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July 29, 2012

Candidate profiles:Ownby wants more open board

Jamie Jones jamiejones@daltoncitizen.com The Dalton Daily Citizen Sun Jul 29, 2012, 06:10 AM EDT

— Ronald Ownby says he has a good idea of how Whitfield County government has run over the past 34 years.

After all, he worked for the county fire department during that time. He believes that experience will help him in his quest to become chairman of the Whitfield County Board of Commissioners.

“I’ve been involved in it for the last 34 years,” Ownby said. “I gave it some thought before I retired, then I retired (on Feb. 29) and I had some people come to me and say, ‘I’d like for you to run.’ I thought about it. I’m 63 years old and if I’m ever going to do it, it should be now. I didn’t want to wait any longer.”

Ownby takes on Mike Babb, who has served nearly 12 total years as board chairman, in the primary on Tuesday. Both are Republicans and are the only candidates seeking the post, so whoever wins the primary will essentially win the chairman position.

Ownby says his platform is simple: “I’m trying to be a common man with common sense.” He questioned the openness of the board in decisions it has made, specifically when it came to the county changing its health coverage for employees and land purchases.

“There are things commissioners had to do I understand because of the economy,” Ownby said. “I think they should have been more open. Even though we may have to do some things we don’t like to do, I think we ought to at least explain it to the public and to the employees and anyone that would be involved in the county government or paying into the county government.”

He understands commissioners needed to mandate furlough days — unpaid days off — for county employees, but questioned why the county continued to buy land.

“Some of the land acquirements during the middle of that made the taxpayers a little leery of what was going on,” Ownby said. “Why cut the services and buy a lot of property? I understand we’re trying to get new businesses in here, I’m not against that. I think we should have moved forward a little slower at it and not have been so aggressive because of the situation with the money.”

Ownby has examined the county budget but said “at this time” he doesn’t want to comment about any changes he would make there if elected.

“It looks like as far as I can tell, they’ve actually done a good job of cutting back on everything without losing any services,” Ownby said. “I would have to look into it a little deeper.”

He spent 34 years with the county fire department, with eight of those as a volunteer. He started full time as a dispatcher and worked his way up to assistant fire chief, a position he held for some 20 years.

During his time as assistant chief, he helped Fire Chief Carl Collins prepare the budget, then followed through to make sure the budget was met.

“I know how those things work,” Ownby said. “All of those departments have different amounts, but they’re set up the same.”

Ownby is a lifelong resident of Whitfield County and graduated from North Whitfield High School. He and his wife, Kay Palmer Ownby, have been married 41 years. They attend Grove Level Baptist Church. They have a son, Jeff Ownby, and one granddaughter.

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