By Brandon Moseley
Alabama Political Reporter
Thursday, November 19, the Alabama Republican Party held its regularly scheduled meeting in the Pell City Courthouse.
The main order of business was filling vacancies on the State Executive Committee. Under ALGOP rules, a member of the state Executive Committee members can not miss two meetings of the Committee in a row. Four members of the state executive committee representing St. Clair County missed both of the 2015 regularly scheduled state meetings in Montgomery and Talladega so were removed by rule.
Pell City businessman and former St. Clair County Chairman Paul Thibado nominated Vernon Burns. Former Chairman Thibado said that Vernon Burns owned his own business before selling it and is, “Truly a great conservative citizen…Vernon is a devoted Christian conservative that will never do anything bad for the country, the state, county, or city.”
There were no other nominations and Vernon Burns was unanimously selected to serve on the state Executive Committee.
Finding a second nominee was a little more difficult.
Former Chairman Thibado said that on the state executive committee meetings you get to meet a lot of great people from around the state and can learn from their view points. “If you really care you should get involved if you don’t care you shouldn’t.”
Judge Bill Weathington (R) nominated former Moody Mayor Bill Morris for the positon.
State Representative Jim Hill (R-Odenville) seconded the motion. There were no other nominations. The vote to make Bill Morris a member of the ALGOP executive committee was unanimous.
Morris is a candidate for the St. Clair County school boards.
At the October meeting the St. Clair County Executive Committee selected St. Clair County District Attorney Richard Minor (R) and Ashlyn Campbell to fill the other two vacant places on the State Executive Committee representing the overwhelmingly Republican voting county.
The main speaker was to be Congressman Mike Rogers (R-Saks) but Chairman Lance Bell said that Rogers is still stuck on the runway at DC where there is a backlog due to the weather.
Chairman Lance Bell said that the next meeting will be in January though there is likely to be an executive committee meeting in December to deal with some organizational issues.
The former Head of the St. Clair County Commission announced that he is seeking to return to the commission. In 2014 Commission Head Stan Batemon was unseated as the Head of the Commission by Commissioner Paul Manning (R). Tommy Bowers was appointed to fill the remaining two years of Manning’s vacated place 2 position on the commission. Now Batemon is running for Bowers place.
Batemon said that we have a great county and I have been part of the commission for 16 years, during that time not one thing was ever found to be wrong in any audits. We need to balance those budgets before raising taxes. A lot of road work is being done under ATRIP money. I worked on that in Montgomery. Next year that money runs out.
Commissioner Tommy Bowers said we moved here in 1989. I have worked for St. Clair County. I have been to Montgomery. I have been on recruiting trips. When I was appointed to that seat, I made the promise that I would looks at all the money from a citizens standpoint. If elected to a second term, I will continue to look at what is best for the citizens the employees and the county as a whole. “We are headed in the right direction and I plan to keep it moving.”
Former Chairman Paul Thibado endorsed Dr. Larry DiChiara for Congress. Thibado said, “All of his life he has been in education.” He was superintendent of the year and worked for the state as the turnaround guy that went in there and fixed failing systems. He is extremely conservative. Thibado said that incumbent Rep. Mike Rogers has voted with Democrats too many times and listed the trade bill, the budget deal bill, and voting against a bill to prevent the World Bank from doing business with countries that sponsor terrorism as reason not to vote to give Rogers an eighth term.
