Cost Of Elected Officials Not Doing Their Jobs

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Austin talks about getting rid of the Sheriff and the cost of elected officials not doing what they were brought in to do.

Transcript:

Austin: This past Tuesday, voters in Richmond County got rid of a sheriff who, among his many failures, really screwed up his custodianship, his stewardship of the jail facility where his prisoners are maintained. And folks, that is an expensive issue that's going to cost the taxpayers of Augusta, Richmond County, millions and millions of dollars in additional cost for years to come.

His lack of oversight, his lack of proper care of that jail has really, really hurt us. Sheriff Roundtree has been flushed. He'll be gone soon enough. But we've got other constitutional officers who are not doing their duty, and as a result, it's costing taxpayers millions of dollars and again, putting lives unnecessarily at risk.

I'm referring back to our work a little earlier this month, revealing the lack of work ethic of Judge Amanda Heath, one of our superior court judges who's spending an inordinate amount of her time away from her duties here in Augusta. She works on some various national councils that have her out of Augusta between 17 and 20 weeks a year. We're told that's when she's not in office, doing the job that she was elected to do. And that clogs up our jail system, that clogs up our court system.

And again, it costs God knows how many millions of dollars in ridiculous waste. We need our state legislative officials in Atlanta, the conservatives that we have controlling the state capitol in Atlanta to give us the proper tools to hold these officials accountable when they don't do their jobs.

Yes, we can vote them out of office every four years, but there's a hell of a lot of damage that can be done in four years of not doing their duty the way that Roundtree failed to take care of the jail, the way that Amanda Heath is failing to take care of her caseload here in Augusta for the Superior Court. It's got to be done.

Better oversight, particularly of these law enforcement and judicial officials, has to be in place. We've got a Republican governor, a Republican majority at the Capitol. We need to make sure that these local officials are doing their jobs, and we have the tools to force them to by law if they don't. Got to do that. And that's the comment, I'm Austin Rhodes, 95.1 FM News Talk WGAC.