Charles Trumbo, the write-in candidate running for county commission chairman against current Ward 3 Putnam County Commissioner Bill Sharp, made a campaign stop last Thursday evening at the Eatonton American Legion Hall.
Following a quick description of his background, Trumbo explained why he’s making a run for the chairman’s chair.
“I’m the type of person, I don’t care if you live on Lake Oconee or if you live in a trailer at Twin Bridges where I’m at, I think right is right and wrong is wrong. That’s just the way my mother from Gordon, Georgia, and my father from Paris, Kentucky, raised me. And that’s what I’m about,” he said. “And y’all know it. We need change. We need change. Y’all have the same people year after year running the show. And, I mean, you see the same results. Nothing.”
As a 35-year-old, Trumbo also pointed out Putnam has the oldest average age county commission among its neighbors. Plus, he claimed a current Putnam commissioner mentioned to him another problem with the current mix on the board.
“I’m not gonna’ say the commissioner’s name, but this commissioner came up and said, ‘Charles, you know, it doesn’t look good for this county that we have five old white guys. That doesn’t look good.’” Trumbo was speaking directly to his audience in the predominantly lower-income, African American neighborhood near Jimmy Davis Park, touching often on his own— and the crowd’s—perceived inequity in the distribution of local government assets.
He specifically mentioned the county’s current repaving of Pea Ridge Road while the pavement and sidewalks of Martin Luther King Drive lie broken and crumbling just steps away from where he stood.
“There’s nothing wrong with repaving roads, but let’s take care of all roads, especially ones that are literally coming apart like the one out here,” Trumbo said. “The county should be taking care of all its people,” not just those who bring in revenue as new lake residents or weekend visitors, he suggested.
Trumbo also spoke of the need for Putnam County to attract new businesses and attractions like movie theaters and build affordable housing, especially considering the impending arrival of electric vehicle manufacturer Rivian, not far away in Morgan County.
“I talk to people, and they’d rather go to downtown Jasper or Monticello than hang around here and spend their money, but see, we can have those things here. We can do that here. We just need the right people in place to get those things done,” he said.
“We’re going to have what, 10,000 people coming here? They’re not all gonna’ live in Madison,” Trumbo continued. “They’ll live in Jasper County, and they’ll live here in Putnam because it’s cheaper, but right now if they come here and they look around, man, there ain’t nothing. We have the lakes, but there’s nothing here to do. There are no storefronts, no attractions, none of that. We need change.”