Winder politics in the ‘Twilight Zone’

I was reminded of that old TV classic last week as I watched the political doings in Winder. It seemed as if the community’s political leaders were moving through their own Twilight Zone, disconnected from any sense of reality.

Let’s review.

On Tuesday last week, the Barrow County Board of Elections sided with Winder councilman Charlie Eberhart by agreeing that yes, he does live in Winder and is eligible to run for re-election. That issue came up after his opponent, Jim Cooley, challenged his residency status.

Eberhart convinced the board that he lives in a small staff room inside his family’s funeral home and not at an Athens address where his wife has a home titled in her name and where his name appears as an officer of her business. Eberhart said he showers at his mother’s house in Winder since the funeral home isn’t equipped for such personal hygiene needs.

This isn’t a new issue. People in Winder have whispered about Eberhart’s true residency status for years, but only in private and never in public. “Shhhhh. We don’t want to rock that boat!”

Enter Cooley, a political gadfly and what we in the South call a “town character.” He didn’t care if this was Winder’s non-secret secret, that one isn’t supposed to discuss. His challenge of Eberhart’s residency was received by Winder leaders like the kid who points to an obese man in a crowded restaurant and shouts at the top of his little lungs, “Mommy, look at that fat man!”

Winder leaders, all of whom attended last Tuesday’s elections board hearing, were mortified that Cooley dared bring up Eberhart’s — uh, living arrangements. Eberhart has been a “good” councilman in their eyes because he never says or does anything. He’s a secure rubber stamp vote for the establishment and compliant to the status quo.

And then there’s the obvious: Eberhart is black. The one thing Winder leaders fear most in Cooley’s challenge of Eberhart isn’t really Cooley getting elected; that would just be a short-term irritation.

What Winder leaders are really scared of is that without Eberhart in that seat from a largely black district, the city council might end up with an “Al Sharpton” councilman rather than the meek incumbent. “Shhhh! He doesn’t rock our boat so we won’t rock his!”

Of course, Cooley, being the colorful local gadfly, doesn’t bring a lot of credibility to the issue. But even gadflies are sometimes right. In fact, as I write this editorial, over 70 percent of those responding to the Barrow Journal’s online poll say they believe Eberhart really lives in Athens, not Winder.

Shhhh!

Now let’s contrast the Eberhart issue to the voting list fiasco at Winder City Hall.

For reasons we can only speculate about, Winder leaders began to do a major purge of the city’s voters list just before two major local elections. They decided the way to do that was to remove the names of registered voters who didn’t have a city water bill in their name.

That, of course, led to a massive number of errors. Had the issue not been raised by the Journal two weeks ago, a lot of voters would have had their voting status challenged and would have had to vote a “provisional” ballot on election day.

Oddly, however, city officials didn’t seem to be upset that their bungling could have created chaos at the voting booth. City elections supervisor Sabrina Wall blamed the Barrow Journal, saying we had spread “misinformation.” But then she later admitted to the city council that, well, yes she knew that in proposing 3,000 names to purge, “something is wrong.” Gee, ya think?

For his part, Mayor Chip Thompson also blamed the Journal, telling the city council: “Well, if the list (of names to be purged) had not been publicized, then it would not have been that big of an issue.”

The mayor is right. If we hadn’t published the list and raised the issue, the city would have likely disenfranchised dozens, perhaps hundreds of voters just because they didn’t have a city water account in their name.

What Thompson really wanted to say was, “If that darn newspaper hadn’t reported this, nobody would have known about our screw-up!”

The competing newspaper in town — always a reliable mouthpiece for Thompson and city hall — quickly leapt to the city’s defense by saying that the list of names we published was just a “hypothetical list” and that it was “not an accurate representation” of what the city was planning to do.

No, it was a real list. We didn’t make it up. It was a list of real people whose names were really targeted to have their voting status challenged. The only thing “hypothetical” here is the hypothetical “journalism” that created such a loony statement.

Let’s connect the dots in all of this.

On the one hand, Winder officials knowingly overlooked having an incumbent councilman whose residency status — wink-wink — is in doubt, but who is a non-threatening and reliable status-quo vote. Eberhart didn’t legally have to prove his residency is in Winder; the burden of proof was on the person who challenged it.

On the other hand, to vote for Eberhart, or any other city candidate, many citizens were slated to have to prove their residency because it was going to be unjustifiably challenged by bungling city officials. The burden of proof in a voter registration challenge isn’t on the city to prove someone isn’t a legitimate resident; it’s on the voter to prove he is a legal resident.

See the difference? The term “double standard” comes to mind, doesn’t it?

Remember the words of the “Twilight Zone” introduction:

“You’re moving into another dimension…you’re moving into a land of both shadow and substance…you just crossed over into the Twilight Zone.”

Or maybe they just crossed over into the City of Winder.

Mike Buffington is co-publisher of the Barrow Journal. He can be reached at mike@mainstreetnews.com.