Editor’s Note: These articles are part of a series of questionnaires profiling candidates running for Bryan County Commissioner (District 1) in the upcoming Republican primary (Tuesday, May 21). Answers were edited for length and clarity.
About Puffer
Scott Puffer and his wife Corina live in Ellabell, and their three children attended Bryan County Schools. Puffer works for the Department of Defense on Fort Stewart and Hunter Army Airfield.
“I’m in charge of infrastructure for the Department of Public Works, Operations and Maintenance,” said Puffer.
Why are you running?
I’m running for the seat because I started to notice a lot of change going on with the new Hyundai plant coming and I started to get concerned. A majority of the people who live here were either born here and stayed because of the nice quiet hometown feel or moved here for that reason. I moved here for that reason and have been here over 20 years. There was very little to no transparency from the current system and people were getting concerned and upset. I’m a conservationist by heart and it was breaking my heart to see what was happening. Something had to give.
What do you feel are the three biggest issues facing District 1?
No transparency
No town hall meetings or such to inform the constituents of what was going on or asking for input from the people who elect these civic leaders
The growth is unreal and has to slow down. They put the cart before the horse and now it's rush time to get infrastructure in place and services to satisfy a group from another country. We as a people didn’t sign up for this.
What will you do to help solve those issues?
What I will do if elected is bring transparency to the constituents and slow this growth down. Every developer around here wants to build special home subdivisions. Nobody wants that except some running for office who can profit tremendously from it along with the developers. Let the other counties destroy their land and build them. WE don’t want it. I speak for a bunch if not the majority.
With growth coming from Savannah and the port to North Bryan at I-16, are you as a candidate willing to support new road corridors in and around Pembroke, specifically from Highway 280 to Highway 119?
The new roads everyone is talking about are to sustain new subdivisions, not to make traffic better. Traffic is horrible already and affecting everyone. What GDOT has planned won’t really solve a lot of problems, especially numerous traffic circles. We need to keep what we have and save our resources for the next generation and so on. Quit destroying it. We need an ecosystem to survive, not roads and sub-divisions and polluted rivers and streams. Farmers and hunting land are more important.