Roy Exum
When the Hamilton County Commission balked at a request to help Lookout Valley paint its recreation center, each and every voter should have been embarrassed and disgusted, in which ever order you so choose. The decision had nothing to do with paint, not at all, unless we can order it in bright red to put a telling face on two certifiable bullies.
The real reason for the thick tension now hovering like some ISIS drone over our commission is because Chairman Chester Bankston allegedly double-crossed longtime Commissioner Greg Beck back in September. Everybody in the back room knew that Bankston’s ego craved the role as chairman so, in the way Sunshine laws are reduced by whispers, Bankston promised Beck he would help him become the vice chairman if Greg helped him win the cat bird seat.
In the way parliamentary procedure works, the vote for chairman was posed first and Beck, reading his script just perfect, helped Chester get his wish with a smile. But when the time the chairman pro tempore vote was readied, Chester didn’t even wiggle as he slipped his sidekick Randy Fairbanks past the bewildered Beck in full view of the American flag and a Bible.
Those in the know stampeded to the legendary “backroom” after the September meeting, thinking it ain’t been that long since Chester had a heart attack and that Greg carries a gun! Those around the campfire say a heated conversation went down. It even included some ugly language and the threat of fisticuffs. Bankston told Beck some garbage that “the Republican Party wouldn’t allow” Chester to fulfill his vow to Greg.
Beck, of course, knows Fairbanks’ wife is some sort of princess in the Republican ladies social. That’s why on the tape of this week’s commission meeting, you can hear Greg ask Chester pointedly what he needed to do to take his vote (for Bankston) back. Trust me, certain relationship are indeed strained at this time.
With Graham it is almost as bad. Nobody on the commission works harder than Joe and he’s got a fabled heart for others. And that’s why Fairbanks has a burr under his blanket. Two years ago Fairbanks upset an ailing Freddy Rees Skillern for the District 1 chair. I’m told it was a classic case of so many who thought Freddy Rees was a slam dunk they didn’t even vote. Whoops.
Freddy Rees has done, and continues to do, more for the people in the north end of the county that folks in Sale Creek wanted the new fire station to bear Skillern’s name this summer. With no love lost between Freddy Rees and Randy, Fairbacks balked and the townsfolk appealed to Mayor Jim Coppinger and ever-willing Joe Graham to help. They did and the sign reads “Skillern.” Yet courthouse voices say Fairbanks is still doing a slow-burn over Graham “meddling in my district” and that more relations are strained at this time.
Then there is this. Last year six of the nine commissioners raided the county’s rainy day fund in a way that they should have been prosecuted for stealing. They got $100,000 for each commissioner to have a discretionary fund that Mayor Coppinger should not have and did not include in the budget. Even if it was legal, everybody in the county still knows it was stealing.
Joe Graham not only gave his allocation back, but whenever “one of the slicks” on the County Commission have asked for another piece of their forbidden fruit, Graham has voted “present” rather than “yes” or “no.” Candidly, that’s because there seems to be some internal trust issues to go with the strained relationships at this time. For example, Bankston just palmed $5,318 in a somewhat repugnant back-pay deal while three others who were eligible (including Fairbanks), flatly turned it down.
Commissioner Jim Fields, however, snatched up $6,969 while Skillern, who was first advised he could not turn the money down, gave half to Soddy Daisy High and the other half to Sale Creek High.
With the stage now set but the lighting still dim in spots, that brings us to the Lookout Valley paint needs and Joe Graham’s request that he be allowed to dip into his expense money that he has personally accrued over the years. He wanted for about $2,500 of it to buy Yellow-jacket black and Lookout Valley gold.
Remember that this time just last month Bankston figured a way to convince four of the nine voters to join him on a $3,500 raid on the county’s line-of-credit for a paint-striping machine for use in his district. Sure, it added to Bankston’s lack of trust but Graham’s deal was totally pure: he was willing to use his personal money for the paint. There is no way this was a problem but with Marty Haynes’ seat vacant and both Tim Boyd and Warren Mackey absent, the six commissioners still looked at each other with gun-slinger glares. Trust me, times are tense.
Joining Graham were Sabrena Smedley, Jim Fields and Greg Beck but the two undisputable bullies – Bankston and Fairbanks – served every citizen of Hamilton County with the word “present,” just as Graham had used to defy their discretionary greed. Four votes lose, don’t you see, and it was so childish it would be funny if – in reality -- it wasn’t so horribly sad for our entire community.
These are the people we elected in good faith. Or, as Greg Beck asked on Wednesday, “What do (we) need to do to take our vote back?”
royexum@aol.com