Forney, Texas is my home. It has been home for over seven years now and I am thankful I made the decision to move here. The people here are friendly, they look out for each other, they genuinely care about their community. With election season upon Forney, dirty politics have already begun taking their toll on the town.
Early voting has started, the Mayor’s seat as well as three City Council seats are up for grabs. Despite the hopes of the majority that this election would be ran with integrity, honesty, and truth, the challengers have killed that hope. Fliers spouting half-truths and mailers slinging mud, distorted truths and flat out false information have been spread around town. The desire of those behind them is that enough uninformed people will believe what they read. Mayoral candidate John Carr and Place 4 City Council candidate Scott Regan have stooped to new lows.
Mr. Carr is best known around the community for his rants against alcohol sales at the Spellman Amphitheater. Outside of the City Council meeting held right after he applied to run for Mayor of Forney, and those few meetings that dealt with alcohol sales at the Spellman, Mr. Carr has not seen fit to attend council meetings. He chooses instead to use a local blog to get his information about what the Mayor and Council are doing. He cites the blog as though it is a genuine news site. However, it is nothing more than a website used to trash Forney, spout conspiracy theories, and let the site owner pursue her personal vendettas against City leaders. Scott Regan has chosen to run his campaign based on information from the same site.
Carr and Regan have recently sent out two mailers to Forney residents, both mailers used a picture they purchased from the blogger for what she told one resident was the best $25 Carr and Regan ever spent. The picture is of Mayor Rozell and current Place 4 Council member James Hatley sitting with two sock monkeys. The monkeys were made by and given to them from a young Forney girl with an incurable disease. The mailers use the photo to allude to “monkey business” taking place at City Hall. It alludes to our Mayor and Council being in the news lately, and uses headlines from the faux news blog. The use of that picture has upset the little girls father, as he does not want her sock monkeys, which she makes for the Scottish Rite Hospital, to be used for political mudslinging.
Using a sick little girls gifts is not sufficient for Mr. Carr. He has chosen to repeatedly talk about and write about conversations he claims to have had with the recently deceased Kaufman County D.A. A man who was murdered in his home, along side his wife. Two Forney residents who were highly respected in our community, a community still reeling from their deaths. He distastefully and shamefully uses the murdered mans name in an attempt to illicit sympathy votes at the polls. Claiming the former D.A. not only endorsed him but asked him to run. Mr. Carr knows full well that his claims can never be proven nor disproven. He knows better than to use the mans death for his own gain, but he does it anyway.
Rather than engage in dirty politics, both Mayor Rozell and Councilman Hatley have chosen to take the high road. They believe that if they keep speaking the truth, and behaving with integrity and honesty, Forney voters will hear it and vote accordingly. Mr. Carr and Mr. Regan count on voters being uninformed and gullible to their dirty politics. The people of Forney are smarter than Carr and Regan are willing to acknowledge. Prove that to them during early voting and on election day, May 11, 2013.