For your consideration: Gonzales County Commissioner, Pct. 1 race

Posted

Early voting has been underway for a week now. This time next Tuesday, the Texas primary will be coming to a close and sometime after 7 p.m., we will find out if Gonzales is content with their Pct. 1 county commissioner or if they prefer another leader.

The Republican incumbent, K.O. “Dell” Whiddon, is facing a challenge from Stephen O. Pirkle. 

“I’ve actually been interested in it for a long time but I always had other obligations and responsibilities,” said Pirkle, 74. “I had my own company that I ran for over 30 years and I’ve just observed what is going on and I feel it can be done better. I think there are better ways to do it like combining our precinct workforce into one group instead of having four separate groups.”

The Gonzales native has been a registered professional land surveyor and has worked as an engineering technician, in architectural drafting, county surveying and is a concealed handgun instructor. His employment with the Texas Highway Department for 9 years, among others, gave him the experience to deal with county road issues, he said.

Pirkle talks about unpaved roads and likens them to an unpainted house. If the roads aren’t paved, they deteriorate like a weathered house would. Water and wind take their toll on a road base, costing dollars to re-grade it every so often. Pirkle says he can help fix this by creating a type of unified road system with a hired engineer leading the way.

“I think we would be a whole lot better off with an expert,” he said. “It’s the only way to go with the county on building these roads. We need an expert. We don’t need a bunch of cowboys telling them how to build roads.”

Pirkle said that by employing a road engineer, all precincts could share the workload and repairs would be more efficient. Plus, commissioners would not lose any control. If they hire an expert, they can always fire an expert.

“I’d like to save them some money,” Pirkle said of fellow taxpayers. “I think there is money to be saved in a lot of ways.”

Pirkle mentioned that the incumbent commissioner said that it would cost $321 million to pave all 800 miles of county roads. By his own estimation, that cost would only be $21 million. It is still a lot, but he wonders where his opponent came up with that figure.

He also sees money being wasted by the county and wants to put a stop to it.

“This Randle-Rather building I think is a disaster,” Pirkle said. “Trying to put 30 county employees downtown in an antiquated building, it’s going to cost millions. They can do it in phases where they come up with a smaller figure. But in the end, the bottom line, they’re going to have $8 million tied up over there and no private parking.”

He would also try to create a ballot for important initiatives that people could fill out and send in to commissioners so that they could gauge public opinion. Much like local electric and water providers do to select their board members.

“I would like to see a ballot by mail or an advisory board set up to get input from the citizens and find out what they want,” he said. “And if they really want this Randle-Rather Building I’d be all for it. But I’d have to hear it by the public if they want it and not just force it down their throat.”

Pirkle has taken an interesting approach to soliciting your vote, deciding to send out pamphlets by mail rather than putting up campaign signs. In his opinion — and rightfully so — signs don’t vote. People do.

“To me, it’s just a bunch of yard trash and it doesn’t give you the information that you need to be a responsible voter,” Pirkle said. “There are some signs on street corners where I can’t see the oncoming traffic. And they’re getting bigger and bigger every week. There’s no telling how big they’ll be come March 1.”

In his final thoughts as the last week of voting comes along, he appealed to the most standard of emotions of any county commissioner candidate.

“I would appreciate their vote,” Pirkle said. “And if they do vote for me, we will work to get it done and I will be a full-time county commissioner.”

Comments