Gary Gilbert Supports Doug Racine For Governor

I support Doug Racine for governor because Doug helps make things happen and doesn’t look for political credit. For three years I had been working to help the Fairfax Volunteer Fire Department find a location for their major fundraiser, a Calcutta night. The current law limited the number of events that a location could hold and forced non- profits to hold their events at increasingly expensive locations.

The solution was to be simple: create opportunities for a non-profit to host the fundraiser of another non-profit. For an example, this would allow the Legion to host a fire department fundraiser. Both non- profits would benefit and cost would be kept down.

There was considerable support from the Franklin County delegation and they all co-sponsored the bill in two different legislative sessions. But the bill died in the House. The third year we were successful and passed H.249 to the Senate where it sat waiting to die in the Economic Development, Housing and General Affairs Committee. Senator Racine was kind enough to allow me to explain the problem to him and he told me that he could not promise anything but he would see what he could do to at least give the bill a hearing in the committee. Two days later I was scheduled to present the bill to the Senate committee. They acted on it, eventually moving it to the full Senate and creating the bill that solved the problem.

Doug did this without any publicity and without asking for anything in return. It shows a quality that I would like to see in the next
governor.

Representative Gary Gilbert
Georgia/Fairfax
849-6333