A political newcomer will assume the seat of Monroe County Commission Chairman when longtime Monroe County citizen Alan Gibbs is officially sworn into office to begin his four-year term on Tuesday, Jan. 7.
The Republican challenger Gibbs defeated incumbent Commission Chairman Greg Tapley by a more than two-thirds majority (67.3% to 32.7%) in a June 18 Republican primary runoff election.
Gibbs has patiently waited more than six months to finally take office, but he said he’s eager for the challenge.
“I am excited about it, but I’m also thankful for that time because it helped me to get some answers and get my feet under me a little bit before I just flop right in the position,” Gibbs said. “So I’m happy for that. I’m very excited to get started. I’m also very nervous and anxious. It’s a new chapter in my life. It’s a new chapter for Monroe County, and I’m ready to put one foot in front of the other and start moving in that direction.”
While Gibbs hasn’t yet officially begun his chairman tenure, he already attended a multi-day training class in Athens in early December. Gibbs said the experience allowed him to network with other newly-elected commissioners in surrounding counties, including some adjacent ones.
Gibbs said he decided to run for chairman after an undisclosed new development was proposed near his west Monroe County home several years ago. Gibbs said he successfully rallied more than 100 of his neighbors to fight the potential development but was unable to convince any commissioners to attend his community meetings. Although the proposed development never came to fruition, Gibbs spent about a year-and-a-half regularly attending commission meetings and learning more about the county government while he waited for a Board seat to come open.
Gibbs said, “And when it did, I put my name in the hat and started talking to the county (citizens) about it, and they voted me in.”
Gibbs was born in Danville, Kentucky, where he spent much of his childhood before moving to Monroe County with his parents, Jimmy and Donna Gibbs, as a teenager in the mid-1990s when his father, an over-the-road truck driver, took a job in Macon.
Gibbs stayed in Monroe County as an adult, marrying in 2001 a Juliette native, Nikki Morrow, who actually had a cameo as a young girl playing the piano in “Fried Green Tomatoes.” Alan and Nikki Gibbs, who attend Maynard Baptist Church, have two sons, James, 21, a senior at University of Georgia, and Steven, 18, who attends Mary Persons High School, and one daughter, Chloe, 8, who attends Hubbard Elementary School.
Gibbs, a Senior Training Coordinator for Norfolk Southern, works out of McDonough but covers a 22-state area, performing testing and evaluation on Norfolk Southern management trainees prior to their going out into the field. One of Gibbs’ recent projects was implementing the Smith defensive driving system at Norfolk Southern.
Gibbs said leading meetings is not new to him because of his job responsibilities. However, he said using Robert’s Rules of Order, particularly in regard to public comments in zoning hearings, will be something different.
“I’m as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs,” Gibbs said with a smile. “But we’re gonna get through it. . . I’m not expecting to have a lot of problems with this. I think the meetings are gonna run smooth. I’ve got some great commissioners to work with. (County attorneys) Ben (Vaughn) and Natalie (Sundeen) are fantastic to have by our side. I’m just really excited.”
Gibbs said one of his first tasks as chairman will be to resolve the ongoing battle over adult-themed library books in the children’s section of the Monroe County Library. Gibbs mentioned an October decision by the Monroe County Library Board to move a book entitled “Gender Queer” that contained homosexual content from the juvenile section to the adult section. Gibbs said he believes the book “Gender Queer” has no place at all in the library.
“The library is obviously a hot topic. I think that’s one of the main reasons I got elected,” Gibbs said. “We have to come to an agreement with the library. To be fair to the library too, we have not asked them as a Commission to do anything specifically that I’m aware of. And shutting the library down is the last thing I want to do. I know it comes up first in most conversations, but it’s the absolute last thing I want to do.”
As for long-range goals that might even exceed his initial four-year term, Gibbs said he wants Monroe County to begin developing plans for a bypass. Gibbs also said he wants Monroe County to continue expanding the county’s water system to include its own water source. In addition, Gibbs said he wants to make county employee benefits competitive with the private sector, particularly as Monroe County continues to increase in industry.
As for county departments in which he has developed a keen interest, Gibbs has a background in heavy equipment, so the road department is something he’s knowledgeable about, and he has developed an interest in helping Monroe County’s Emergency Services continue to grow in personnel and equipment.
Gibbs said he wants Monroe County to continue to grow commercially along the I-75 corridor, but he said there’s a limit even to the type of industry he wants there. He cited the three large projects coming to Rumble Road, a mega convenience store, a data center, and a natural gas power plant, as the type of growth he’s seeking rather than the large warehouses that have proliferated in Henry County.
Gibbs said he’s pleased with what he’s seen from the performance of County Manager Jim Hedges so far and said Monroe County appears to be operating effectively.
“This is a very well-oiled machine,” Gibbs said of the Monroe County government. “I’m very happy to see how well it is running. I want to give credit where credit is due.”
Gibbs said he plans to use all forms of media to get the word out to the community about the happenings in Monroe County. This includes the print media through the Monroe County Reporter and Monroe Matters, the regional TV stations, and social media, such as the Monroe County Board of Commissioners Facebook page.
Gibbs said he’s pledged to be transparent as Chairman and to run a transparent government. He said he brings to the Board a willingness to bridge the gap between the county’s elected officials and its citizens.
Gibbs said, “I want to bring people together. Because I don’t want to do things or make decisions to divide people. I just wanna humbly serve the community.”
