Jappy Stringer, District 2, Seat C incumbent on the Bulloch County Board of Commissioners, hopes voters will see a few things his way. First, he loves his native county and says he wants to apply his life's experience, including two terms so far as commissioner, to continued service on the board.

Second, he doesn't like tax increases either but says last year's was needed to provide enough public safety personnel for a growing population. Third, the county now has multiple types of planning underway to deal with current and expected growth, and as he sees it, part of that planning is designed to protect as much farm land as possible.

Stringer faces three challengers in his campaign for a third term. He is a Republican, and Brian Pfund and Nick Newkirk are challenging him in the May 21 Republican primary. The winner from among them then or in a possible June 18 primary runoff will face Democratic candidate Len Fatica in the Nov. 5 general election. Early voting in the primaries began Monday.

"Well, I've lived here all my life, I love Bulloch County, and that's the reason I started," Stringer said when asked why he wants to continue to serve. "I just felt like it was something I could contribute to, with my business experience living here all my life, and now that I've been a commissioner almost eight years."

He said it "takes a year or two to learn how" to do things as a commissioner. Laws and regulations mandate and limit what the county governing board can do, and commissioners attend classes offered by the Association County Commissioners of Georgia.

"And then the real learning is being there. …," Stringer said. "If you have an agenda, you can't just go in there and do what you want to do, and of course we do things as a board. A commissioner doesn't do anything without the approval of the board."

Life experience

Jasper W. Stringer graduated from Statesboro High and attended Georgia Southern for a couple of years. He worked for the Sheriff's Department as a radio operator while still in school. But he left both to work at his father's service station. "Jappy" Stringer and his wife, Emily, then owned and operated the full-service Chevron station on Fair Road for more than 30 years, until they sold it in 2015. Now married 47 years, they have a daughter and a son and two grandchildren.

Stringer, 67, still maintains a shop at his home where he works on cars for friends and previous customers, doing oil changes and preventive maintenance, "a hobby more than anything," he said.

He also served more than 27 years as a volunteer firefighter with the Statesboro Fire Department, which then had volunteers, and also with a Bulloch County Emergency Medical Service rescue unit.

Speaking of the county's progress in public safety, he noted that the Bulloch County Fire Department has gone from all-volunteer to a combination career and volunteer department. Brooklet had the county department's first 24-hour staffed fire station, also the first ambulance station outside Statesboro. This fiscal year, renovations to the Portal fire station have accommodated its upgrade to 24-hour staffing with both firefighters and an ambulance crew, and a similar upgrade is taking place at the Register station, now staffed 24 hours with firefighters and 12 hours with EMS personnel.

"We've got three stations that are 24 hours a day now. We're working on doing more. …," Stringer said. "That's going to improve the response times and the service for the citizens, you know, because this is a big county. When we put one up in Portal, that improved the response times."

He was asked the same tax and growth questions as the other candidates.

Tax question

➤ When would a tax increase be justified, and when should a reduction in taxes be possible?

"We know taxes are not popular, but … we had to increase taxes because we had to get our public safety personnel up to match our population," Stringer said. "That's just something we had to do, and now we're at a base with that so that future growth is going to allow us to roll back taxes in the next few years. I can't read the future, so I don't know when. It may be this year, it may be next year, it may be every year. It just depends on the growth."

But last year's increase "stabilized" the situation, and his goal now is to roll back the tax rate, he said, adding, "You know, I've got to pay taxes like everybody else, and I certainly don't advocate tax increases."

He says that Bulloch's property tax millage is still lower than most surrounding counties'.

"Our combined county tax rate, including schools, is lower than every county around us except Bryan County and Jenkins County, right now. … said Stringer. "But they all have a fee of some kind that they add on to their property taxes, so that actually makes everybody higher than we are, even Bryan and Jenkins."

The Statesboro Herald has not independently verified this claim. While some of the other counties have special flat fees that Bulloch does not, Bulloch has special, added fire service millage rates for its rural areas. In any case, appraised property values are also a big factor in the taxes people actually pay.

"We continue to search for other ways to create revenue to relieve the burden off the property owners," Stringer said. 

A bill introduced in the state Legislature this year could allow counties such as Bulloch to hold a referendum for another 1% sales tax that can be used specifically for property tax relief.

"So we're hoping we can maybe go to a referendum and add another penny and let everybody pay a tax. It would take some of that off of the property owners," he said.

Planning for growth

➤ How should the county deal with population growth and industrial development versus protection of rural land and lifestyles?

"Of course, you know, growth is coming to Bulloch County. I mean, it has been even before Hyundai," Stringer said. "So … before Hyundai ever came, we had plans going on. Just because this rapid growth is coming, we've had to ramp it up. Right now, by the end of this year, we will have finished plans covering land use, transportation, utilities, future (county) facilities, (county government) workforce and housing.

"All of these plans are going to be tools that we can use to help manage the growth," he said.

A six-month partial moratorium the commissioners imposed on residential rezoning requests in Southeast Bulloch area more than a year and a half ago provided time for changes to the county's Comprehensive Plan map and Zoning Ordinance. As part of this, as Stringer notes, new "suburban areas" for residential development were added.

"We're continuing to work to try to make districts for (sub)urban and commercial growth," he said. "Even before Hyundai came, we were already considering a water and sewer district, and of course now we are, to concentrate growth, so that we don't have spot zoning. … We want to concentrate it one area, like a (sub)urban corridor. A lot of it will be around I-16, maybe up (Georgia Highway) 67."

People often ask why the commissioners change the zoning of farm land, but people who own the land and want to sell it are the source of the rezoning applications, he notes. 

"Some developer will want to buy it for an exorbitant amount, and another farmer couldn't afford to pay that kind of price. And I don't like it, but that's the way of the world. …," Stringer said. "We want to try to keep it under control. … We know growth is coming; I'd like to try to keep it in a concentrated area and preserve as much farm land as we can."