Ashley Enfinger: Candidate for Houston County Commissioner District 3

Today Fr. Aaron spoke with Ashley Enfinger, who is a candidate for Houston County Commission district 3. Their conversation included a biographical sketch of Ashley's life spent in Alabama, his work ethic, and what skills he hopes to bring to the Houston County Commission if elected. They also spoke about their shared affection for law enforcement, the necessity of family support, and why being ambitious to be of service is so positive.

Update: Recorded on May 15. On May 19, Ashley was elected to the County Commissioner position for which he was running. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello everyone. Today I had the opportunity to talk with Ashley Entfinger, who is running for Houston County Commission District 3. You know, we were able to talk a little bit about his motivation, what his background is, why is he pursuing this office at this time? He's been in a native Alabama and has been living in the local area for pretty much all of his life. And now we've what's changed and what did the needs arise that he was hoped to serve in this in this capacity and address some of the needs that he sees that the county commission performs for our local community. We had a wonderful conversation talking about his family, his motivations, and even we're able to share some of our some of our shared experiences because of his uh time being in and around law enforcement. Anyway, we had a wonderful conversation and hope you'll join us for this journey. Well, thank you very much for coming here to talk to me. I really appreciate it. Um so far, I've it's been a privilege. Once we started this podcast last year for the church, it was the goal was just to get to know people of the community, and I got a chance to talk to business owners and ministry leaders. I mean, someone is the Susan's running the Wiregrass Pregnancy Hope, Wiregrass Hope Pregnancy Center, and but also interview other business owners who are unique to the community, Carrie, who owns the thirsty pig. And so people are like, Okay, I'll watch that. A priest talked to a bar owner. And so that was you know, they were great conversations that our parishioners have benefited from, but it's now it's kind of going beyond that too. And other people in the community saying, Hey, I saw that conversation, it was helpful. And then it occurred to me, oh, I wonder if those who are running for office, if that would be helpful to them too, just because of how we could kind of talk about from the perspective of why the people of God ought to care about it. Absolutely. When someone's either holding public office or running for public office, that's significant to them too. It's not obvious to me at all that God leaves those things alone. I agree.

SPEAKER_01 2:08

I agree. So yeah, definitely, definitely. I agree with what you're saying there. Running for public office for me, like I say, it's been a long time. It's been about 13 months I've been running, you know. I do.

SPEAKER_00 2:18

Just to clarify, I just clarify, it's uh it's Houston County Commissioner District 3. District 3, that's correct. Right. So which ran which is mostly south and southeast of the circle. It is correct.

SPEAKER_01 2:30

Now there's a small portion of that that goes inside the circle there between uh Main Street over to South Park. So between Harley Davidson, if you go in, run over to Maine, and then take a left on Maine, going back toward the circle. There's a small portion inside of that. Okay, but it does cover uh an area over on the uh the west side of Dothan as well. So uh down John Deodum, where you turn there, it goes back towards Brandonstown or some people call it 605 Brannistown. So that area, there's a lot of homes inside the Dothan City limit that way as well in District 3.

SPEAKER_00 2:57

Okay. They're I'm very vested in your campaign because I live in District 3. Do you really? I do. Great. Yeah, well outside the circle. When we moved here, we we're looking for we we moved up here from Central Florida, and where we lived was kind of a little bit rural. I'm like, I don't think I can go back to kind of the the urban setting. And so we're looking for we found a wonderful home that was down Hodgsville Road, down then that way.

SPEAKER_01 3:21

Yeah, you mentioned that the other day. Hodgeville, exactly not far from homesteading grounds. I used to stay in Hodgsville a lot. We had some friends over there. We went to high school a bit. We stayed over in Hodgsville a lot.

SPEAKER_00 3:29

Oh, it's it's a beautiful area. We loved it. We found exactly the right spot. It's it's fantastic. But now I'm finding out a little bit more about what the county commission does and how they minister to the needs of their broader county. And I've been very curious as to what you know, A, what the county commission does in meeting the needs of these areas beyond the obvious, like roads and and what you know those things that everyone just assumes should occur. Sure. But also wanting to find out about how when you do this and when you're running for office, what is it? Because if you're there's there's an incumbent who is running for re-election, and so you're running to unseat them. Well, not in my case, no. Oh, really?

SPEAKER_01 4:16

Okay, yeah, the the current the current commissioner there is Ricky Herring. Okay, he's actually lives in Hodgesville, too. So not there where you are. Ricky's not rerunning. Oh, I'm he is totally got that wrong. I'm sorry that he is not, yeah. So currently there's me and one other candidate that are running, and we neither one have been in politics before. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 4:34

Yes, sir. Interesting. Okay. So I I I so my research was wrong. I messed up names. You're okay. So so you yourself and one other person are going running for the office that's going to be vacated. Correct. And that is correct. And my hope is to talk about. I've seen your signs around town, and I even see I've seen a couple of the commercials as well. Sure. Because there's not that's the only commercial that runs nowadays, is someone's campaign running work right now.

SPEAKER_01 5:02

Absolutely. Exactly. You can find a campaign sign or a campaign commercial anytime you want to the documentary. Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_00 5:06

And no, where you watch the local news or whatever, it seems like that's the only commercials running anymore, is the candidate so-and-so. And you'll see two candidates, and this doesn't happen too often, but often enough that it sticks in my head that I'll see two candidates running for the exact same office who will both say about themselves the same things.

SPEAKER_01 5:23

It happens, it does.

SPEAKER_00 5:24

And so my thought is okay, if if candidate A and candidate B are both saying the same things about each other, sure, do those cancel out? Do those cancel do those traits cancel each other out? And therefore, now I'll be looking for the differences. That's right. You know, pick your favorite Venn diagram. If those circles overlap enough, I could ignore the overlap and just focus on what are the differences. Sure, sure, sure. And so that's kind of what I was hoping to kind of you know talk about. Absolutely talk about with your two.

SPEAKER_01 5:54

Absolutely. Well, me personally, and like I say, the candidate that's running against me is a great person, a friend. He's actually a football coach with my son's believer. Oh, wow. So we have a good relationship, and we've probably had one of the cleanest races, I think, out of any campaign in Houston County, to be honest with you. So, but back to the differences between us is you know, I've been in business for about going on 20 years. Okay. And I take a big perspective and I've had many things to overcome over the last 20 years, you know. We look at the commission currently right now, and and we talk about those simple things that everybody knows, or I say everybody, they don't. So to your viewers, there's a lot of people that don't know what a county commissioner does. Okay. I've encountered that this entire year while I've been campaigning. You go and they go, well, what is what do y'all really do? You know? Well, the biggest part of that, and basically the legal part of it, is controlling the budget for the county. So that's one thing that's a high priority. But if you look at the commission now, it it's very diverse as far as you know, it used to be Roden Bridge, and then we have law enforcement, obviously, that we hand out money to for the sheriff's department, things like that. Which to mention I am a reserve deputy sheriff, so I know a pretty good aspect of the law enforcement side of it.

SPEAKER_00 6:55

Okay. And did I see correctly on social media that you received the endorsement of Sheriff Balenza? I did. Oh, that's fantastic. It's absolutely fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 7:03

He is a great, a great man, a great personal friend of mine that I've known him and his wife for a long time. Not only that, he's a mentor. He really is. I've been to Donald about a lot of things outside of the political arena, and I take his advice. He's a wise man.

SPEAKER_00 7:15

I my I've been mostly been around in and around fire departments, and they and again, they shaped my uh view of God and people in ways that seminary seemingly never could. However, in all that time, I got a chance to work alongside and get acquainted with uh law enforcement in some ways. And as a result, some of my best friends are were police officers. Police officers. And specifically, in I came up from uh Seminole County in Central Florida, and my best friend there was a Seminole County Sheriff's Deputy. And we hung out all the time. And he'd say, Hey Aaron, you want you got a free day? You want to ride in my car? And I'm like, I'm like, Zach, please, just you got to promise me no mutual aid calls with FD, because if they see me in your car, I'll never hear the end of it. Right. Because we all know there's kind of like this guns and hoses rivalry. It's a sibling rivalry, but nevertheless, every now and then we'd run a call. I'd write a call with Zach and I'd show up and there's the fire department going, Chap, what are you doing? Well, you've crossed over to the dark side. I'm like, no, I have not crossed over to the dark side. But as a result, so I so when I interact with Dothan PD, but specifically Houston County SO, I'm just have a great affection for them.

SPEAKER_01 8:23

They're awesome. They're awesome people up there. They're caring people, I tell you. They really care about our community. And contrary to what you said here, I think actually, you know, as far as your local volunteer fire departments and things like that, they have a great relationship with the Sheriff's Department, and vice versa. I see utilization between both departments all the time. You know, they're looking out for each other. It's probably a little bit different down in a bigger city than where you were from. You know, it probably is more of a rivalry. But I think here that relationship is very good. It really is. It's absolutely good.

SPEAKER_00 8:50

Well, when I when I say sibling rivalry, because they do definitely at the end of the day, they are all brothers. They are. They they really do see themselves that way. And I can't tell you how many times I've been on those calls with you know FD and Leo and whoever, however, that unfolds, they very much back one another up in every way possible. And so that's why for me, it was oftentimes a natural and organic outgrowth to make friends in law enforcement because there I was right alongside of them on the same call. And how often I was be able to be in those situations and make those friends with, you know, uh sheriff's deputy or a police officer and say, How are you doing? And the conversation was very natural. And so it's very, it's a friendly rivalry in some ways, specs. But but we do sometimes you see those no needling, they're going, okay, you know, those cops, they really, if they grow up and they're really nice and they really eat their vegetables, they can be a firefighter someday.

SPEAKER_01 9:46

And so and I'm sure they think the same it's I I reckon the goal between both is, you know, we're talking about protecting lives. I mean, that's the thing. I mean, you know, is your firefighters are out there, and and and God forbid that's a that's a horrible situation with a fire or small children or even pets, anything out there, you know. I mean, fire is the last thing you want to see, but also the last time you know that you want to see, you have to respect law enforcement just as much, or if not in this day, even more, because you know, uh, of of the world we're in.

SPEAKER_00 10:14

Unfortunately, it's unfortunately, fire service is still the last profession where you as a total stranger you can show up at someone's house at three in the morning and they'll hand you their kid who can't breathe.

SPEAKER_01 10:25

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 10:26

Unfortunately, there's the the world we live in right now, they can't that can't always be said of law enforcement in terms of welcoming you at that time of the morning. And I that's very unfortunate because in all my time riding with my friend Zach, who's sheriff's deputy in Seminole County, or anyone else, because I've done ride-alongs wherever I've lived as well, just to kind of like get to know local law enforcement. And all that time, what I've seen is that if you take one of the Beatitudes from Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, Blessed Are the Peacemakers, and craft an entire career around that, that's what I watched. And that is someone who is artfully and wisely bringing peace to a scene where it seems to have fled. I agree completely with that. And I it was masterful. I was always watching it. In fact, I I like I said, my my friend Zach in in Florida, whenever we'd ride together, I'd say, Have you ever arrested anybody? I don't know if I I've I don't think I've ever seen that. You always somehow talk everyone down and make everyone calm. And are you really? He's like, Aaron, no, seriously, I'm a tough cop. Honest. I'm like, I have never seen it. I don't know what you're talking about. And so I would joke with him about that. But every scene, I would it's amazing how often I would ride with law enforcement, and it seems as though every one of them has a master's in psychology somehow, because of the way they're able to bring that to all those skills to bear to find out what the problem is, why is peace kind of fled the scene right now, and how can we reintroduce it? And just that calming presence with authority of you know adjudicating the matter right there on the spot. And it was always amazing to watch to me, especially when I had interact with law enforcements who were themselves were cremented Christians, because I've seen young men who grow up in church and they're like, How can I make the best uh impact in the world? How can I how can I have do the most good? And as you're mentoring these young men to eventually advise them saying, consider you know, sheriff's office, consider a police department, and to see them take that on as a Christian responsibility.

