ANOTHER FORMER COMMISSIONER HURTS LEGACY

Years after all of the protest meetings and the secret gatherings to get a new county commissioner in Dayton, now one of the men who said he could fix the Dayton areas county road problems has served his time and has been retired by his opponent.

Former Commissioner Norman Brown faced tremendous problems as he came into office over eight years ago on the votes of an angry electorate. Whether the job was even something the public would have ever thought someone successfully fulfilled is debatable. Brown may or may not have had an impossible job. That kind of thing will be left up, as they say, to the eyes of the beholder".

But as Leon Wilson comes in to serve there is one thing Norman Brown did in his last days in office that is undebatable. Maybe he did it because as he was first elected as a Democrat, it was "old hat" for Democrats to do what Brown ended up doing after he lost in his re-election bid. What did Brown do? At best, he made decisions he should have left for his successor. At worst, he spat in the face of the voters.

What am I talking about? Among other things, I am talking about selling important equipment that belonged to Liberty County after he lost his primary to Leon Wilson. The equipment included a truck and trailers.

This is the kind of stuff that makes people hate politics. This behavior is the kind of thing that has made it difficult for Dayton to repair roads and other things they hoped their commissioner could do.

Regardless of how you thought Commissioner Brown did his job before losing, there is no doubt he did not have Dayton's best interest in mind in his waning days. And that is unfortunate.