In our Wednesday edition we had a thorough story on what our local state representatives’ plans were for this upcoming session.

John Douglas, John Lunsford and Doug Holt all took the time to share their plans with their constituents.

Newly elected State Rep. Toney Collins (D-95), in spite of many attempts by our reporter Rachel Oswald to contact him, was apparently not available or did not care to be bothered by such mundane matters as addressing his constituents.

This week we also visited with our legislators at the Georgia Capitol. Sen. Douglas and Rep. Holt took time to meet with us, Rep. Collins was nowhere to be found. We even asked Douglas and Holt if they had actually seen this elusive phantom; they said they had seen him once.

This bit of news was encouraging because we were beginning to think we were imagining him.

We aren’t surprised, however, that he hasn’t been available for his constituents or the press. Collins did nothing in the last election to deserve being elected in the first place. He rode into office on the back of President-elect Barack Obama.

Collins, who is a Democrat, had a worthy opponent in Erick Hunt, who ran as a Republican.

Before the election we encouraged voters in District 95 not to vote down the party line in Collins’ case.

After the election, we were told by some community leaders that one of the reasons Collins received their vote was because they could not believe Hunt, who is black, could actually be a Republican.

That’s too bad because we now have a man representing us, who so far has shown that he could not care less about any issues affecting us in the future.

We can only hope that when the next election comes around, that you take the time to know both candidates. If you don’t, you just might get what we have now — not much of anything.