PART II: Sinyard has been linchpin of local politics

ALBANY — Monday morning at 10, Jeff Sinyard will rap the gavel a couple of times on the dias that surrounds his Dougherty County Commission seat. He’ll say a prayer, lead the commission one last time through its agenda items and most likely choke up as he brings the county meeting to a close.

Afterward, friends and long-time cohorts will gather to give Sinyard and fellow commission stalwart Jack Stone a victory lap of sorts, sharing memories and well-wishes, and then everyone will go about their business.

And an era will end.

Sinyard, who spent three years as a member of the Dougherty Commission, served on and chaired the Albany-Dougherty Economic Development Commission for more than a decade, and then spent the last 12 years as chairman of the County Commission, will, for all intents and purposes, end his tenure as Albany-Dougherty County’s most influential local politician Monday. Certainly he’ll continue to work behind the scenes to try and make the community he loves so passionately the best it can be. But his time in the public eye, for now, will end Monday morning around 10:30.

He’s made it clear that he wants to spend more of his time focusing on two of the things he’s had to push to the backburner often over the past 30 years, his family and his business.

But there’s something else, something Sinyard is hesitant to admit.

“I don’t know if I really want to say this, but there are times now when I get a little tired,” the man lovingly known by his childhood nickname, “Bodine,” said as he discussed his pending departure from the commission. “The citizens of Dougherty County deserve a commission chairman who has all the energy in the world. There should never be a time they’re not getting 100 percent.”

That’s something admirers from Albany to Atlanta to Washington say Sinyard has always given.

“I don’t know if people realize how critical it is for a community to have someone like Bodine who knows the right people to call,” Georgia Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle said. “He has always been, in my opinion, one of the greatest ambassadors Dougherty County has ever had. When he makes a call for help, he knows the people he’s calling on a first-name basis.”

Secretary of State Brian Kemp agrees.

“Jeff’s just a straight shooter who has a lot of friends on both sides of the aisle (at the state capitol),” Kemp said. “Everyone he’s in contact with knows that he’s doing what he does for the benefit of Dougherty County and Southwest Georgia. It’s so important to have local leaders like Bodine who can pick up the phone and make those important calls on behalf of his community.

“Southwest Georgia and Albany are fortunate that he’s been that voice.”

Sinyard swears he had no designs on a political career when he and wife Lillie, who taught school for 29 years, started chasing the “American dream” of career and family. But when a group of influential businessmen in the community approached him in 1985 about a possible run for a seat on the Dougherty County Commission, he was intrigued. Eventually, he decided to give politics a try.

“Mr. Robert Cross, who represented the diverse District 5 — which at that time ran from Doublegate to Putney through parts of south Albany — had passed away, and a special election was called for his seat,” Sinyard remembers. “When I was fortunate enough to win the election and join the commission, I had no idea how much I didn’t know.”

Then-Commission Chairman Gil Barrett appointed Sinyard to chair the commission’s Finance Committee, a rarity for a first-time commissioner, and Sinyard got a mega-education on the budget process.

“Alan Reddish was county administrator then, and he spent countless hours teaching me about the budget,” Sinyard said. “He went from budget to budget, line to line, showing me how the process worked. I’ve always appreciated that chairman Barrett allowed me the opportunity to spend time I needed with staff to get a clearer understanding of the most important part of the county government.”

Sinyard also learned a great deal from some of his fellow commissioners on that board: George Brown, a man Sinyard called “one of the finest I ever served with,” Connie Meier and a newcomer, Jack Stone, who would become a close friend. Ironically, Stone, too, will take part in his final commission meeting Monday after a 28-year career on the board.

“I’ve had the opportunity to serve with a lot of very good commissioners over the years, but no one has ever loved Dougherty County more than Bodine Sinyard,” Stone said. “People don’t know what all he’s sacrificed over the years, and I guarantee you the county is going to miss him when he’s gone.”