SPEAKER_01 12:32

Absolutely. I think listening, like you said, you know, we look at the last thing we want is confrontation in law enforcement. Right, right. That is the absolute last thing that you want. I I feel that with myself too, and it's funny you said a psychology degree because that's something I've always I've always loved law enforcement, always loved them and never had a, you know, just been in that probably back in the day, if if things had been in a different world, I I'd probably be in in the military and law enforcement myself as a career, probably, to be honest with you. But just things didn't work out that way. So we got involved with reserves. But you know, what you're saying right there is absolutely true. Whenever when you when you have law enforcement there, they're not there to be to be the bully or the bad guy. They wonder they want to be the mediator and they want they want to walk away with that and peace be there, absolutely. That is their job. That's our job, say that. And that's that's what they strive to do. But you know, sometimes you can't do those things, you know, unfortunately.

SPEAKER_00 13:25

Oh, you know, you're you are you're there to bring peace, and that may be that you are bringing peace for those involved, and it may be that you are bringing peace for the community because this because in spite of the person who is refusing to adopt peace for themselves in any way, and so and and unfortunately, you have to have all the tools of the trade available to you in order to make that happen. There are times in which you are introducing peace back into the scene in despite the person who seems to refuse it at every at every try. Yeah, and I'm getting like you more and more.

SPEAKER_01 13:59

You've got a great, really intuitive. I mean, thinking the way you think like that, that I wish more people thought that way, really, because that that's in what you're saying is so so true.

SPEAKER_00 14:08

Sorry, I'm monopolizing the con. I want to hear more about your story and how you came to the boy to be running for this office. And I want to interrupt you again. I'm sorry about that.

SPEAKER_01 14:16

I love the conversation, so but getting back into it, it was it was um I thought I could bring something to the commission, you know. I had never been in government before, and I and uh I talked to my wife. Well, actually, I'll tell you the whole story how how it happened. So uh we've got a successful hardware store down in Rehoboth. We've been doing that for a few years, and before that, I was in the Sears businesses all around the whole Wiregrass, actually. But one day a customer came in, they said, Man, you're just just a nice guy, this and that. You need to get into you need to you need to run for commissioner. Well, at the time I knew Ricky Herring, who's the current commissioner.

SPEAKER_00 14:47

Uh-huh. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:47

And I spoke with Ricky and I said, Ricky, uh, I said, if you don't run for commissioner, I said, I would never run against you. I think you're you're doing fine. And I said, uh, but if if you're not gonna run, let me know. And I think time went by and clicked on, it was maybe five, six months later, and me and Ricky spoke, and he decided that he wasn't gonna run again. But when he didn't, then I got really involved and interested, and I started going to commission meetings. Like I said, this has been about 13 months ago when I started, and trying to learn the governmental processes and what goes on, and exactly because in reality, you know, there's a lot of people that don't know what a commissioner did. When I first went to a commission meeting, I knew what I thought they did. But whenever you go there for a year, and I've seen you there many times, thank you for coming and doing it. You got to do your homework. Absolutely, you have to. You have to do your homework because it entails much, much more than what the general public thinks or knows. So, you know, you you first of all you think of roads and bridges, and you know, that's what a commissioner used to be. Okay. That position has definitely morphed and transitioned into things that are much more involved with local municipalities now, with obviously some of these sports projects, and now we're we're talking about uh, you know, that we've got a jail issue. Right. You know, it is this is a big deal. It really is to the county and to the residents, not only for just their roads, which is something we've got to take care of, but as far as providing infrastructure, looking for industry to come in, opportunities for jobs. Uh the community I'm in, for instance, in Rehoboth, which you everybody knows Rehoboth. That's the you know, the boom and I call it the Beverly Hills of Alabama. Okay, it's like this little place that just keeps growing and growing and growing, and and people want services and things there, but they're trying to still at the same time keep it a small community, kind of like moving to the country but having all of Dothan's amenities that sometimes they don't marry together, right? You know, to get the needs of both people that are that are for growth and that are maybe want to uh things to say similar to what they are. But anyway, I was trying to think what I was going into that. But you know, with Rehobith, the the commission, you know, they they helped them establish this new ball complex they're doing down there. Don't know if you've seen it, it's absolutely beautiful. Without some of the money that the commission got through a lodging tax, that would have probably never happened. Okay. And it's just not for Rehoboth. These are all the municipalities around the entire county have have uh been providing some funding for improvement projects or maybe a basketball court or a concession stand or you name it. They've done many, many things with recreation for that with the money that they received. So that's important too to get our outside of our big cities like Dothan, for instance, which Dothan's, you know, that is the heart of Houston County. I mean, it is. But the eighth largest city in top ten, Alabama. It is top ten. And I think it'll be even probably seven before long if it keeps going.

