Smith seeks lower taxes

ALBANY, Ga. — As the sun sets on the final days of his campaign, Lonnie Smith says that, regardless of the outcome, he’s learned a lot about people’s views on local government as he’s knocked on doors in the county’s second district.

Part of a political pair, Smith, along with his wife, is seeking to become part of the government he and his fellow tea partiers have so outspokenly criticized.

While Lonnie Smith is taking aim at the Dougherty County Commission’s District 2 seat now held by John Hayes, his wife, Donnie, is fighting against a man beloved in his own district — Milton “June Bug” Griffin — for a seat on the school board.

Both are taking their smaller government, less taxes message out to their would-be constituency hoping that the message will resonate with the public.

“I think it’s going pretty well. We’ve been out knocking on doors and just trying to get our message out,” Smith said in a recent talk with the Herald. “When this race is over, regardless of the outcome, we’ll know that we gave it our all.”

If elected, Smith hopes to nudge the commission into more of a conservative mindset where he says he hopes they’ll continue trimming their size and bring taxes to a more reasonable level.

And it’s been taxes where Smith has scuffled with the commission before.

In 2007, Smith was one of the original group of homeowners who spoke out against what he believes was an unfair assessment of property which led to an increase in property taxes.

That revaluation of property was demanded by the state after the county’s assessment of properties had swung below the 36 percent threshold required by the state.

It’s one issue that Smith says, if elected, he’ll make a priority — reevaluating the assessment process to ensure that it’s fair unlike the way, he says, it was done in 2007.

Since that time, the county has been in a slash-and-burn mode, cutting departmental budgets and eliminating employee holiday pay all while trying not to impact service levels to the public, in hopes of coping with diminished revenues and a down economy that has swallowed more than 2,000 jobs in the last two years alone.

In addition to reforming the assessment process, Smith said he’ll make the use of technology — and its inherent ability to increase efficiency — a priority to help lower the cost of government.