Sinyard left politics for 14 years after his first term on the County Commission ended in 1988, told by management of his employer, First State Bank, that the position would conflict with his duties at the institution. But he did keep his hand in the community’s goings-on as first a member and later chairman of the Albany-Dougherty Economic Development Commission.

In January of 2002, another group of concerned citizens started talking to Sinyard — who had left the banking industry in 1994 after purchasing the local Adams Exterminators business from J.D. Adams — about a run for the commission chairmanship. Sinyard initially rebuffed their entreaties, noting, “We have a wonderful commission chairman — Mr. Lamar Reese — who is doing a great job.”

But Reese himself came calling.

“Mr. Reese came to me and made quite a presentation,” Sinyard said. “He talked with me at length about replacing him as chairman. I thought about it for a month or so after that, and at the end of the day I just felt it was my duty to offer myself up for service. It was up to the citizens of this community to decide if they wanted me to serve.”

Sinyard announced his candidacy and engaged in what he said would ultimately be a “brutal campaign.” He refuses even 12 years later to talk on the record about some of the horrors that marred his victorious run against James Bush.

“Let me just say this: I’m not going to talk bad about anybody, and I can’t talk in detail about that campaign without talking about some bad things,” Sinyard said. “Just understand that I was surprised and amazed by some of the stuff I saw and heard.”

Sinyard, his family and “supporters from every sector” of Albany “walked down every street in the county” to get his message out. Still, on the night of the election, as returns trickled in, word filtered out that he apparently would lose the closely contested race.

“I walked down the block with Lillie, and she told me, ‘It’s gonna be all right,’” Sinyard said. “Then I just sat down on one of the benches downtown to get my thoughts together for when I would address the media. While I was sitting there thinking, (former Dougherty District Attorney) Ken Hodges came running up and said, ‘The absentee ballots are in! You won by 49 votes!’

“I was stunned. In 30 minutes, I’d gone from ‘Wow, this is it,’ to “Gosh, is this really happening?’ It was such a rollercoaster ride.”

After a subsequent recount of the election ballots, Sinyard’s victory total was reduced to 47 votes. But he moved into the chairman’s seat in 2003 and remained there through two re-election campaigns before announcing he would end his run at the end of this year.

“One thing I had working in my favor is that in my 13 years with the EDC, I’d worked extensively with the mayor, the commission chairman, the city and county commissions, and others in the community,” Sinyard said. “I also had met a lot of the people on the state level, so I was prepared for the office.”

While serving as commission chair, Sinyard has stood as the local linchpin at the center of any number of events that have impacted the community greatly. Those like the Base Realignment and Closure hearings that left the county on the verge of losing the Marine Corps Logistics Base that brings billions of dollars and thousands of jobs to the community, the unsuccessful effort to ward off the Cooper Tire plant’s departure, ongoing transportation improvements on the U.S. 19 Bypass, and work to put together a coalition that would facilitate the construction of a $230 million biomass energy plant on the local Procter & Gamble plant’s campus stand out.

“One of the greatest successes I’ve seen in this community is our surviving the BRAC process,” Sinyard said. “We were on the verge of our base being eliminated by the Department of Defense. I was proud of our community leaders for doing everything they could, but the people inside those fences are the ones who saved the base. Gen. W.L. ‘Spider’ Nyland — a man who, when I was around him, all I’d do is listen — is the one who turned things in our favor at the hearings in Washington.

“Losing that base would have been devastating. That’s part of why our gas-to-energy program with the base and the P&G biomass plant — which has not officially been announced but is moving forward — is so vital to this community, one of the most important projects ever in the county. If that moves forward as planned, it will further strengthen the ties of Procter & Gamble and the Marine base — two of our largest employers — to the community. That’s so huge.”

Some lesser-publicized issues — bringing a new Walmart to east Albany, lowering the county jail population — also stand out among Sinyard’s most memorable issues while in office.

“We started work on getting a new Walmart here in the ’80s,” Sinyard said. “Site developers came in and looked at possible locations, and they liked the road system coming into east Albany as a strategic possibility. But, as everyone knows, that area had major crime and gang issues.

