By Cameron McWhirter

In life, Jack Dayton — the popular sole commissioner of Towns County for 16 years — was the reason most people in this mountain community liked having just one person run their county.

If you had a problem, you didn't have to fill out forms in triplicate or request multiple public hearings. You just called Jack.

But Dayton died last May, succumbing to emphysema. Then the problems began.

It took seven months to get a new county commissioner, as six candidates battled for the job. In the interim, county departments racked up cost overruns. Property tax bills still haven't been sent out.

A week after the new sole commissioner, Bill Kendall, 68, took over in December, the county bookkeeper gave him bad news: Towns County had only $7,000 left in the bank, and $525,000 in outstanding bills due in three days. Kendall scrambled to borrow money from local banks. Now he's looking at layoffs and possible fee increases to cover the shortfall.

"It's a heavy load," Kendall said, rubbing his eyes as he slouched in his sparse county office, a month after taking over as commissioner.

Dayton's long tenure as Towns' sole commissioner and the disorder that has followed his death cast in sharp relief the pros and cons of an archaic form of government that still reigns in nine Georgia counties — and nowhere else in the country.

While many in North Georgia support sole-commissioner government, others say it's doomed by the complex demands of modern government. With the financial and political mess that has followed Dayton's death, some in Towns County are calling for sole commissionership to be buried with him.

"This is a really silly system," said Michael Valinoti, a retiree from Illinois who has lived in Hiawassee for 10 years. He recently wrote a letter to the Towns County Sentinel calling for a multimember commission to replace the sole commissioner. "All the problems after Mr. Dayton died was just the final straw," Valinoti wrote. "It's a good example of why they shouldn't have it."

Even Kendall, the man who replaced Dayton after months of delay, wonders how long one-person rule can last in the fast-growing county, which now has a population of about 10,000. "There's just so much more to do than there was just a few years ago," he said.

Since the 1950s, sole commissionership has been on the decline, as a result of legal challenges, political battles and ubiquitous growth. Today, the nine counties governed by lone commissioners are all rural, and most are in North Georgia. The state's 150 other counties have county commissions of varying size.

Supporters praise the sole-commissioner system as direct democracy in action. Unfettered by political bickering, they say, such a government can get things done quickly. Sole commissioners serve as countywide ombudsmen, listening to everyone's problems and making immediate decisions.

"If you get that right person in office, who is very honest and who has the confidence of the community, you will get the best results," said James Welch, 56, the sole commissioner of Murray County in northwest Georgia.

Critics assail the system as anachronistic and unrepresentative, putting too much power into one person's hands and fostering "Boss Hogg"-style political machines. It eliminates the legislative branch of government, they say, giving the executive too much power. If sole commissioners want to raise taxes or build a road, they just do it.

"It's a violation of our Constitution, of individual rights," declared Gene Hinson, a retiree from the Savannah area who now lives in Hiawassee. Last year, he led a failed effort to have Towns County replace its sole commissioner with a county board. The proposal lost by a 2 to 1 ratio.

But Hinson said his goal remains to see sole commissionership — which he described as "living under a czar" — driven into extinction. "This is not American," he said.

Origins murky

Evolved from obscure origins in the 19th century, sole-commissioner government was widespread across Georgia for generations. No other state allows it, according to the National Association of Counties.

Ed Jackson, an expert on state constitutional history at the University of Georgia's Carl Vinson Institute of Government, said he could not find anything specific in the historical records to explain when the concept of sole commissioners arose or why.

Jackson said Georgia's modern county system arose after the 1868 state Constitution, which gave the state Legislature authority to set up boards of commissioners "in such counties as may require them, and to define their duties." The law never specified that counties had to have boards.

Some counties did, but others opted for just one commissioner, probably because locals in rural areas felt that one person could handle the job, Jackson said.

Sole commissioners became common throughout Georgia. Even major urban counties such as DeKalb had a sole commissioner for decades. Towns County was so remote that, until 1984, it was still run by a probate judge.

C. Brooks Bailey, 70, the sole commissioner of Pulaski County, in Middle Georgia, said the advantage of one-person rule was simple: "We can get a lot of things done that we don't have to fuss about."

But growing populations and increasing diversity made one-man government unwieldy — or downright impossible — in most counties. Competing interests, and the resulting battles, led to replacing sole commissioners with boards because all factions wanted representation. In North Georgia, many sole commissioners have been challenged by referendums brought by newcomers who felt that the form of government was undemocratic.

Race also has been a factor in ending many sole commissionerships. In 1992, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People sued Bleckley County, in Middle Georgia, on the grounds that its sole-commissioner government blocked black representation by favoring white-majority politicians. While a board would allow some minority representation, one-man government could not, they argued.

The U.S. Supreme Court heard the case and decided in favor of the county, ruling that it could keep its form of government because no evidence had been offered that racism was a factor in creating a sole commissioner. In other counties, however, such evidence was found, and they eventually switched to a county commission system.