SPEAKER_00 17:18

I think so. And well, because well, post-COVID, post-COVID and the remote work created became in demand. Sure. And you're just not going to fit that genie back in the bottle now. As people, as people discovered, oh, I could actually work for X but live in place Y. Sure, sure, sure. And that's that became very attractive. As a result, people got a chance to kind of look around the landscape of what, like, since my job no longer requires my location, my physical location in a place I'd rather not live, I'm gonna make that choice. Yeah. And so I think that you're going to see more of that going on.

SPEAKER_01 17:51

I agree with that 100%. That's why I think we see so much growth within the county, you know. Everything's kind of stabilized now, but you know, a couple years back, right, right, especially during COVID where we've seen the big boom. But if you look around the county right now, you see developers and you see even uh, I think the Doha Mayor's got a big place going down in Rehoveth, you know, that he's he's building there beside the school. So I think people are investing in the county right now, which is great. But with those investments and we're bringing homes there, we've got to have support services and infrastructure for that, obviously. That's a big part of the commission's job, it really is. Big water main, we got sewer going down that way, you know, 231's expanding. That corridor south, it seems like, and from what I've been told and listened to uh government officials that have talked about all this stuff, you know, we looked at the 605 study that the state done for that corridor that really turns off of 84, not far from here, okay, and just goes straight through and comes back at 231. Well, now they're doing a water study for that corridor because, you know, infrastructure with currently right now, there's not a lot of water sources down there. In the county, most people are on whales, you know, unless there's a municipality like, for instance, Taylor or something that has a water system for them. So the county's trying to get ahead of that right now because as we see this positive growth coming, probably from now till forever, you know. I mean, I don't think it's going to slow down. I don't, I think one more little housing boom and and and you know it'll just explode again. I think things kind of calmed down a little bit right now. But you know, back to that, why is it calmed down? Well, we look at uh we look at the economy now. You know, people I've been in business for 20 years. I can tell you the economy is not as strong as it's ever been right now. It's not. No. There's uh middle class America right now, and and these are most of my constituents that are that are there are middle class America. I understand that, hey, as a county commissioner, we need to do whatever we can so they don't have to spend more money. Right because money's tight right now. You know, everything you buy at the grocery store from the fuel to everything, you know, it's just so expensive and high. Middle class is really hurting right now. It's there's more of a diversity and separation between the middle class and upper class now than they probably have ever been in the last two or three decades.

SPEAKER_00 19:52

I know. And it's too bad. I and I for me, I remember specifically in during national elections or something where like people go, could you just not get into that? Nevertheless, it does affect our lives in some ways. And I remember specifically during the previous administration, there were uh when the gas prices were up, there was a bunch of there's someone going around to different gas pumps putting in little icons of the president. So that did this. I did this. I wonder if those same people are now going back to the same gas pumps and putting up a different icon now. Right. Not that I see I mean not that you want to be consistent in your critique, right? Right? I mean, if if if if president A uh has this effect and president B has the same effect, you want to maintain consistency in your critique of national policies, right? Sure. And so that's I agree.

SPEAKER_01 20:47

I think I don't think the president is directly affecting the fuel prices. And this is just my theory. And I I look at I look at the bigger picture sometimes and think maybe a little differently than others and try to actual find actual research and facts. So I think Wall Street's controlling this gas price. That's that's my theory. I I really believe that. I think that these guys are hedging and buying fuel and and they're keeping it high. And I don't know if the president has control of that to the degree we'd all like. I know that he is trying to do some well, the federal fuel tax, for instance. I think that's 12%, which that helps, but still, when you look at the facts, I mean, we're still paying twice what we paid for fuel not long ago.

SPEAKER_00 21:26

You know, so well, we also have to count our blessings though, too, because I went out and visited my family in California. No telling. Three dollars extra per gallon, whatever you're paying here, add three dollars. That's per gallon there. Yeah. And I remember I sent a photo of the gas station price to my wife. She's like, What that's you're making that up. That's that's you totally Photoshop that. Nope, nope, that's actual price.

SPEAKER_01 21:49

Yeah, I know, I know it's it's it's definitely affecting everyone's pocket. But now, as a commissioner, I'm not gonna tell you I can change gas prices. No, no, that would I can't.

SPEAKER_00 21:56

I mean, that's sometimes that we're not I wonder if there are ways in which locally you're able To mitigate the harm that you find from some other policy.

SPEAKER_01 22:04

Like Yes and no. I think there is some at the mitigating federal level stuff, it's very difficult. It's so far ahead of and above where we're at, you know, as far as the local stuff. But the I think what we can do is, and this is a proprietary component of my entire campaign, is being, I don't know if you led me to this or what. Oh, I'm sorry about that. But I'm a sticker when it comes to using our tax dollars as wisely and efficiently as we can. Okay. And what I say with that is I can give you 100 instances, but I'll give a big one that just pops in my head. So currently, right now, to pave a two-lane road for a mile cost the county around $185,000 in material.

