Roland Martin interviewed {span}State Rep. Dexter Sharper, Valdosta City Council member Sandra Tooley and the Rev. Bruce Francis about national issues seen through a Valdosta lens.

VALDOSTA – The community gathered this week at Mathis City Auditorium for a live taping of journalist Roland Martin’s independent talk show, “Roland Martin Unfiltered,” to hear a panel of Valdosta representatives speak about local concerns.

State Rep. Dexter Sharper, District 177, Valdosta City Council member Sandra Tooley, District 2, and the Rev. Bruce Harris were invited to speak with Martin about police defunding, financial literacy, education, the state’s funding surplus and Medicaid expansion.

Martin played a snippet of Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams and Gov. Brian Kemp’s debate at the Atlanta Press Club as well as Sen. Raphael Warnock and Senate candidate Herschel Walker’s initial debate, pointing out a recurring theme of police support.

“Obviously, in the debate with Kemp and Abrams and also in the debate with Warnock and Walker, Republicans are making this ‘defund the police.’ ABC News analysis indicated earlier this month, when they showed the top 100 police departments, 83% of those police departments’ budgets had increased,” he said.

“So where the hell (is) ‘defund on police’ if it’s supposed to be so widespread? We’re seeing police departments get money. Democrats are passing these budgets. and so that seems to be the latest dog whistle to appeal to white voters.”

Tooley confirmed City Council was “nowhere near thinking about defunding the police” and has increased the city’s police budget to hire more officers, purchase better vehicles and provide extra training.

Martin pushed back on the idea that increasing the police’s budget “solves the problem.” He said that lawmakers have to focus on other factors that play into crime such as education, jobs and economics, and discussions need to be had at the local and state level to build up communities economically to deter crime.

Sharper responded that he sees a lack of financial literacy as the root of the problem.

“Back in the day in school, we had financial literacy in our schools … but they took personal finance out of schools for a while. But in Georgia, we just passed the bill to put it back into the schools where they can teach financial literacy because I don’t care if you’re a doctor, lawyer, whatever you want in your life, if you don’t understand money, you’re gonna have a problem,” he said.

Martin agreed with teaching and promoting financial literacy but families have to focus on feeding and housing their families in the present, especially as the area is going through an affordable housing crisis.

“It’s amazing how we have a significant conversation about increased funding to police but we’re decreasing funds for mental health services. We’re decreasing funding when it comes to providing economic opportunities. and then when I hear people say tax cuts, well, tax cuts don’t help if you already broke,” he said.

Harris agreed with Martin and said there needs to be a focus on why police budgets are increasing.

“We also need to consider giving more increase to the educational system. We’ve taken money from there and put it in other places, so we’re not getting the teachers that we need, our students are not getting the education that they need and the pandemic has set us back, so now we’re playing a catch up game. So we need to make sure we’re doing things to improve that,” he said.

The conversation then pivoted to early voting. According to the Secretary of State’s office, more than 128,000 Georgians went to the polls Monday, a record for the first day of early voting in the state.

Martin said while he’s impressed by the numbers, the positive conversation around voter turnout is disingenuous due to creating hurdles for Georgia voters, like the end of ballot drop-boxes to discourage mail-in voting.

Tooley said residents have been encouraged to go out and vote early to avoid potential hurdles and it shows in the numbers.

Martin directed his comments to Harris, stating that certain candidates are lying about voter fraud.

Harris said it seems “endemic from other cultures” to spread mistruths to discourage African Americans to vote.

“Here in Valdosta and Lowndes County, our Democratic Party has been working very hard to get our people out to vote. Candidates have been coming into Valdosta, realizing the importance of the Southern and the rural vote to their getting elected,” he said.

“We’ve gone from the Poll Tax, to 1964 when the Voter Right Act was passed to this point where now they’re trying to back it up but we’re going to continue to fight We’re going to continue to do the right thing because it is often said a voteless people is a hopeless people. We continue to have hope, we continue to stand and we continue to believe that our vote counts and we continue to be heard.”

The full panel and other topics on Roland Martin Unfiltered can be viewed at https://www.blackstarnetwork.com/rolandmartinunfiltered-daily-digital-show-1.