Dueling press conferences highlight divide over Rockdale County’s Chairman’s runoff race

ROCKDALE COUNTY, GA—Voters in Rockdale are facing a critical decision, as early voting for the June 18 runoff elections gets underway in Rockdale on Saturday, June 8. Voters must decide who will become Chairman of Rockdale County—one of the most hotly contested races that will be on the ballot.

The showdown for the county’s top leadership position is between two veteran politicians: Oz Nesbitt, Sr., who has served 16 years on the Board of Commissioners (he has served two 4-year terms as Post 1 commissioner and is currently serving a second 4-year term as Chairman) and JaNice VanNess, who served 8 years as a county commissioner and two years as a State Senator.

Dueling press conferences were held on Thursday, June 6, to get out the vote. A loosely-formed group of supporters for Nesbitt held a press conference where they wore T-shirts promoting that VanNess is running on “deception”—she’s a Republican who switched to the Democratic Party to run against Nesbitt. However, Brian Jenkins, one of the main speakers at the group’s press conference, blasted the supporters and the Rockdale Democratic Party, saying they were the ones who were “disingenuous.”  He said the Party shouldn’t have accepted qualifying fees from a non-Democrat and Nesbitt supporters should have had the foresight to be prepared for a run-off in the Chairman’s race.  Jenkins said the Party took in $40K in qualifying fees from the Democratic candidates and then did nothing to promote the primary elections or the runoff.  He told the supporters that now they have to work harder to get out the vote when they could have supported him or another Democrat. But he said he didn’t have a problem supporting VanNess, who is opposed to soaring  property taxes and excessive spending, which he, as a “fiscally conservative Democrat,” also opposes.

“None of you all contributed a dime to my campaign. Not one of you,”  said Jenkins, who ended up in fourth place in the five-way Chairman’s race in the May 21 primary.

Jenkins said he had met with Nesbitt and  VanNess, who are both seeking his endorsement. He said he plans to announce his endorsement by Monday,  June 10.

Meanwhile, at a separate press conference on Thursday, June 6, VanNess said that she’s running to clean up the mess.  Property taxes have soared to $44 million since 2018 under Nesbitt’s administration and she pointed to Nesbitt’s track record of costly lawsuits including one where he sent a sexually-explicit video to a female employee who won $85K in the case. VanNess said that $53K also was paid in attorney fees. In another case, the county reached a $345 settlement with former finance director Roselyn Miller, who sued after she said she was wrongly fired.

Nesbitt did not attend the press conferences.

To view the videos of the two press conferences:

Below are some of the signs supporters were holding at the JaNice VanNess press conference: