sources. Two commissioners per district could create a “mommy-daddy” situation where one district commissioner tells a district constituent no, so the constituent goes to the other district commissioner and gets a yes, the way a child will sometimes play one parent against the other.

In 1997, seven was too much.

Voters defeated the referendum to increase the Lowndes County Board of Commissioners with 4,296 votes to 2,246, according to numbers in the Sept. 17, 1997, issue of The Valdosta Daily Times.



One more time

If a referendum failed then, some may wonder why it would be successful now

For starters, increasing the size of the Lowndes County Board of Commissioners was not the controversial issue that year. The expansion referendum shared the ballot with a special purpose local option sales tax. Renewing or rejecting SPLOST was the key issue in that 1997 election.

Most of The Valdosta Daily Times’ coverage was devoted to SPLOST with brief or little mention of the referendum to expand the county commission. Opposition to SPLOST was vocal and well organized that year and The Valdosta Daily Times’ editorial board then was devoted to seeing SPLOST renewed rather than the newspaper’s recent editorial objectives of seeing the county commission increased. Ironically, in 1997, SPLOST passed by a two-to-one margin while the expansion bid failed two to one.

Also, a community’s priorities and attitudes can change. For example, in the 1990s, voters rejected a referendum to allow Sunday sales of alcoholic beverages in restaurants. A few years ago, Valdosta and Lowndes County voters approved the sell of alcohol by the drink.

This time, too, expanding the commission has been discussed for the past few years. Lowndes County commissioners failed to reach a unanimous plan for increasing the commission two years ago. The area’s legislative delegation refused to take the commission proposal to the state General Assembly if the county could not present a united front.

Early this year, with a change in the Lowndes County Board of Commissioners’ membership, commissioners revisited the proposal and came to the current proposal on the ballot.



• Expansion Referendum



Notice is hereby given that, in accordance with Official Code of Georgia Annotated Section 21-2-640, a special election shall be held in Lowndes County for the purpose of submitting to the voters the following question for approval or rejection:



Vote Yes or No



“Shall the governing authority of Lowndes County be changed to a six-member board of commissioners to be composed of a nonvoting chairperson and five voting district commissioners, three of whom shall represent the existing three districts created by dividing Lowndes County into three districts and two of whom shall represent additional districts to be created by dividing Lowndes County into two districts which overlay the three existing districts?”



Source: Lowndes County

Board of Elections