“In whatever arena of life one may meet the challenge of courage, whatever may be the sacrifices he faces if he follows his conscience – the loss of his friends, his fortune, his contentment, even the esteem of his fellow men – each man must decide for himself the course he will follow.”
— John F. Kennedy

On Tuesday we expected the majority of the BOC to finally clip the wings of Chairman Keith Ellis concerning operational power due to, among other things, his lack of leadership. The board did it, and took a step forward in bringing back some stability in the leadership of Newton County.

What we didn’t expect was that Commissioner Nancy Schulz would lead a charge to finally put J.C. Henderson on notice that it is not acceptable for him to be the pawn for whoever has the perceived political power in the county.

Schultz’s actions ensured that Henderson would no longer be involved on any county agency that has fiduciary responsibility to the tax payers of the county.

Henderson has used his position to pretty much do whatever he wished, and the elected officials who have supported him are as shameful as he is, including our current chairman who said at the commission meeting this past week that he “was sorry for what happened to Henderson.”

Henderson responded to the charges by Schulz by pulling out the race card and threating her through the constituents in her district. He then followed up the race card with the pious statement that he would follow the will of God, and God would punish those who aren’t just. In our opinion, it seems that punishment was handed out Tuesday.

Henderson apparently thought he was going to skate through another embarrassing moment caused by him. He was wrong, and all of the taxpayers of Newton County are the better for Schulz’ courageous actions.

The BOC has started the county down the road in the right direction. Now it’s up to new county manager, Tom Garrett, to grab the opportunity given him and do something with it.

The commissioners still have some major housekeeping to do.

We thank each of the commissioners for their actions. We believe that you followed the will of a majority of your constituents in doing so.