Today, a racial challenge is unlikely in the remaining sole-commissioner counties, which are among the whitest in the state.

A tough mountain clan

At first blush, Towns seems the perfect place for a throwback form of government. The sylvan county along the North Carolina line is home to part of the highest mountain in Georgia, Brasstown Bald, and to one of Georgia's most beautiful lakes, Lake Chatuge. But like most of North Georgia, it has seen a steady influx of retirees and part-timers from metro Atlanta, Florida and elsewhere.

From 1990 to 2000, Towns grew by 38 percent, according to the U.S. census. From 2000 to 2004, the census estimates that it grew another 8.7 percent.

Throughout this period of change, Jack Dayton managed the county's growth and government. He was known for being frugal with county money "almost to a fault," said his daughter, Rebecca King. Dayton was descended from an Appalachian clan known for its ruggedness. A local history book records that one of Dayton's ancestors once held a buck by its horns in an open field until another man could come and shoot the animal.

King, now a senior vice president of the Bank of Hiawassee, said her father could be just as tough when it came to making important decisions for the county. Democratic and Republican politicians both considered him a close friend. Voters trusted him.

"Jack ran a firm, tight ship," said Holly Tiger, 54, the owner of Anderson's store on Hiawassee's town square.

But as time went by, state regulations became more complicated. More developers showed up. Budgets grew larger. And Dayton's health declined.

Weakened by illness, he still handily won a fourth term in office in November 2004, even though he was a Democrat in a county where 72 percent of the voters chose George W. Bush for president.

Hinson and his group persuaded Dayton to agree to a referendum in 2005 on whether to set up a five-member board. Few thought the proposal had much chance. Dayton was too popular.

In the hospital, Dayton said he would not endorse either a sole commissioner or a board in the referendum. "I want the people to choose without my influence," he declared repeatedly on his deathbed, his daughter King said.

Financial chaos sets in

After Dayton died May 14 at age 68, the election of a new commissioner was delayed until after the referendum. So, as six candidates vied for Dayton's former job, groups for and against sole-commissioner government campaigned as well, adding to the confusion.

The referendum was roundly defeated in June. The election for the sole commissioner was held in November, but no candidate received a majority, forcing a runoff between Kendall, a Democrat, and Republican Jerry Nichols in December.

Hinson, the critic of sole-commissioner government, says that state law clearly requires that an election for a new commissioner must be held no more than 55 days after a commissioner dies. Towns County held its first vote for a new commissioner more than 175 days after Dayton's death.

Far more serious than the political delays and infighting were the financial problems.

The county tax digest was being revised last summer, and, with Dayton gone, no one set the next year's budget or ordered the revisions in a timely manner. With no tax bills sent out, no money was coming in.

And, with Dayton's habitual frugality gone, spending became a problem. In the 2005 budget, 13 of the 23 line item expenditures in the county budget were substantially over cost. The result: Dayton planned a 2005 budget of $6.7 million; instead, the county spent $8 million.

"Everything went bad all at once," said Nichols, who was narrowly defeated by Kendall.

Kendall, who was Towns' school superintendent for 26 years, secured a $1 million credit line to get the county through "this crisis, this crunch, whatever you want to call it."

"I don't know what happened," Kendall said. "I don't want to lay the blame on any one person."

The person who authorized the spending was Wayne Garrett, 71, the county's longtime probate judge, who was forced to take over until a new commissioner could be elected. Garrett said he had thought the interim job would last "two months at the most." He held it for seven.

Garrett said he just wanted to spend enough money so the county could get by until a new boss stepped in. But soon, various departments besieged him with requests, many of which he felt were necessary. For a lifelong jurist who ran an office with an annual budget of less than $300,000, it was overwhelming. "Some people might say I spent too much money," said Garrett, sitting in his office upstairs from Kendall's. "I probably did."

The day Garrett was able to swear in Kendall in late December, "I was probably the happiest man in the county," he said.

'Slowly going away'

Kendall now spends days in the drab sole commissioner's office on the first floor of the courthouse. It's much the same as Dayton left it, except for a new calendar tacked to the wall and marked-up budgets strewn on one table.

Kendall said he hopes not to lay off any of the 100 county employees, but that he may be forced to. He has frozen hiring and is looking at raising developer impact fees. He doesn't want to assign blame, he said.

"The money's spent," he said. "No use looking back. We need to move forward."

Some observers believe the chaos after Dayton's death, as well as the steady flow of newcomers, will eventually end this rustic form of local government.

State Rep. Charles Jenkins (D-Blairsville), whose district includes Towns County, said sole-commissioner governments "are slowly going away. It's a matter of time. The reason they will eventually go away is because of growth. It will get to the point where it is just too much for one person. One guy just can't stay on top of it mentally and physically."

Garrett, who despite his unpleasant stint as interim commissioner still supports having one man at the top, said it boils down to how many outsiders move in.

"When they outnumber us," he said, "that's when they will get a board of commissioners."