“Our finance folks worked with (Walmart officials) to convince them that was a heck of a site, while Mayor (Willie) Adams and the Albany City Commission were simultaneously working on the crime issues. To make that happen and turn that part of Albany and Dougherty County into a retail hub completely changed the way people had begun to feel about east Albany.”

The continuously expanding jail population in the county left the local government facing a possible $40 million mandate that could have been the harbinger of financial disaster.

“We were on the verge of being forced by the state to build another pod at our jail to house the growing population out there,” Sinyard said. “But because of an incredibly beautiful team effort by our judges, our district attorney, and our local law enforcement agencies, we’ve reduced our jail population and the need to add cells at the jail.

“We’re still going to put the criminals that need to be there in jail, but we have innovative programs now that have allowed us to keep our inmate population manageable.”

Sinyard said the County Commission is fortunate in that it still has the steady hand of County Administrator Richard Crowdis to guide it.

“Richard is one of the most solid men I’ve ever known and worked with,” Sinyard said. “He doesn’t cut corners, and he doesn’t mince words. I don’t think people realize and appreciate what an incredible job he and his staff do for the community.”

The respect is mutual.

“Jeff is one of the most dedicated and accessible elected officials that I have had the opportunity to work with in my career,” Crowdis, who has 39 years of government management experience, said. “You can feel and sense the passion and sincerity when he speaks about issues and concerns of the public.

“Jeff has incredible people skills. He is also a worker and doer behind the scenes that a lot of people never see or hear about. A notable characteristic of Jeff’s is that he leaves his ego at home and is not concerned about who gets the credit as long as the goals are achieved.”

Those words, common among the men and women who have worked with Sinyard over his political career, are primarily why so many have called on Sinyard to run for statewide or even national office. Few doubt he would be a formidable candidate.

“I’ve known Bodine a long time,” Cagle said. “Whatever he decides to do, he’ll be a success at. He understands the complexities of issues, and he’s a hard worker. He’s everything you’d want in an elected official.”

Adds former Georgia Lt. Gov. Mark Taylor, now a fellow Albany businessman, “I absolutely think Jeff could make a successful state run. He has a super network of friends who could help him politically and financially. If you took a poll today, Jeff would be extra-well-known in Southwest Georgia, but not so much so across the state. However, he has a network of supporters who could increase his awareness and raise money for him.

“As far as the work it would take, Jeff has that tireless work ethic that keeps him going morning, noon and into the night. He’s an excellent public speaker, a phenomenal debater and has an excellent working relationship with the press. Frankly, given all that, I don’t know of a race he couldn’t win.”

Sinyard appreciates the kind words of friends and colleagues, but he’s mum right now on any politics in his future. He will work locally on behalf of the region, and he will retain his statewide seats on the Georgia Military Affairs Coordinating Commission, the Department of Natural Resources, the Georgia Structural Pest Control Commission and the Georgia Chamber of Commerce Board.

“By all means, he will remain a vital part of our board, a vital ambassador for South Georgia,” Georgia Chamber of Commerce President/CEO Chris Clark said of Sinyard.

But politics? That’s not currently on the table.

“I’ve been told by friends I should do what I am doing, which is take a year to get completely away (from politics),” Sinyard said. “I’m going to focus on things I’ve been wanting and needing to do — with my business and with my family. After a year or so … we’ll see where we are.”

Lillie Sinyard, for one, is looking forward to that year of retrospection on her husband’s part.

“I’m pretty sure I’m going to enjoy having him around more,” she laughs. “I’m just so glad he’s going to have more time to spend getting to know our first grandchild (due in May) and to doing things he enjoys. When we’ve gone off together for a weekend trip, I’ve usually driven because if it’s a three-hour drive, he spends 2 1/2 of it on the phone.

“I’m sure when it comes to his political future, he’ll do what he’s led to do. Right now, me and the boys are going to enjoy having him around.”