SPEAKER_02 22:41

Okay. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 22:42

A few years ago, that cost was around $65,000. We had COVID and obviously things went up. But are we doing our best job right now, paying that? Are we out there shopping that around? Are we trying to create competition out there between different vendors to get these prices down? Something in my campaign I've noticed is we don't use a lot of the same vendors and everybody's happy and you know it goes right along. And you know, the job's great and they're doing a good job and everything. But I think we have to be more proactive with our tax dollars, or I say proactive. We have to we have to shop them, shop them around. And that's what we've always done as a business owner. I've always tried to get the best deal on something. So when I can sell it, I can make a decent margin, right? Right. Well, it's it's kind of different with that with the taxpayers' money. Obviously, you don't make a margin on the taxpayers, obviously. But what you do want to do is you want to utilize those dollars that they're that they're hard-earned money that they're giving the county. We want to make sure every cent of that money is spent wisely. So that's uh that's something that I think I can bring to the table. You said differentiating, you know, between me and my opponent. That is something that 100% I think we have a difference between. My opponents work for a I believe they're one of the largest well to supply companies in the world. And when you get into the the type of money that companies have like that, sometimes frugality is not in the lexicon. It gets overlooked. It does. It gets overlooked. I did a video the other day, and actually, I think I put a statement last night to a guy that had a question. He was talking about what differentiate, you know, he was saying the same thing between you and corporate America. And I said, Well, you can come to my store and you'll get service. And I said, I'll probably have more registers open than this big corporate place, right? You know, with a hundred times the business and customers. But that's the way I look at it. I look at the the county as a customer. Yeah, and that's the way we've stayed in business for 20 years. We've always been good to our customers. We've treated them with respect. We've listened to them, we've tried to get the needs that they want to make it right. And I think that's something that's very important as a commissioner. It's just it's it's just common sense, is what it is. You know, take care of the people that elect you, take care of the people that support you in your business, your family, your life, whatever it may be. Your church, it doesn't matter. If people are taking care of you, give them that same attribute and respect to give it back to them. Take care of them just like you'd want to be treated. That's as simple as simple as I can say.

SPEAKER_00 24:50

You'd like to be able to say to constituents when they ask about is well, well, to whatever extent taxes in in uh Houston County might increase. When they ask you, will they, you'd like to be able to say to those constituents, why no? We were so frugal with the money we had that we're able to handle our expenses and produce a bit of a surplus. And so, quite frankly, no. And so you'd love to be able to tell them that.

SPEAKER_01 25:18

Well, I'll I'll go into that real quick too, as far as of course. So in election year, you're never gonna hear the word tax increase. I promise you that. You'll never hear that.

SPEAKER_00 25:26

Okay, oops, oops. Even if you need to have your thing, you're not gonna hear it.

SPEAKER_01 25:29

You're not gonna hear it. As far as surplus, though, you know, you talk about that as far as as a county, we don't want a surplus. I don't want a surplus. I want to make sure those tax dollars are going back for benefits to the citizens. So at the end of the year, do I want a couple million sitting around? No. Do we need a reserve? Sure, absolutely. Yeah, we need a reserve, but let's get that money and let's let's it's that's what it's for. Taxpayers need to go back to the taxpayers. So, you know, from everything from paving roads, which we got some really bad roads in the county, not in particular in my district. I think it's pretty well down there, district three. But over on district two on that side of the county, there's there's a lot of bad things over there. And and that's the other thing, too. Uh, being a district commissioner, a lot of people think about, well, this is just for my district. I have a different opinion on that. I think we're for the whole county. And I think if all the commissioners work together, we look at results for not only each other's district, which is important. That's our constituents live and take care of them when we could, but let's make the whole county better overall. And if we do that, I think naturally, if we make everything better, right, it's all gonna be better. I mean, it's just a simple philosophy of taking care of the whole.

SPEAKER_00 26:28

Well, that district is electing you to sit on the panel and cast a vote for things that must be voted on in chamber. Sure, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 26:34

And for the county.

SPEAKER_00 26:35

For the county, right? Because so, I mean, no one, no one like myself living in district three thinks, oh, they're going to, you know, they're going to make life better for me than say over a district four. Right. And so, no, that's not how that works. It's not. No, we we're representative to send you to be one of those vote votes on the county commission for what the county does for the county.

SPEAKER_01 26:58

But the district level now, what that is designed for is to bring the needs of that district to the attention basically of the chairman, which uh, you know, our the chairman basically sets the agendas up there, is what they do. So if I've got an important thing down, let's say going in Taylor, in Taylor, Alabama, which is in the district, let's say, for instance, and there's a problem over there. Well, I've got uh the representative that needs to find out that problem from that resident or from that constituent, then take that to our chairman, and then our chairman present it to the commission. Okay, and then the commission vote on it to get that repaired, fixed, solved, okay, whatever, resolved. So that's the kind of the way that things work. A lot of people don't understand that either, is that a commissioner has one vote, and there's four commissioners, one chairman, and majority rules, and that's just the way it works in government in most cases, right? I mean, if we do that from Congress to the Senate and everywhere else. So as a District 3 commissioner, if let's say Bobby comes in and says, Hey, I need my road paved. Well, I've got to take that before three other commissioners and a chairman, right? Just to get it uh looked at and talked about, and we all have to come together as a whole or as a unit and say, Yeah, that's that is a problem. We need to consider fixing that.

SPEAKER_00 28:02

But they're still hoping you'll be persuasive. Sure, absolutely. Oh, you have to be persuasive.

SPEAKER_01 28:06

You have to represent your district well, 100%. Yeah, you do. Yeah, but but it's for the county. I want to say that. It's not just for each district, it is for the county, and that is all the way that's voted on. I wish you've been there many times and in the commission chamber. Sometimes you have two people, sometimes you have 20. It just depends on what's going on. But that's something I encourage, you know, people out in the county that don't know about county government, come up there and tell us. Because if we don't know, that's one thing we'll never be able to fix is a problem that you don't know.

