R. Ryan Brannen, Republican candidate for Seat 1-A on the Bulloch County Board of Commissioners, identifies property taxes, transparency and complacency as concerns with the county government, and says a change is needed.

Brannen, 47, a fifth-generation Bulloch County farmer, resides about five miles from Portal at the same address where he grew up. Besides growing cotton, peanuts and corn and keeping a few cows, he has ventured into construction work with plans to do underground cable installation. In 2020 he came in second in a very close race for a Board of Education seat, but he hasn't served in elected office.

He and Ray Mosely, the Seat 1-A Democratic incumbent commissioner, face off in the current, Nov. 5, general election. In-person early voting began Tuesday. It's not a county-wide race, but Commissioner District 1 includes about a third of Bulloch's population.

"I guess Number 1, a big deal in the county now is taxes, property taxes," Brannen said in an interview.

"That's the most fluid money that the county can maneuver to cover deficits and shortfalls.  But the taxpayers, the property owners, can't keep making up those gaps."

He wants the Board of Commissioners and staff to look for budget items and ways where spending can be reduced, first, each year before seeking any additional revenue.

"We need to look at what's being spent," Brannen said. "That's kind of like a taboo, it seems, today in the government, is we don't look at what we're spending, we just look at where we can go to get more money to cover what we're spending."

The main focus of county government, he asserts, "should be protection of the citizens … sheriff, fire, EMS, emergency services."

"We definitely need to make sure they're taken care of, but outside of that scope, we're going to have to sit down and have a real heart-to-heart talk," he said.

Brannen would also support a couple of alternative revenue sources, as noted below.

'Transparency'

But of his top concerns or issues, "another big one," he said, is transparency.

"We have a big problem that I see now with transparency in the government of the county that's in there. We've got to change that," Brannen said. "We want to try to make it where everybody can have time to come to the meetings. They have a lot of meetings when people are still working, and people can't participate."

Currently, regular commissioner meetings are held at 5:30 p.m.  on the first Tuesday and 8:30 a.m. on the third Tuesday of each month, but some called meetings and public hearings are held at other times.

Brannen believes the county "should be as transparent and put as much information out there as allowable by law. You know, a lot of stuff you can't talk about by law, but citizens should know what's going on within their county government," he said.

After property taxes and transparency, Brannen named complacency as a third major concern with the county government.

"There's a lot of people that's been in there for a long time, and I really think we need a change," he said.

Alternative revenue

It was in regard to economic and residential development that he first mentioned an alternative revenue source.

"There's a lot of people that makes a lot of money off of a development in this town, and they're not paying their fair share of the infrastructure that the county has to take over, and the fire and EMS and sheriff's department have to take up the shortfall for all these people moving into the county," Brannen said.

"I think it's time for us to have some impact fees to help alleviate some of this property tax that we've been raising over the last few years," he continued.

Impact fees are one-time fees city or county governments charge property developers to help cover costs of added public services or infrastructure. Brannen also wants the county to look at adopting "an extra sales tax," something the current county administration has also proposed.

"With that, everybody pays, whether you're a visitor to the county, whether you're in or out," he said. "That's more money we could bring into the county that everybody pays, not just property owners. Property owners, I believe, have given more than their fair share, and it's time to give them a break."

Why does he think he's the better candidate? 

"I just think it's time for a change," Brannen said. "I definitely don't intend on being in this office for 20 years. … I'm not a politician. I'm not a government guy. I mean, I think we should have less government and people govern themselves more, and I think our Board of Commissioners have gotten complacent in their jobs a little bit, and it's time just for us to have somebody different in there."

Both Brannen and Mosley are graduates of Portal High School. Brannen also attended Georgia Southern for a time, but stopped to farm full-time. He and Jamie Creasy Brannen have been married 15 years and have, collectively, four daughters, one son and one grandchild.

He's a member of First Baptist Church Statesboro, where he serves on the safety team. He and his wife have volunteered with the Backpack Buddies program.

Brannen actively supports the Bulloch Action Coalition's petition drive for a referendum to overturn the current commissioners' decisions on two agreements about county-owned wells that would supply water to Hyundai Motor Group Metaplant America.

The referendum would let the public decide, he said.

A profile of Commissioner Ray Mosley will appear online Wednesday at statesboroherald.com, and both profiles will appear in the Thursday e-Edition and print.