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When Republican real estate appraiser Tim Tallent decided not to run for a ninth term in the N.C. House of Representatives, two longtime local politicians stepped up to take his place.
Dr. Hector Henry, a Concord City Councilman for the past 24 years, and Jeff Barnhart, who’s served the last 10 years on the Cabarrus Board of County Commissioners jumped into state politics.
Both candidates live in Concord.
Republican Barnhart says that Henry’s filing surprised him a little. Though registered Republicans overtook Democrats in Cabarrus only last year, House District 81 leans heavily Republican.
Henry concedes his underdog status. Consisting largely of Cabarrus County outside of Kannapolis and Concord, and a large part of Union County, the district favors Barnhart in party and name recognition.
While Barnhart accepts that advantage, he says he won’t rely on it.
A large chunk of the district’s voters don’t affiliate themselves with any party. And while both candidates call themselves conservatives, each believes he has middle-ground and crossover appeal.
Henry’s concerns:children, health
Henry, a pediatric urologist and NorthEast Medical Center’s vice president for medical affairs, says he’s been getting his message out at football games, the county fair and cookouts.
“I’ve been eating a lot of barbecue,” says the self-proclaimed “health nut” who may be as recognizable jogging on city streets as he is in council chambers to Concord residents.
His message, he says, is that as a pediatric doctor, his “main interest in life is children,” and that he is “very concerned” about education.
“I think the public schools are the bedrock of the United States,”he says. “Good education has to be our main focus and concern.”
Henry opposes vouchers and tax credits for people who take their children out of public schools to send them to private schools or teach them at home.
Another concern is roads, a sore subject in Cabarrus County, where folks who get stuck on Interstate 85 during rush hour believe they haven’t gotten their fair share from the state.
The state formula for dispersing road construction and maintenance money “stinks,” he says. Counties like Cabarrus in major metropolitan areas should get extra points in the formula, he says.
Henry, 60, says he doesn’t like labels, but describes himself as an “arch Southern conservative ... an old-timey North Carolina Democrat.”
Fiscal conservative
He points to his 32-year tenure of the U.S. military — he’s currently the N.C. National Guard attorney general — as an example of his conservatism and his respect for law and order.
His council record shows he’s a fiscal conservative, he says, noting that the council has resisted raising taxes, with the exception of a two-cent increase for a street-improvement fund.
Other Concord developments of which he’s proud are merging the city’s schools with the county’s to save money; landing Philip Morris U.S.A., which turned into an economic boon, though some opposed it; and building Concord Regional Airport, which he says his Barnhart “violently opposed.”
Of his opponent, Henry says he and Barnhart “clearly have some very similar ideas about roads”but differ on education priorities. He points out that mobile classrooms have multiplied in recent years.
Henry says his statewide status with the National Guard would make his a voice listened to in Raleigh, and his experience overseeing 240 doctors proves he can work “to come to a consensus.”
Barnhart wants consensus
“I don’t want to hear the 10 percent on the right or the left; I want to hear the 80 percent in the middle,”he says. “And Ithink that’s the difference between Jeff and I.”
Barnhart calls himself a consensus builder who won’t be swayed by the few who voice complaints when making decisions that affect many.
“Consensus building, to me, is what it’s all about,” he says. “Nobody can have everything they want all the time.”
He says that his experience in county government, which he calls an extension of state government, makes him better qualified than Henry for state office.
County successes during his tenure include the state’s first work-over-welfare program in 1995, after which the state modeled its own, and attaining a AA bond rating, making Cabarrus one of less than 10 percent of counties to have that rating.
He’s also proud of the money the county has saved during his time on the board, including $300,000 the first year Cabarrus and Concord pooled their employees for insurance, and savings realized by offering some employees early retirement and promoting employees lower on the pay scale.
“I’d like to see us do that very thing,” at the state level, he says. “That’s something that a lot of companies have done and Cabarrus and it has been successful. It has the potential to save a lot of money.”
Barnhart says state government deals largely with budgeting and managing people, and his experience in business gives him an edge. He worked 10 years for IBM in various business-related jobs and co-owns Cabarrus Fence Co.
He hopes to help the state avoid a repeat of recent years, when the General Assembly raided the state’s “rainy day fund”to pay off court settlements and fund disaster relief for Hurricane Floyd.
As executive director of the American Belarussian Relief Organization, Barnhart oversees a non-profit organization that helps children who live in the area of the Chernobyl nuclear plant disaster in the former Soviet Union.
He’s also concerned, he says, about the children of this state, and educating them to compete in a global economy. That means paying teachers enough to attract and retain the best, and merit pay for teachers who excel.
However, he says there “are no sacred cows” in public policy and calls competition between public and private schools healthy. He’d consider supporting school vouchers if the government didn’t gain some control in private schools through their use.
Barnhart also calls that the state’s formula for funding roads inequitable, with the Piedmont and western N.C. getting short shrift. “I don’t think it’s a secret, and I don’t think we need a study to tell us that,” he says.
Student-led prayer
Barnhart doesn’t much like campaigning. He prefers doing the job to asking for votes and money, he says. But he’s attending events and meeting people to get out his name and message.
A U.S. Air Force veteran, Barnhart says part of that message is that he’s a “fiscal and social conservative.”
The candidates agree on one issue getting national attention, and disagree on another.
Both disagree with the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling banning student-led prayer at school-sponsored events, like football games.
Henry notes that prayers open sessions of the General Assembly and Congress, and Barnhart says the ban violates the rights of some to avoid offending others, which he sees as wrong.
On a death-penalty moratorium, Henry says he’d agree to stop executions for now to allow inmates currently on death row to take advantage of new technology, like DNA testing.
Barnhart says he opposes any moratorium on executions because it would undermine the validity of the justice system.
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