Chairman Smith Under Attack (Unwarrented)

I am not going to call any names here, but someone has taken a direct attack upon Chairman of the Board of Commissioners Tommy Smith claiming it is his fault that unemployment is 8.1% and that he hasn’t brought in the jobs.  Let’s look back to when Chairman Smith took office.  When he was sworn into office in January 2013, unemployment at that time was 9.1% which means that the unemployment rate has dropped 1% during that time period.

One year ago at this time, there were 9,556 people unemployed in Henry County.  Today, there are 8,503 people unemployed.  That means 1,053 people have found work since this time last year.  This is due to expansion of work in existing jobs at warehouses, new restaurants, and stores opening.  It’s not rocket science believe me.  It’s just common sense and knowing how to look at the statistics.

The citizens must remember that the chairman is not the only commissioner sitting on that board.  There are five others who must make decisions.  We all see how each votes and how they work either to not be in favor of something the chairman wants or not.  Just recently he wanted to keep our in house attorney as with any county that has grown to this size we don’t need to out source that position.  That can make for manipulation of those involved.  It was a 5-1 vote with the chairman casting the no vote.

Most of the problem lies with the Henry County Development Authority.  The problem is that they have not sought to bring in the better jobs that everyone would like to see come to our county.  But until some new faces are seen on that Authority, then the status quo of up and down unemployment will continue.  Also, another factor involved here is that we are still fighting hard times in not only Henry County, but Georgia and the United States as a whole.  Sure, some areas are doing fine, but not all areas.

Maybe in the future when someone writes a derogatory blog about someone, they will get the facts together first and then open their mouth.  Never walk into a loaded room with a butter knife because it will get mighty ugly in that fight and the loser is usually the one with leaving their cards at home.

Politics is an ugly thing.  When you enter that field of attacking a political figure, you must understand, they have friends and were elected by a sizeable amount of folks.  Never under estimate a man just because he has a different way of working.  They will fool you.

The Staff of the Henry County Community News