Incumbent Lee County Commissioner for District 3 Gary Long recently addressed the East Alabama Board of Realtors at their January meeting in Phenix City. As always, Gary's mind is a wonder to behold and he did not hold back in sharing his unfiltered thoughts as he took no guff from anyone who might criticize him for his lead role in engineering the county's curbside trash pickup debacle. Fortunately for those who were unable to attend the meeting, the Examiner has obtained exclusive footage of Gary's tough talk and has transcribed it as follows;
"Trying to keep our roads up to date is huge. At one point, eight or nine years ago, we were on a fifty-seven year resurfacing cycle which meant that a road that was resurfaced today would not get resurfaced again for fifty-seven years. That was because of the funding. We have been able to get gas tax so we have pulled that down to more like thirty years. It needs to be twenty and that is a job in itself."
"If I have learned anything about being on the commission, it is my relationship with the other commissioners. It does not matter how much I want something, if I don't have a relationship with at least two of them to get three votes it is not going to happen. Your hands are tied to a degree. It is not an impossibility, it is what you have got to work for. For me it was our roads, more so than the accounting."
"I am not an accountant, I am not going to even pretend that I was. The accountability of returning phone calls, that is a massive task. When you have something like curbside pickup, it is just mass confusion and it was and I hate that. When it comes to our curbside pickup, we had a lot of people that were upset because we took the containers away. We had to, we had to."
"Those containers were being used by every city and county around us and in us. Columbus, Phenix City, Smiths Station, Auburn, Opelika, Russell County, Macon County, Chambers County, Tallapoosa County. They were all using these containers. They would get ticketed but it wasn't putting a dent in it. Our tipping fees at the landfill just got higher and higher every year, to the point where we spent thousands and thousands of dollars too much."
"My only way to really control that was to go to the curbside. The billing part of it, we got thrown a curveball by the Attorney General. Not making excuses, what happened happened and we had to figure that out. Even though we spent better than two years researching this to try to make sure that we were doing it the best way possible, there were issues. I will admit that."
"But again, if I had it all to do over again, I would do the exact same thing. Because I feel like the county needed that. I would go out there and even say, this might be dumb, if I lose this election as a result of that decision I am good with that."
Here are some bullet point takeaways from Gary's rambling remarks;
Gary likes the big money he gets from the gas tax.
Gary's "relationships" with other commissioners is the key to his success Are we talking quid pro quos here, Gary?
Gary is big on road projects paid for by the gas tax, but not so big on accounting.
Gary is not an accountant and would never pretend to be because that is a lot of hard work.
Gary knows that he upset a lot of his constituents by taking away the dumpsters, but he had to do it, had to do it (said twice for emphasis).
Gary has concocted a grand conspiracy theory that not only were residents of Auburn and Opelika as well as neighboring counties in Alabama abusing Lee County's dumpsters, but they were being joined by miscreants from Georgia who were crossing state lines to dump illegally in Lee County! Somebody call in the los federales!
Gary asserts that Jay Jones and his Lee County Sheriff's Office were helpless to stop this illegal dumping, so much for law enforcement!
Gary had no other way to control the chaotic garbage situation except by unilaterally switching county residents to curbside trash pickup without their consent.
Gary blames Attorney General Steve Marshall for the Lee County Commission's trash billing system's woes
Gary admits that despite spending two years preparing the trash billing system, the Lee County Commission created a dumpster fire regardless.
Gary reiterates that despite the trash billing system being a hot mess, he would have done it the same way all over again because he feels that is what the county needed. Apparently, sometimes 'no' just doesn't mean 'no' to Gary and he has to force his desires upon his constituents.
Gary doesn't care if he upset his constituents by taking away their dumpsters so much so that they vote him out and he loses his commissioner position that he has held for the past sixteen years. He is good with that.
Well, Gary, if you get voted out and lose your commissioner job we are good with that too! Hasta la vista, baby! Maybe you and your fellow ex-commissioner Robert Ham can go light up cigars with the hundred dollar bills that you have racked up over your years of service. Thanks for the memories!
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