Tuesday night was the first of two district attorney forum debates for the Western circuit. Attendees filled the Hill Baptist Church to hear from the two candidates, Deborah Gonzalez and Kalki Yalamanchili, and ask their questions at the end of the discussion.
Lee Becker, Emeritus Professor, and Oconee County resident stood in as moderator for Tharon Johnson, founder, and CEO of Paramount Consulting Group, who was originally scheduled to moderate the discussion. Among the topics, the candidates’ thoughts on prosecuting individuals seeking, providing, or assisting in an abortion under Georgia’s Heartbeat Bill.
While Gonzalez is adamant in her dislike of the bill and against prosecuting people seeking an abortion, Yalamanchili talked about personal issues surrounding his wife with childbirth but said it is still important to enforce the law and look at it on a case-by-case basis. “I’m not a doctor and as a lawyer, I’m not going to substitute my judgement for that person. That response has been spun in ways to try and scare people. The reason that it’s really important that you don’t say things like, “I will categorically not enforce the law,” is what’s that’s going to mean is we’re going to lose control on the local level of the ability of our District Attorney, who is more directly accountable to the voters here, to be held responsible for whatever decisions that person makes,” he said.
A lack of staffing within the district attorney’s office has been a major controversy leading up to this debate. Yamanchili has pressed Gonzalez about hiring attorneys with no criminal prosecution background and failing to carry out trials. Gonzalez claims the main reason the district attorney’s office lacks employees is because the Athens-Clarke County Government refuses to increase the salary level for attorneys, making it difficult to compete with other counties for employees. “We don’t pay enough. That is something I’ve argued with the Mayor and Commission for years. We are not competitive in our salaries,” Gonzalez argued.
At the end of the forum community members submitted their own questions and among them were concerns surrounding prosecuting juveniles and what’s being done to decrease gang activity and youth violence. Gonzalez focused on discussing the community outreach division she began when she took office and the successes it has created in the community. However, she also criticized the ACC Mayor and Commission for pushing grants intended for youth violence prevention towards infrastructure.
In regards to gang activity, Yalamanchili discussed the importance of differentiating between young people who are in a gang and have not committed a crime and people involved in a gang and have committed serious crimes and felonies. Yalamanchili believes it is important to hold those people accountable and wants to work more closely with the attorney general in tracking gang activity in order to divert young people away from it.
Moderator Lee Becker filmed the debate, which you can watch in its entirety here.
The next candidate debate is set to take place on Oct. 22 at the auditorium of Piedmont Athens Regional Medical Center on Prince Avenue.
This article comes to Now Habersham in partnership with WUGA News
