Dear Editor:

Under the leadership of Jack Garvin, the Effingham County Democratic Chairperson, and supported strongly by a vice president of the local party, Tony Chiariello, the Democratic Party continues to seek candidates willing to run organized, spirited campaigns for county-wide offices, particularly on the Effingham County Board of Commissioners and on the Board of Education.

While the positions on the County Commission are political, theoretically including Democratic, Republican and independent candidates, those on the Effingham County Board of Education are non-partisan.

Why now? This current response has nothing to do with accusations of wrong-doing or malicious intent on the part of these office-holders. To the contrary, we seek candidates to meet the expectations on how a democracy is supposed to operate. Our elections are intended to be just that — that is, elections, not merely affirmations, or rubber-stamps, for sitting office-holders.

The fact is that when office-holders run unopposed, it represents tacit approval that all is well, and that there is nothing about which to complain. Incumbent office- holders may get complacent in their positions without any contests. More serious evaluation of issues, hopefully, occurs when incumbents are tested by another candidate(s).

Who is to blame for this? The citizens and the electorate, that’s who! Incumbent office-holders in Effingham County not only often run unopposed, but with a low percentage of the registered voters actually getting to the polls. The Effingham County Democratic Party usually has representatives at the commissioners’ meetings and often at the board of education meetings. For the most part, these meetings are poorly attended, generally only with people who have a place on the agenda in attendance. Again, this provides very little accountability for the county commissioners or the board of education members.

We stated our objective in the first sentence of this article. The Democratic Party seeks to find, recruit, run, support, and, ultimately, win with candidates with our objectives.

If anyone is interested in running for office this year, she or he needs to move quickly.

Paper work and qualification fees must be submitted no earlier than 9 a.m. on March 7, and no later than 12 noon on March 11. The qualification fees have been announced for potential candidates for all Effingham County-wide positions. These fees are public information, and they will be publicized in the local newspapers; however, currently the Democratic Party has knowledge of these fees, both for partisan and non-partisan positions. Please contact us at the e-mail addresses and phone numbers below.

As noted, we continue to seek committed candidates eager to run organized, spirited campaigns. We understand that this is a daunting project as we look both short-term and long-term with the hope of creating alternatives to the existing political situation.

Please reach out to us at the Effingham County Democratic Party’s e-mail address at effinghamdemocrat@gmail.com. Jack Garvin’s cell phone number is (912) 429-1990. Tony Chiariello’s cell phone number is (732) 604-1204, and his e-mail address is tonyc214@yahoo.com. We look forward to hearing from you.