Anthony Simmons, in his 30th year as the Bulloch County commissioner in Seat 1-B, is seeking re-election to another four-year term, this time facing a challenge from Preston Tutt III in the Nov. 8 general election.

In the May 24 party primaries, Simmons appeared unopposed on the Democratic Party ballot while Tutt was unopposed on the Republican ballot, each becoming their parties’ nominees. So this is the one real opportunity that Commission District 1 voters have to choose between them. In-person early voting begins Monday, and voting by absentee ballot has already begun.

Simmons was first elected to Seat 1-B when it was created as the second seat in majority-minority District 1 after a voting rights lawsuit initiated by the NAACP, and took office in 1993. As the line was redrawn based on 2020 census results, the district is not majority-Black as such but has about a 50.6% majority-minority population, including Black and Hispanic residents.

“When I first became a commissioner, we were in a time of expansion, the college was growing, we were getting industry in and it was a very exciting time for Bulloch County,” Simmons said in an interview last week. “With the Hyundai plant coming in now and what it’s going to mean for Bulloch County citizens, it’s going to be another time that I want to be involved in.

“Plus, I enjoy working with people as I have always done, looking out for the county,” he added.

Simmons, now 66, retired from a career as a social worker that included service with the school system, with Pineland Mental Health, with an agency that provided services to senior citizens through the hospital and for a home health agency. He holds a bachelor’s degree in social work from Fort Valley State University. 

Since his father, Bobby Simons, died in 2017, the commissioner has been helping his mother, Erselyn Simmons, now 91, manage rental apartments she owns.

He and his wife Joyce Simmons, married 40 years, have a son and a daughter plus two grandchildren, with another on the way. Anthony Simmons serves as a deacon at Thomas Grove Baptist Church. Currently he also serves on the boards of the Bulloch County Health Department and of Action Pact, the multi-county nonprofit that administers public services at the Bulloch County Senior Center and other sites.

The Statesboro Herald asked the Seat 1-B candidates about two hot topics: growth and taxes. Hyundai Motor Group’s construction of a factory complex expected to employ more than 8,000 people at a site in northern Bryan County is expected to accelerate already resurging growth in Bulloch. 

Steering growth

Simmons said he wants to ensure that growth does not adversely affect existing residential areas.

“I would like to make sure that residential and industry don’t clash,” he said. “We do have a lot of beautiful farm land here, and I want to make sure we preserve that and not just drop industries in where people have lived with their families for many years, and I believe we can do that.

“At present we are working on trying to redraw the zoning map so it can show … where we want subdivisions and stuff to go.”

Simmons is one of three commissioners serving with other county residents on a steering committee for potential revisions to the Smart Bulloch 2040 future land use map. Meanwhile, the Board of Commissioners has a partial moratorium in effect on rezoning for subdivisions in the southeastern part of the county.

Position on taxes

In regard to taxation, he supported this year’s partial rollback of the county millage rate, which only partly offset inflation in assessed real estate values as determined by the tax assessors’ staff. So in effect, the property tax still went up, but not by as much.

“Yes, I did, and it was something that we could do,” he said of the rollback. “But as we grow, we’re going to have to make sure that the citizens that are here, the citizens that are moving in, are being taken care of with the infrastructure and make sure they’re as safe as possible,” he said.

Nobody wants to phone for an ambulance or the sheriff’s department in an emergency and hear that the facilities or staff are not available “right now,” he observed.

“So in order for us to keep up with the growth, making people safe, ensuring the infrastructure is up, we’re probably going to have to raise some taxes…,” Simmons said.

“My mother’s 91 and I definitely don’t want to have to raise taxes on her, and I have to pay the taxes too,” he said. “But we don’t have that magic pot of gold up there at the board that we can just dip into and fix things, and we want to make sure that our rainy-day fund is well kept.”

Noting that the county is using the “T-SPLOST” transportation-purposes sales tax to fund road improvements, Simmons said he hopes voters will also approve a five-year extension, on the current ballot.

Meanwhile, he thinks voters should keep on the board because he has served “for a while” and has come to understand the workings as of the county. He knows some people say “it’s time for some new blood,” he added, “but you don’t want to have to start from scratch.”

Informed that Tutt said citizens told him Simmons can be hard to reach, Simmons said he “can’t be a mind reader” but responds to anyone who calls him with concerns and sees constituents throughout the year.