The candidates for chairman of the Franklin County Board of Commissioners recently provided written answers to questions submitted by the Franklin County Citizen Leader.
The questions were:
1. Please provide information about your background, education, past service in government or with community organizations, church and family.
2. What experience (professional, personal or service) do you feel best qualifies you and will serve you best as chairman of the Franklin County Board of Commissioners?
3. Do you support the county’s new Unified Development Code and are there any changes you would like to see made to it?
4. Growth has been a big topic in Franklin County of late. What criteria will you use in deciding requests for rezoning, conditional use permits and other applications from developers?
5. How should the county balance resources to address issues in one area – Gumlog, for example – while maintaining needed services in the rest of the county?
6. If you had a chance to speak one-on-one with each registered voter in Franklin County, what would you say to secure his or her vote?
Stories were then written from their answers.
Jeff Jacques
By Shane Scoggins
Publisher
CARNESVILLE – Jeff Jacques wants to be elected the next chairman of Franklin County Board of Commissioners because he has “a sincere burden and heartfelt desire to serve Franklin County in bettering the quality of life for all citizens and for generations to come.”
Jacques, a former four-term commissioner, said his past experience prepared him for the post.
“I have been blessed in my professional career to have served in state government, private sector and local government capacities all of which intersect the duties of the Board of Commission Chairman position,” he said.
Jacques was elected to the board of commissioners in 2002 and served for 16 years.
During his first year in office, he was the board’s vice chair and served as chairman due to the military deployment of then Chairman Sam Elrod.
While on the board, Jacques was the commissioners’ liaison to the Industrial Building Authority for six years and was on numerous committees and subcommittees, such as the ACCG Transportation and Economic Development Team.
During his tenure, Franklin County added an additional EMS station, expanded both water and sewer infrastructure, added a training facility for volunteer firefighters, adopted land use regulations, replaced two EMS stations with new facilities, and received millions of dollars in government grants for capital improvement projects, he said.
Jacques said, as a commissioner, he als worked “alongside duly elected constitutional officers, county staff , elected officials on every level in setting policy, budgets and delivering the highest quality of service while keeping taxes at the lowest level possible.”
Jacques has lived in Franklin County for 45 years and currently lives in Carnesville with wife Christy, who works for MedLink. The couple has three children, Cana and Cassie, both teachers, and Christian, who works for Hart EMC.
The Jacques are members of Liberty Baptist Church, where Jeff has served on the Pre-School Board of Directors and as a Sunday School teacher.
He attended Carnesville Elementary and Franklin County middle school and high school before moving on first to Emmanuel College and then to Southern Tech, where he majored in civil engineering.
Jacques worked for the Georgia Department of Transportation for 20 years in District 1, which covers 21 counties in Northeast Georgia, in various engineering / management positions.
He served as traffic operations engineer, district utilities engineer, area maintenance engineer, assistant district maintenance engineer and district access management engineer.
“I managed a diverse work force of up to 352 employees with an annual budget of approximately $18 million dollars,” Jacques said. “My duties included budget preparation, budget oversight, personnel administration, grant request preparation, maintenance administration and project management.”
For 15 years, Jacques has worked for C.W. Matthews Contracting Company as an engineering group manager.
“I deal with various engineering/administrative duties such as project management, planning, budgeting, and utility coordination as related to highway construction projects,” he said. “I work with city, county, state and federal officials daily.”
Jacques has also worked at Beasley Auto Parts in Royston for 35 years.
“My many years at Beasley Auto Parts has given me a unique insight into the challenges faced by local family-owned businesses,” he said.
Jacques said his vision is “optimized service delivery by the Franklin County government while keeping property taxes as low as possible. I am for government providing services of which citizens are not able to provide for themselves and keeping the scope of government limited in that framework. I have worked and will continue to work with state elected officials to ensure budgets and legislation do not perpetuate unfunded mandates, redirection of revenue or other adverse monetary policies against Franklin County and our cities.”
Jacques said he did support the adoption of the new Unified Development Code.
He also supported the new zoning map required by the UDC, “predicated on property owners having the ability to restore their property classification back to pre UDC categorization if so desired.”
The UDC gives Franklin County more leverage to ensure that growth is balanced and directed as well as maintaining most property outside of city limits in an agricultural designation, he said, but he believes some changes need to be made.
The multiple-family residential district in the UDC needs to be eliminated, Jacque said.
“This designation allows up to 12 housing units per acre including duplexes, apartments, single family residences and triplexes,” he said. “Franklin County does not need this type of zoning class. This is just one example of a change I believe would enhance this document and better fit into the growth plan citizens have for Franklin County. I would collaborate with fellow BOC members and county staff to formulate a methodology for full review of this document. I would recommend that the BOC put together a citizen review board to assist the planning commission and staff in review of proposed modifications to the UDC.”
Jacques said he voted on rezoning requests beginning in 2005 when the county’s original land use regulations were adopted.
“I have utilized and will continue to utilize the following criteria when reviewing rezoning request:
“Is the request in conformity with the policy and intent of the current land use regulation?
“Recommendation of the planning commission, citizen feedback from the public hearings, impact to existing roadway and utility infrastructure, impact to adjacent properties, overall impact to the county, cities and school system.
“Impact to the county service delivery strategy including but not limited to fire protection and law enforcement.”
Jacques said “the effectiveness of the 2005 Land Use Ordinance of which I supported may be best measured by what is not in Franklin County.”
When deciding on how to allocate county resources, Jacques said it should be needs based.
“Those areas and where the issues are related to public safety/public health should be given priority,” he said. “Franklin County should continue to monitor the service delivery strategy plan to stay ahead of growth and need. It is possible that a new EMS station or an additional med unit needs to be added. The BOC in conjunction with the county manager and staff should be proactive in determining where resources are required based on growth patterns and call volumes and be proactive rather than reactive in addressing these needs.”
Jacques encouraged citizens to pray for each candidate in the chairman’s race and asked for their votes.
He invited citizens with questions about his candidacy to call or text him at 678-640-6015.
“Our county is currently facing many challenges but by God’s grace, much prayer and with a unified citizen front we can turn these challenges into opportunities,” he said.