It appears that Augusta Commissioner Catherine Smith-Rice’s time as a leader has come.
The District 3 commissioner was largely ridiculed and sidelined as the “Southern Belle Commissioner,” and her motions seemed to perennially die in session for lack of a second.
Now that her foes who headed up the “Gang of Five” have dissipated and the commission, as a whole, has made a giant shift towards more common sense policy making as opposed to fighting over TV camera time, Smith-Rice has emerged as a tough-as-nails leader determined to hold the city responsible for getting the job done at the least cost to taxpayers.
I have to say that I am kinda proud of Cat.
Smith-Rice, her critics assumed she was a nep-baby who wallowed in naivete and ignorance, when compared to her statesman father, Grady Smith; however, she has proven herself to be a real advocate for the people, and not just those she technically represents.
from the beginning, she has thought nothing about helping a constituent outside her district, having the mindset of being a “Commissioner for the Community.”
“I don’t care if they are in my district or not, if someone needs help and they can’t get their commissioner on the phone, they know they can call me,” Smith-Rice was quoted as saying.
Smith-Rice ignored the more fiefdom minded commissioners, like Jordan Johnson, who, not so subtly, at first, told her to mind her own business and stick to her district, and it seems even Johnson has warmed to her.
Starting with the chronically troubled Bon Air Apartments, which is in her district, Smith-Rice successfully appealed to Rep. Rick Allen (R-Ga.) for help, and now, apartment complex owners all over the city are working harder to keep their properties safe, up-to-code and livable for low-income tenants.
Early in her commission career, Smith-Rice partnered with the late former Commissioner John Clarke in calling for a city-wide audit. At first, their initiative delivered nothing but snickers from their colleagues, but the pair continued all the way up to Clarke’s death.
City workers knew what to do when Smith-Rice’s “baby steps” approach to an audit began to bear fruit and the audit of the Recreation Department under former Director Maurice McDowell garnered the needed six votes to move forward. The Procurement Department, at first, simply dragged their feet in putting out a RFQ in hopes Smith-Rice would forget about it eventually.
When she kept on nagging, Procurement embarrassingly fumbled the ball, attempting to set perimeters of an audit as to make it not really an audit and put mechanisms forth to get their preferred company hired, breaking every procurement rule in the book.
The whole episode surrounding the Recreation audit began to set the wheels in motion to finally show former Director Geri Sams the door after a decades-long, iron fisted rule.
“We’re going to stay on this and not let it disappear,” Smith-Rice announced at last Tuesday’s meeting, when it seemed the city was back to dragging its feet.
As we stand today, it appears that the bids should be in by April 15.
At the same meeting, Smith-Rice also held the city’s feet to the fire when it came to hurricane cleanup and she came armed with pictures.
Specifically, Smith-Rice, as well as District 8 Commissioner Brandon Garrett, wanted a firm timeline on when city directional signs would be replaced, as well as illegally placed signs advertising for clean-up companies picked up and taken to the landfill.
When city workers complained that as soon as an illegal sign is spotted and removed and four more pop up in the same location the next day. This led Garrett to opine that since the signs had telephone numbers, why didn’t the city call the companies and threaten legal action for littering the right-of-ways. Duh?
(Welcome back Mr. Commissioner. We missed your deadpan common sense coming from the dais.)
Smith-Rice then expanded that conversation to include picking up the discarded shopping carts and other trash left behind by the ever-growing homeless population; she acknowledges that tackling the homeless problem will be a major initiative for her in the coming year. She says that having Gino “Rock” Brantley in the top law enforcement job is a good start.
“Gino just got in office two months ago, but he is assembling a great team, and I feel that they are already making a difference, but we all have to get behind this. I’m not concentrating on what is going on in other towns, I am concerned about what is going on in our town. Business owners need to stand up and help with this problem,” Smith-Rice said.
A big supporter of the pan-handling ordinance, Smith-Rice says that homeless encampments have moved out of the shadows and the homeless are beginning to build “tent cities” right out in the open and Smith-Rice warns that the city has got to be proactive or the streets of Augusta may start looking like San Francisco and other cities where the homeless seem to have taken over.
What about Columbia County?
Not to be left out, Columbia County has a rising star in Alison Couch.
Ever since the Ron Cross era, communication, compromise and cohesion has been the rule in Columbia County and when Harlem accountant Alison Couch beat incumbent Dewey Galeas in 2022 for the District 4 Columbia County Commission seat, many feared the days of “genteel” politics were coming to a close.
It was no fault of Couch that she attracted some rather zealous supporters, many of whom came from the more edgy side of the Republican party. However, as the shock of the upset win wore off, Couch promised to work in tandem with the other commissioners to move the county forward.
“I am going to talk to the other commissioners and start building relationships with them,” Couch said.
Couch remained true to her word and did not enter the commission as an obstructionist, Starbucks-slinging political firebrand; rather, she studies the issues, asks legitimate questions and has already garnered the support of Columbia County Commission Chairman Doug Duncan in the upcoming chairman’s race.
Ironically, having the support of the political mainstream could cause some of those early supporters who haven’t forgotten the heated race in 2018 between Duncan and former EMA Director Pam Tucker, to consider Couch to now be part of the establishment.
However, in Columbia County, that is not necessarily a bad thing.
Scott Hudson is the Senior Investigative Reporter, Editorial Page Editor and weekly columnist for The Augusta Press. Reach him at scott@theaugustapress.com