SPEAKER_00 28:33

No, the reason why I go to the county commission meetings is so I could observe models of how to run a good meeting. Sure. Because it's because church meetings are a thing, and you have to be able to kind of like, oh, did I hear from everybody while we're talking about this? Like, but so anyway, I got you going on issues, and I intended to start out with your story, and I apologize about that because you're talking about how you've been in business for some time. Yeah. So I'd like to hear about you as a native to Alabama. Sure, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 29:02

I grew, was born. I'll just give you a quick life story, I guess. Born and raised in Rehobith, Alabama, lived there my whole life with the exception of about a year and a half, where right before Katrina, I moved off with a it was a local company, it was old Dominion Freight Line. They they uh give me an opportunity to go down to Mobile, and uh they were trying to get a uh terminal down there kind of turned around and they thought I had some management skills, and they were like, Ashley go, and they knew I loved to work. So I was working back then, but you can't even do this now. I don't think it's legal, but back then I was probably working 70 hours a week as a truck driver, you know. So I was Oh my goodness. Yeah, I mean we were driving, you know, but I loved money. I loved earning money. I had a lot of ambition. I there was I wanted nice things in life, and uh I just loved working, man. I would go down there and work 40 hours on the dock, and then I'd drive for this many hours, and then on the weekends I'd grab a uh what they call uh basically a set of two trailers and I'd take off to Memphis or take off somewhere and come back. I just worked, that's all I did. Oh goodness. That comes from my father. My father's Gary Infinger, my mother's Kathy Infinger. She's been she's actually been in business for about 40 years. My mom has still in business. I don't know why she won't retire, but she won't. But she does custom draperies and she's been into window treatments, and we were talking about interior decorating. Right. That's what she does. So she's been doing that for about 40 years now.

SPEAKER_00 30:10

Is her business in here here in Dothan? Where's that?

SPEAKER_01 30:12

It was in Dothan. She originally had a business there, and mom slowed down a little bit, so she uh dad built her shop out there right beside the house. So now she's got all her equipment, machinery, and tools and all that stuff out there in a business right beside their house in Rehobas, so she can just kind of walk across the yard and go back and forth to work.

SPEAKER_00 30:28

So you know, no, I think that's well, I think that's wonderful because I mean, retirement is more of a cultural than biblical concept. Because I mean, there are reasons why a person can't work their way uh you know up until their 80s, whatever. But unfortunately, for many people, the the you know, our mortality rates in terms of post-retirement are you know a significant statistic in terms of once a person retires and they lose purpose. I agree. And so you don't want that. You as long as a person is able to do the thing that gives them purpose, go at it. You know, oh absolutely enjoy it. As long as you're physically able, physically cognitively able to do that thing, go keep it going. Because I can't tell you how many times they're you see someone's retirement, you know, they've X out the date, and then in their calendar after that is just all fishing, fishing, fishing, and fishing.

SPEAKER_01 31:19

But you only do it so long, right?

SPEAKER_00 31:21

Well, while you know it's like, okay, that person's not long for this world because they haven't given themselves another purpose to accomplish. Sure. In many ways.

SPEAKER_01 31:28

Speaking of seniors, absolutely, you see that all the time. You do, where they retire and that man, they cannot wait till retirement day. Right. And then you they turn around and then you know, two weeks later, after they've golfed 12 times or went fishing 12 times or whatever their hobby may be, they're like, Man, I gotta find something to do. And usually they're walking in my store and they go, You need any part-time help? Usually, you know. We have we have older folks all the time come in, you know, just they're just trying to get out of the house. They want to have a purpose again, they want to do something. Right. And uh, I love it because these older generation people, man, they'll outwork these young guys any day. I mean, they will. It's it's awesome. Uh so uh and they know how to treat people, it's just it's a different generation that uh we've kind of lost touch of than America, you know.

SPEAKER_00 32:05

We have so you've been in rehoba, except for the short uh soldiering and mobile. You've been uh yeah, 45.

SPEAKER_01 32:12

Well, if you took off that, we've been here in Doth for 45 years. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, children? Uh I do. I have one son, Bryson. He attends Rehoboth. Just took him yesterday, I think day before yesterday, was at beta, and he got some kind of award, you know. He's a smart kid and loved the guy. Uh he's at that age where he's becoming a teenager. You know, you sometimes you want to, you know, shake him, chuckle, whatever, you know. You know, we all done it at that age, obviously, you know. But he's a great kid. I have been so blessed with him. I have a great family. Uh huh. Um my wife's Nikki Infinger. Uh I bet when I said that, everybody around here's like, oh, I know I know I know her, I know that name. She's she's a popular, popular woman.

SPEAKER_00 32:50

Your claim to fame is that you're married to her. Yeah, I'm very lucky to be married to her. I mean, right, right. That's your claim to fame. People are like, oh, it's always that's that's the guy. Yeah, you're right.

SPEAKER_01 32:59

It's funny, I've heard it so many times. Like, your wife needs to be a commissioner, or probably a president, honestly. She's uh she is a go-getter and a doer, and uh, she'll give you the shirt off her back. She is she is involved with anything and everything that she can do with our community. And uh, we've both done a lot of that. Me and Nikki have been married for about eight years. But I made this right. Yeah, going on nine, going on nine years now. Okay. Uh we got a son together, Bryson. Like I say, he's he's at Rehoboth, great kid. It's just just a normal family.

SPEAKER_00 33:28

I mean, we're just you you get those teen boys, and you're like, there is more energy than sense. And somehow, like cognitively, we're hoping you'll catch up, but you're got all the energy right now. And then you eat like a horse too.

SPEAKER_01 33:42

I don't know where you put it.

SPEAKER_00 33:43

Out of house and home. No, you should own stock in publics if you have to, because you're constantly going back to the grocery store for absolutely. And so, and no, my boys, my my boys are grown now, and but I remember they were both were in their teens or two years apart, and it was a it was a fun time, but you got to burn off the energy, and so and grew up so fast too. I mean, he was this big, and now he's tall as his mom, it's just shooting overnight like crazy. So they I remember they first got their first video game, and I was opposed to video games for a long time, but eventually somehow they got an Xbox. I said, That's fine if you want to use that, but you know, any day you want to play your Xbox, you owe me a hundred burpees. And and they're like, What? I said, No, no, no, no, that's fine. But you're right, exactly. But I'm just saying right now, in this household, you will not be the couch potato who's playing video games. So I'm like, you owe me a hundred burpees if you want to play this thing, and they're like, Okay, so you want to you want to knock him out? You know, some days they go, I don't, I don't really don't need to play that.

