Echols working smaller communities for PSC runoff

By TERRY DICKSON

The Florida Times-Union

Brunswick — Tim Echols is long way from the Atlanta metro area and other big population centers as he tries to finish first a second time in his race for a Public Service Commission seat. Echols is finishing up a week in South Georgia in an effort to turn out the vote for the Aug. 10 runoff of the Republican primary against John Douglas, who finished second among four candidates.

One thing Echols and Douglas agree on is that it’s hard for PSC candidates to get noticed. It is especially hard this year, Echols said, when the contentious Republican gubernatorial primary drew attention from every other race.

Echols said he did well in the state’s southeastern counties and believes smaller communities will make the difference in the runoff.

Tuesday, he spoke at the Brunswick Kiwanis Club trying to drum up votes in Glynn County, where he lost by 500 votes to Jeff May, a state House member from Monroe.

He has a plausible reason for that.

“There’s a Jeff May here who was a pharmacist,’’ and a well known one at that, Echols said. “People looked at the ballot and thought it was him.’’

That’s the way politics works in small places. The Kiwanis Club is made up of civic-minded people, who pollsters call likely voters. They sell Vidalia onions in the spring and host a big Brunswick stew festival in the fall to raise money to support youth charities.

Of Echols’ speech, a departing club member said, “That was a lot of numbers.’’

Echols also lost McIntosh County, but won Brantley, Ware, Wayne, Camden and Charlton.

He has some family ties in Brantley where he made the rounds Thursday. During summer visits there as a boy, he helped his cousins gather eggs in their family’s chicken houses. He visited workers at Brantley Telephone Co.

Southeast Georgia and other areas hours from Atlanta feel they’re not represented on a number of levels, Echols said.

He want to take public hearings on rate increases and territorial issues on the road so more people can have a say.

He also wants Atlanta Gas Light to “seed the marketplace for natural gas vehicles.”

His plan would start with about 50 municipalities around the state so they can use the cleaner-burning and cheaper fuel in their vehicle fleets. Those pumps would be available to state vehicles, she said.

“Once we get 50 of them converted, the state vehicles could get around Georgia without running out of natural gas,’’ he said.

It would just be a matter of time before it spread to private and commercial vehicles, he said.

“Georgia’s air will be cleaner and Georgians who use natural gas n place of gasoline will save money,’’ Echols said.

Reached by phone, Douglas said he is providing voters with his views on regulatory issues, but that he’s not trying to blaze a new trail for the PSC.

“I think Tim needs to remember he would be one out of five [PSC members]. He’s got to work with the other four to do anything,’’ Douglas said.

There is no question that the PSC has a huge role in the lives of Georgians who seldom consider it, Douglas said.

“When you flip on a light switch, you’ve encountered the PSC,” Douglas said.

The utility rates of 9.5 million Georgians and the utility companies’ billions of dollars in assets fall under PSC control, he said.

Douglas has said he would be the candidate who realizes that Georgia Power and other utilities must make a profit, but the consumer has to be protected, too.

“Maintaining reasonable rates is always the number one issue,’’ Douglas had said before the primary.

He has also pledged to take a hard look at the “do not call’’ list because it isn’t working for phone customers.

Now 49, Echols is a nonprofit executive who works with agencies around the state and was head of TeenPact, an nonprofit that teaches leadership skills to Christian youth. Ethical questions have been raised in the paying of TeenPact members to work in state Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine’s failed gubernatorial campaign. Paying the youth from a nonprofit organization to work in a political campaign could violate ethics laws, critics have said.

But Echols, who was once Oxendine’s campaign manager, told the Associated Press that although TeenPact members, the youth were not working in a TeenPact project while working for Oxendine.

“I have taken great precautions to ensure that no asset of TeenPact is used to aid any campaign, including my own, “ Echols said.

A retired Army major, the 56-year-old Douglas said those ethical questions will be addressed and answered at some point although probably not before the runoff is done.

Having served on the Newton County school board, Douglas was elected to the Georgia House in 2002 where he served a two-year term before moving to the Senate where he’s been ever since.

As for Echols’ strategy of working the rural counties this week, Douglas said he doesn’t know where the deciding votes will come from. He does know, “They’ll come from all over the state.’’