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July 29, 2012

Candidate profiles: Babb ready to face budget ‘storm’

Jamie Jones jamiejones@daltoncitizen.com

— Mike Babb said he has seen Whitfield County through some difficult times in his almost 12 years as chairman of the board of commissioners.

Now, he wants to help steer the county through what he calls an upcoming “perfect storm.”

“I think we’re coming up on some times where experience will be very valuable because we are about to hit the perfect storm as far as the budget goes,” Babb said. “We’re going into the LOST (Local Option Sales Tax) negotiations, we see the continuing downward trend of the evaluations across the county and we see the sales tax picking up but not back to historical levels yet.”

Babb faces former Whitfield County Fire Department employee Ronald Ownby in the Republican primary on Tuesday. They are the only candidates seeking the post, so whoever wins the primary will essentially win the chairman position.

Whitfield County, like many counties across the country, has been affected by the national economic slowdown. The county’s current budget is $41.6 million, down from an estimated $42.2 million in 2011 and from $50.8 million in 2008, before the economic downturn began really to be felt locally. The 2012 budget calls for $39.9 million in operating spending and about $2.3 million in capital spending.

Ownby was critical of the board’s decision to purchase land for economic development during tough financial times. He pointed to the land the county purchased for several million dollars at the Carbondale Business Park in the south end of the county.

“When the economy is tough, you can’t just stop, you’ve got to keep moving forward,” Babb said. “If we just stop and do nothing in economic development, these companies that come into Northwest Georgia, we’ll have nothing on the plate to offer.”

Babb said the Carbondale Business Park has become one of the premier sites for businesses in North Georgia.

“It’s our draw, so to speak, for new industry or for keeping industry here,” Babb said. “We were told by the so-called experts that we needed publicly owned property in Whitfield County because new businesses in the area wanted to know how long it would take for them to get up and get going. The technology is there, the land is there, everything is there.”

Babb served as board chairman from 1996 to 2004. He decided not to run for re-election then, but was elected to the board again in 2008. Commissioners by state law are limited to three consecutive terms of four years at a time.

“I consider it a service to the community,” Babb said. “I’ve been at it 12 years and I feel it’s my obligation to the citizens. As long as they want to keep me in there I’ll feel obligated to serve.”

Babb is a graduate of F.T. Wills High School in Smyrna and Georgia State University. He has lived in Whitfield County for 40 years and served for 17 years as a volunteer fireman with the county. He is the chairman of the 15-county Northwest Georgia Regional Commission.

He is now retired after working more than 37 years in the carpet and carpet fiber industry. Babb and his wife, Karen, have been married for 38 years. They have three grown children and six grandchildren.

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