SPEAKER_01 34:43

I don't need to play that, I don't need to play it that bad today. They're all that way. My son's the same way, I'll tell you. He uh he he he likes video games too. I think all kids do now, you know, right now. But he's not he's not the kind of kid that sits on it all the time. He thought he likes outdoor activities. We've got some we've got some dog who he loves playing with, and he's he's really big into basketball. He loves basketball, which he should be. He's a tall kid and he's he's got that basketball kind of you know frame and everything. And I think he'll be a great basketball player one day.

SPEAKER_00 35:09

So what do they think about uh you're running for uh for a county commission? Is that kind of is it is it strange, is it weird? If they're like, I mean, obviously they're supportive, but still though Yeah, they're 100% supportive.

SPEAKER_01 35:20

It's not weird, I don't think, at all to them. I think uh my wife she done a video the other day for me and she was kind of telling the story, you know. And uh she said she she said she prayed that I change I would change my mind because she knows she knows as as our business is and our family and and all the things we are involved with from anything from our church to uh I don't know if you've heard of Red, White, and Boom, we we founded that. Uh-huh. And then Nikki's she's the treasurer of the GOP for Houston County. It's just it's just there we're we have a hundred different things going on, but we like being busy. We're busy people. We we enjoy things like that, you know. But she said, I pray that he wouldn't do that. That's just, you know, because she never got into politics really. She was she was always like, hey, let's just let's just focus on our business, our family, our faith, and the things that we're involved with now. But I think there's an I'm not gonna say there's a calling, I I don't want to say it that way. Yeah. I think there's a greater responsibility for people that have the ambition and have something that can provide to the community that they do do these services or try to do these services, right? Or run for office, or do, or stand out more than the next person, because I think that's something I've always has ambition in life. I remember Do you remember Baywatch? Of course.

SPEAKER_00 36:35

Okay, yeah, I was a teen boy at one point. Of course I know Baywatch.

SPEAKER_01 36:38

Do you remember uh Pamela Anderson? She had a Dodge Viper.

SPEAKER_02 36:41

That's when they first come out.

SPEAKER_01 36:42

Well, when I was a little boy, and I say little boy, I don't know how long that's been. I said, I'm gonna one of these days I'm gonna have one of those. Well, I had two. It was it was I'm just an ambitious person. If I see something I want, I I go after it, and I don't care what I have to do if I have to work a hundred hours a week or whatever I gotta do. Right. I just I I get focused on a goal and I and I've always persevered by doing that, and always like I've got a business, I'm fixing to completely redo. You know, as soon as this election's over, I've been spending so many hours for the last year, I'll I've I've actually neglected that, uh, in all honesty. Being away from the business as much as I have. And I'm like, we gotta fix this. So as soon as the election's over, I'm gonna get in there between now and if I do win, and between I take office in November, I'm gonna redo the whole store. That's just the people we are. We just we don't know how to fail. I mean, that is it. Right. I think everybody does fail at life hit points. I mean, there's no ready fire aim to avoid that. And so but we do everything that we that we can not to fail at anything that we start or create. And that's me and her both. That's just the way we that's the people we are.

SPEAKER_00 37:42

I think ambition is completely allowable. I mean, unfortunately, you just get a bad rap sometimes among you in in religious speak because people confuse contentment for complacency. Sure. And so since contemptment is a Christian virtue, they'll they'll push that to the go, well, then is ambition somehow a negative? Like, no, no, no, no, no. I mean, they we're just talking about not being complacent. And you can one can be content while they're pursuing excellence in greater responsibility. We see this in Jesus' parable of the talents, sure, where to one that was given much, you know, he gave him mil many talents and he went out and made more out of it. And then someone was given some talent and they made some more, and the one who was given, you know, just one coin, he didn't do anything with it. And Jesus says, Okay, get away from me, wicked evil servant. What you had, you didn't do anything with it at all. You you just buried it in the ground. You could even put in the banking interest on that. Right. And so there's this sense in which from that we can derive this sense of to those who have much and they're gonna make more with it. The productive person, no. That person has is advancing something in God's world. They're actually have purpose, they're moving forward with their skills and abilities. So ambition by itself isn't in a negative, it just requires context and and foresight and some self-awareness too. Because ambition that runs roughshod over people, that's the thing that we would critique. That's the negative.

SPEAKER_01 39:14

That's correct.

SPEAKER_00 39:15

Exactly. But ambition that is honest, I mean, and I do run across people who are ambitious every now and then, and then they'll put it in churchy language of, well, God called me to X, and you're like going, You really just want to do that. Yeah, you know.

SPEAKER_01 39:26

I don't think the Lord called me to do that. I do not. I've had callings before 100%, but this is not a calling, I don't think. This is a responsibility.

SPEAKER_00 39:34

The Bible uses the term calling rather narrowly, regarding people to be called in Christ and sometimes called in specific ministry. Sure. But other than that, we tend to kind of like we do tend to use throw it around liberally regarding our favorite thing. Very much. And I and that's where I kind of like bristle a little bit sometimes, but I'm like, oh, okay, let's just be honest and talk about how you really wanted to do that. You have the skills, the abilities, this seems to fill a need that's going to be fulfilling when you meet it. And let's be honest about that. And so I have no critique about someone's ambitions to be well pleasing and to ambitious to be useful. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:10

Moving forward, what you said, moving forward, I think is the exact terminology that I would use for something like that. It's like if you're complacent and you're still, you're not growing. And whether that may be in your faith, your your business, your personal life, your marriage, you can you can put that terminology to anything basically that you do. I think you always need to be moving forward in some direction to positively benefit yourself or another. Right. I mean, it's just that's just who we are. I mean, I that's all I can say. Yeah, you know, we're we're just we don't quit. We just keep going. I mean exactly. That's what we like.

