Despite fielding a crowd of candidates, the election-season contest is an affable one for the Cullman County Commission’s new part-time associate roles, with candidates agreeing on a conservative approach to most local issues if voters wave them through and into office.

At a GOP forum Q&A on Thursday, seven candidates for associate commissioner — two in the District 2 race; five in the race for District 4 — tried to distinguish themselves from the rest by identifying the biggest challenges Cullman County will face in the next four years, and explaining how their varied backgrounds and experiences qualify them for the job.

District 4 and District 2 are the only two contested races among the commission’s four associate commissioner spots, and everyone who’s running is a Republican. In the District 2 race, incumbent full-time associate commissioner Garry Marchman is seeking a new term in the reconfigured part-time associate’s role; his challenger is Richard Barnett. A third candidate, Josh Speakman, has dropped out of the District 2 race according to members of the Cullman County GOP executive committee.

In District 4, five people — all political newcomers — are seeking the seat, including Kristi Bain, Corey Freeman, Jeremy Jackson, Andy Pate, and Morris Williams. Forum moderator Ken Brown posed questions to all seven candidates from both races at once, with each candidate leaning heavily on their professional histories — in education (Bain and Williams), mining and farming (Pate), water and road maintenance (Jackson), law enforcement and emergency services (Freeman), corporate management (Barnett), public administration and planning (Bain again), and the military (Marchman) — to frame their qualifications to steer the county’s 13 departments and near-$70 million annual budget.

To varying degrees, every candidate flagged the county’s rapid growth amid turbulent economic times as the chief issue facing the Cullman area over the next four years. Marchman drew from his experience as an incumbent commissioner to frame how he’d guide county government to address its associated challenges.

“I think what we’ve done in the county over the past few years is definite proof of my leadership abilities, because we have progressed this county in a direction it needs to go,” he said. “…We never strategically planned in this county up until the last five years. Now, we’re getting to a point where we can manage better; we can use our employees better.

“The most important thing that this commission is gonna have in front of them is decision making,” he added. “By shifting from three members to five, “this commission is making a historical change…It’s going to change the way we do business in every facet of our county.”

Bain, who pledged she’s against raising taxes and would donate her $25,000 per-year salary to local interests if elected, said growth will place a strain on the county’s roads, bridges, water systems, departmental budgets, law enforcement, and ability to liaise with state and federal agencies for funding. The county commission, she said, needs leaders who can remain flexible while adhering to an overall strategic script that looks to the future — while accommodating for uncertainties.

“Infrastructure has got to be addressed, because you’re sitting on a county that is on the border of some major things going on,” she said, referring to development and growth in several areas — military programs, automotive manufacturing, medicine, data processing and technology, and more — in the Huntsville and Birmingham metro areas.

“Currently you have a lot of residential houses going up” in Cullman County, growing a population that will need stepped-up services for utilities, education, and other government-supplied services that, if well delivered, can enrich and maintain the area’s appealing quality of life. “Strategic plans are huge: I believe you have to set those strategic plans in place and they have to be public knowledge…but we can’t [always] go by them, because life happens.”

More people means an inevitable increase in crime, said Barnett, stressing the need for strong support from the commission for the Cullman County Sheriff’s Office.

“I think one of the biggest things, with all the new jobs and the companies — people working in Huntsville but living in Cullman — we are growing super fast, and with that comes crime,” he said, leaning on his past career as a regional distribution manager for major companies as vital experience in managing large budgets and coordinating the activity of hundreds of employees. “We have got to work with our sheriff’s department…This is probably the fastest that Cullman’s ever grown, and we have to prepare for [crime].”

Roads, the perennial concern (and often the bane) of county commissioners, will be especially strained from the addition of more people and more traffic, as well as surging fuel costs, said Freeman. Revising the county road maintenance schedule to ensure every road receives periodic attention could help the county more efficiently keep up with the changes, he said.

“I agree with everything Ms. Bain has said [about infrastructure, and to that I would add the [increasing] cost of fuel. We all know fuel is going up daily, and if it goes up much more, the road department’s not going to be able to operate. There’s not income for the road department like with water or sanitation — it’s an expense…We’ve got to develop a system of routine road maintenance that’s set up on a [periodic] route, like sanitation.”

Pate agreed with both Bain and Freeman, adding the county’s aging water delivery infrastructure to the list of services that will only be taxed further by additional growth.

“We can’t leave any [of these infrastructure issues] behind. The major thing is gonna be the roads, and the water: A lot of the water lines that are in here have been here since the first time they were put in. It’s going to take a lot of planning to fix that,” he said, noting that the budget-minded demands of being a self-employed farmer also apply to municipal needs like law enforcement, rural internet, sanitation, and other services the county either delivers directly or helps to facilitate.

Recently retired from a career with the county road department, Jackson said he’s seen firsthand the county’s infrastructural needs. “I know the hard work it takes because I’ve been on the ground; I’ve done the work,” he said. “I’ve poured concrete. I’ve done steel. I know it takes three days to bush hog Sulphur Springs.

“I think growth will be one of the biggest issues Cullman County’s got,” he added, noting the current construction of new residential subdivisions in rural and semi-rural areas.

Williams said his fellow candidates had well synthesized his own views of the challenges Cullman County will face in the coming years. and though everyone onstage agreed that raising taxes in the future is off the table, he offered perhaps the most definitive pledge to do more with less: “I am a hardcore conservative — always have been,” he said. “I’m not going to raise any taxes.

“…I think we’re going to have a lot of wisdom in how we go about [addressing] economic growth,” he added. “Otherwise, I think we could stand to lose the thing that makes Cullman ‘Cullman.’ I don’t want to see that happen. I am all for economic growth — but we’re going to have to be very smart about it.”

The winners of the GOP primary election on May 24 will go on to take office later this year, since no local Democrats are running for any of the open associate commissioner seats and won’t be on the ballot in the November general election.

Also fielding no Democrats is the race for Cullman District Attorney, whose two GOP candidates — incumbent Wilson Blaylock and challenger Champ Crocker — will take their turn fielding questions in front of voters at the county GOP party’s next forum. That event is scheduled for April 14 at 7 p.m. at the VFW Post 2214, located at 112 Veterans Drive SW in Cullman. Doors will open at 5:30 p.m., with an optional $10 dinner served at 6 p.m.