Newly Elected County Commissioner Jamie Walker discusses Commission Issues
Following the January 3rd Pocahontas County Commission meeting, we had the opportunity to talk with Commissioner Jamie Walker. Since this was his first commission meeting since his election in November, we asked him to talk about any issues before the commission that he feels are important to address.
“Some of the most important things after the last meeting and this meeting, is definitely the EMS and potentially the fire and rescue,” said Commissioner Walker. “They’ve kind of established something in the northern end (of the county) and that sort of bothers me. I would like to see something go county-wide if we are going to do it. I’ve always a believer in if you can’t do it right, don’t do it at all. But I think it needs to go North to South, and I think the southern end has taken just as hard a hit as the northern end from what I’ve gathered. But that’s issues that will have to be worked out as we move forward and I guess we can only do what we can afford to do at this time and I guess we will start somewhere and finish somewhere.”
“And then I guess Internet. Everybody’s wanting internet. Personally, I don’t need the Internet, but I realize it’s very important to the county, it’s very important for the businesses and it’s important to a lot of people coming and passing through here. So, it needs upgraded, it needs work. I don’t know with cost and inflation of wiring and just mechanisms in general of what it takes to make it work for everybody. (I don’t know) If house to house from one end of the county will ever have up-to-grade successful Internet, however I believe you can get 90% of it relatively easy, and get main trunk lines. I am definitely a supporter of that and will do what I can to help that out.”
“I think water and potentially sewer in parts of our county -the Buckeye area I think needs some attention and I think they done checked into that a little bit. I don’t know how far along that is, but that’s something I would like to look into, that I’ve talked to several people about.”
“And just generally operation of the courthouse. They’ve been talking about potentially tearing the jail down, and there’s a lot of pros and cons on that issue. Expansion, and just some things we need to look into to make the county successful. But, there’s probably the main topics, just general money and making sure it is managed and spent correctly.”
What about the drug problem? You weren’t here when 17 citizens came in, all upset about three different drug houses in different areas of the county which were ruining their quality of life. Plus, we had a bunch of shootings back in the early fall.
“Well, I think, again, at the end of the day, the County commission has some input on that, but I think a lot of that lies more into your law-enforcement division and that’s something we have to work with them and especially the Prosecution Attorney and your sheriff – get them to work them issues out because I mean the county commission can’t go out and investigate somebody or arrest somebody, so you got to work through them entities to see your issues resolved. It’s something that needs to be brought up and discussed and worked on. I mean it needs fixed, but I don’t think the commission in general is going to be the person responsible for fixing that. I think we can make recommendations and move forward from there.”
Is there anything you would like to add?
“I think that’s it, and I would just like to thank everybody that voted for me and if you have any problems, questions or concerns, give me a call.”
OK, thank you,
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