Saturday, April 3, 2010

PRIMARY CANDIDATE ANALYSIS PHASE TWO

BERKELEY COUNTY CORONER

In this race the voters have three choices, Johnny Hill, Bill Salisbury, and Sharon Shuler.

Johnny Hill is a very nice man but we don't think he has the expertise or experience to hit the ground running in this position. He has experience in handling the deceased but there is so much more required of the job.

Bill Salisbury has experience working in the Coroner's office and could, probably, do a satisfactory job, but, like Mr. Hill, he is not the most qualified candidate.

That brings us to the third candidate, Sharon Shuler. Ms. Shuler worked for the Russell Funeral Chapel in Moncks Corner from 1983 to 2007. She is a licensed funeral director and embalmer. During her tenure with Russell, one of her responsibilities was interacting with the bereaved families. Ms. Shuler's compassion and empathy for these families was demonstrative. In 2007, she went to work for the Berkeley County Sheriff's Department. She is now a certified law enforcement officer. She works in the Forensics Division as a crime scene investigator. Collectively, these qualifications gives Ms. Shuler the expertise to professionally perform the varied responsibilities of Coroner.
Ms. Shuler will bring her genuine compassion, along with her knowledge of law enforcement and forensics to this position. The combination of compassion and expertise makes Ms. Shuler the only logical choice for this office.


BERKELEY COUNTY COUNCIL DISTRICT 4


Mrs. Cathy Davis is the incumbent. She is one of the four truly conservative Republican members of Council. All can count on the fact that Mrs. Davis will cast her vote in the best interest of the taxpayer. Her record is there for all to see.
Mrs. Davis' quiet demeanor is somewhat deceiving. One might be led to believe that she is not engaged but don't believe it for a moment. Mrs. Davis is one of the most well informed and well researched members of Council. She is on top of all the issues involving the well being of the citizens of BC. This is the very reason she has a challenger. Supervisor Davis knows she will vote to block any proposal detrimental to BC and the taxpayers. Mrs. Davis has proven herself to be a capable, dignified member of the Council and deserving of the confidence of the voters.

The only information we have been able to glean about the challenging candidate, Mr. Randy W. McGinnis, is that, after losing his challenge to Mrs. Davis in the last election, he resigned his position on the planning commission.


BERKELEY COUNTY COUNCIL DISTRICT 5

Mr. Dennis Fish has served on County Council for almost 8 years. 6 of these years he served as the chairman of the Finance Committee. Since Mr. Fish is a licensed accounting practitioner, analyzing budgets is within his field of expertise. As a true conservative, Mr. Fish favors a zero based budget. This is one of the issues on which he and Supervisor Davis disagree. Mr. Davis, for whatever reason, favors a trend budget. (A process where one averages the previous 5 years' budgets to set the new budget) This process is not the most fiscally conservative approach.
Another issue on which Mr. Fish and the Supervisor conflicted was the taking of 29% of the property tax relief from the BC taxpayers. The Supervisor painted Council into a corner on this issue. Council was faced with two unacceptable choices: They had to either vote to take the 29% as matching funds or lose other essential funding for the Jedburg Project. Thanks to Supervisor Davis' leadership there was no other source of funds for this expenditure. Council voted to take the 29% for one year only with the understanding they would not do it again. This issue promises to bring about more conflict in the next few weeks as Supervisor Davis has included taking the 29% AGAIN in the 2010/2011 budget. Mr. Fish has vowed to fight this and assure that the BC taxpayers don't get robbed again.
Mr. Fish has been excoriated by Supervisor Davis because of Mr. Fish's efforts to protect the taxpayers. Mr. Fish's name has been sullied by unfounded rumors and innuendo. Personally, we find it difficult to believe that Mr. Fish has been able to hold his tongue as much as he has. (There will be more information on this issue in our analysis of the Supervisor's race)
Mr. Fish has been and is an asset to County Council and has earned the respect of the voters and has earned reelection.

After scores of interviews, we have only managed to establish one irrefutable fact about Mr. Fish's challenger, Mr. Tony Young. He is known to be a very good friend of Supervisor Davis.

More analysis tomorrow.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I fail to see how you can just brush aside the credentials and experience of Mr. Salisbury and say he is not
as qualified as Ms. Shuler. Mr. Salisbury is much more qualified than Ms. Shuler. It is obvious that you are bias in your analysis.

Anonymous said...

I agree with you "Nosy Woman from Cross", Ms. Shuler definitely has the experience and qualifications. But, in addition, she also has something Mr. Salisbury will never have and that's compassion!

Nosy Woman from Cross said...

Sorry 1st Anonymous, we just call 'um like we see 'um. It's a little thing called politics.

Anonymous said...

That's a real shame Nosy. I thought you did your homework and did an objective analysis. But, your right, its politics so it can't be honest.