Here we are not even halfway through 2019 and already 2020 is shaping up to be one hell of an election year.
(At the center of the universe, that is. Here, the burning question is not so much whether Trump gets a second term or the Democrats take control of the U.S. Senate as who is fixin' to run Dade County.)
(Or that's The Planet's story and The Planet aims to stick with it. The saying "All politics is local" may or may not be true but certainly all politics in The Dade Planet is, though The Planet confesses to grave misgivings about the grammar of that).
What The Planet is getting at, eventually, is that June 2019 has barely started and already Dade County Executive Chairman Ted Rumley has a serious challenger for his job in the 2020 election. Local businessman and uber-volunteer Nathan Wooten announced Monday he will run for the county executive slot on the Republican ticket next year.
Wooten, 55, has a fairly high profile around Dade: Officially, he sat on the local school board and then, for 12 years, the Industrial Development Authority (IDA), the last six as chairman. Unofficially, when the Dade Chamber of Commerce went into decline as a community hub, Wooten more or less replaced it singlehandedly .
Wooten spearheaded the formation of the Greater Dade Business Owners Association, which hosts networking luncheons and learning series for local businesspeople; has put on the Christmas event, the Dade Small Business Expo, for the past three years; and last year staged a huge county Independence Day blowout, complete with watermelon, baseball, hot dogs and a massive fireworks display he appeared to have financed himself. The July 4 festival continues this year with promises to be even bigger and better.
(Photo: Nathan Wooten speaks at the first Dade Small Business Expo in 2016)
Wooten's day job is as founder and CEO of MaDex Associates and River Run Logistics, dealing in transportation sales, trucking and now--since he recently bought the long-abandoned Shaw building on Highway 11 North--warehousing. His businesses are based in Trenton, but Wooten travels a lot and when he last year declined reappointment to the IDA board he told The Planet it was because he stays crazy busy as it is.
So, asked The Planet, what about now? “I’ve been preparing folks here at my companies to take the ball and go with it,” Wooten replied by telephone from his office this morning. “If I win that election, I won’t be involved here at all.”
In Dade, the at-large seat on the county commission combines the function of commission chairman and county manager. The county executive not only presides over the other elected district commissioners in its monthly meetings but also manages the day-to-day operations of the county. Wooten says he understands that that's a full-time job, and if he's elected he's prepared to cede leadership of his businesses to his daughter and her husband.
“I think we need to develop the rec association," said Wooten. "I think we need improvement of infrastructure. I think we need strong countywide internet in order to help grow our residential population. I think we need to be one of the top tourist spots of North Georgia. Every day of my existence over there will be dedicated to those things.”
Wooten declined to criticize Dade's current administration but said he thinks the county needs a clearer direction going forward. "Because Chattanooga is out of space, communities around Chattanooga have to grow, and if we don’t set the plan now on how we want to grow it could turn out ugly," he said. "It’s going to grow no matter what. You see it every day. You can’t even fight your way through traffic on school mornings. I think we need a good plan on how to control it, or maybe a better plan."
In the other corner...
The Planet also spoke to incumbent county boss Ted Rumley, who confirmed by phone on Tuesday that he would run again in 2020 to keep the job he's been doing for over 10 years now.
"I’m married to it," said Rumley. "I’ve not taken a vacation in all the years I’ve been in here. I don’t leave the county except maybe to go to training and back, or when I had my heart problem. I try to do my job."
Rumley, 63, who was first elected as county executive in 2008, says he's proud of the way he and the other commissioners he's served with have done that job for Dade.
"We’ve pulled the county through the hardest times that the county ever went through,” said Rumley. "Now we've got the reserve built back up and we’ve got it in good financial shape. We’ve got an excellent credit rating. We’ve done a tremendous amount of hard work in the last few years to get us where we’re at."
Rumley said he wasn't annoyed Wooten was challenging him for the job. "He’s a good person,” said Rumley. “He’s done a lot of good in the county.” Rumley said he'd talked with Wooten and gathered that he'd always wanted to be county executive and now just seemed the right time. “He’s not getting any younger," he said.
But Rumley said his own health was still good, he still loved the county and its people, and he felt he still had the support to keep his seat though he expected some challengers. “It’s like last time," he said, referring to the 2016 election. “There will probably be more than Nathan."
In 2016, two candidates ran--with varying levels of commitment--against Rumley, and he beat them both easily, garnering more votes than the other two put together.
Rumley said he didn't "believe in retirement" and would keep running "just as long as people want to vote for me." So maybe another term, maybe two, he said, so as to serve a total of 20 years. "I’m not getting any younger, either," he said.
Rumley has, again, always seemed to win reelection rather handily, but the times they are a-changing and the 2020 race may well pose some pitfalls to Dade's longtime boss. For one thing, Rumley, a friendly clapper of shoulders, rememberer of names and worker of crowds, maintains that his door is always open and he always answers his phone (which The Planet has found to be quite true)--but has steadily resisted all pressure to take his message to social media.
Nathan Wooten, meanwhile, seems at ease with the newer forms of communication. He announced his candidacy first on Facebook and has already established a Nathan Wooten--County Executive FB page.
Rumley has also taken heat in the past couple of years for committing the county and its nonprofit water company to pay half a million dollars for land along Lookout Creek for a controversial proposed reservoir.
Neither man's candidacy is official yet--qualification papers may not be filed nor qualification fees paid until next spring.