SPEAKER_00 40:43

No, I think well, I think that that that produces very positive results for not just yourself, but many others as well. It does.

SPEAKER_01 40:49

It's it's almost a catalyst in a sense. I've had uh so many young people come up to me and say, Mr. Ashley, how how did you do this? Or, you know, I got rid of the cars, don't have those anymore. I went to a tractor and a farm, so we live on a dirt road, matter of fact. So not good for sports cars, but you know, they always look back and that you know, they say, How did you get to where you're at? How did you do this? How did you do this? I just tell them, man, it's hard work. Just never stop, just focus on where you want to be. And when you get to that point, I said, That's not the point that you're meant to be. That's just a stepping stone. Right. Get to the next one and the next one and continue to move on. When you're talking about greatness and excellence and things of that nature. There is excellence in a lot of people, but does that mean you have you reach your capac your capacity and your limit? Absolutely not. You can always take that uh to help another person, or or you can grow yourself from that point. So I'm very I reckon you'd say I don't want to say the right word here, but I I I do believe spiritually the Lord tells me to just not to stop. He says keep you you've got more in your life that you that you need to do, that you can do, that you can provide for people. And uh tearing up a little bit, but I I really do believe that. I think he's put me in positions to be able to do what I'm doing right now. I mean, not everybody can go out there and do that. You know, it it's a it's a lot of money, right? It's a it's a it's a tremendous amount of time. I don't know how someone working for another person, honestly, without having the marginal freedom that I do with owning the business, can get out there and and and be a commissioner effectively. Right. I I really don't believe you can because it's engaging with people. That's what you're out there doing, is representing people. So you've got to have the time to sit back, and at our store is great because the little store we got, it's not like a Walmart where there's a hundred people in and out every every every hour, you know. We have those customers who just come in and they just want to talk. Yeah, they feel obligated to buy something, but they'll come in there and talk for hours, and we enjoy that. You know, we love talking to the community and stuff like that. And that's what that's a big responsibility as a commissioner. You've got to be able to talk to your constituents and have those relationships with them where they can come to you and say, Hey, Ashley, or stop by the store. Hey, I got this problem, you know. Because back to what I said earlier, if we don't know about it, we can't fix it. Right. Do you and what church do you attend to? I go to Mount Eden Baptist Church on Irish Road and Rebus. I was telling you earlier, it's uh it's a very, very old uh Baptist church, been remodeled, obviously, but I think it was built, and you don't hold me to this, but I think back in the 30s, our preacher's Don II. There's some people around here. He's a he's a character, a good guy. I don't know if you know Don or not, but you you guys will get along. I don't think anybody couldn't get along with Don. He is he's a mess. He is a mess. He's a good personal friend. I love going over there. Before that, we actually attended church at a larger church in Dothan and was good friends with the pastor there too. So we've been going over to Mount Ena now for I think roughly about three years. Okay. We love it. It's right down the road from the house. It's quick to get in and out. We know everybody in the church because it is a smaller church. Really enjoy it.

SPEAKER_00 43:43

That's why I'm very much that's why I am myself a small church advocate.

SPEAKER_01 43:46

Yeah, like it.

SPEAKER_00 43:47

I I'd never been able to relate to well, no, in my past I could, but then I don't I can't right now relate to this phenomenon of someone saying, I'm now going to go worship Jesus with 2,000 of my closest friends. And no way. Right, exactly, right. And so and uh like I said, the you know, the fire service really shaped my view too. And and if you're going to be if you're going to have a good response time to people in the community from a fire service perspective, it's not going to by be not going to be by having one giant station in the middle of town. You're going to have small stations all around town. And I oftentimes and I oftentimes tell people, you know, what if you really want to take over a culture, would you rather have a 4,000-member church in your in your city or 40 hundred-member churches in your city?

unknown 44:35

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 44:35

And so I'm very much a small church advocate in that regard. And so because that's where that cross-pollination social impact happens, where the body of Christ all kind of knows each other. And you're and young men have older mentors, and young women and older women are able to mentor the younger, the younger women. And many people are able, the children are able to play together, but also grandparents are able to see how the younger children are playing. And so that's I very much an advocate for that. But the thing I'm really proudest of for them from your church is that they would send someone out like you into a responsibility like this. Because I do think that it's good for clergy to stay clear of politics in terms of being independent, but Christians not. And I think that the church ought to be inspiring people within their congregation to say, you have the skills and abilities and the wherewithal and the ambition and the drive and the energy. Go make the world better this way.

SPEAKER_01 45:32

And the morality, and that's another thing, too, is whenever, you know, like I said, I didn't feel like this was an actual calling, though. But you have to take Christian values to your government. That's what we need more of, obviously, you know. So I'm not going to go over there and step on anybody's toes, but I know where my morals stand, I know where my beliefs are. And I'm sure that would impact some decisions I make going down the road.

SPEAKER_00 45:52

My my reading of early colonial literature from America's Founding is that it seems as though the framers assumed that those who served in government were having their conscience trained regularly on Sunday at church. And so that's why they could get away with fashing as little government as they did, because the assumption was all these people were self-governing by submitting themselves to their faith, God as their king and the rest of the time. We don't need a king from England because everyone has the Lord Jesus, the King, uh the Lord Jesus Christ in their hearts anyway. And so in that manner, we have no problem with people serving this the citizen statements statesmen serving in that capacity because they'll have to face their con their fellow congregants in the face eye to eye when they go on Sunday, too. That's right.

SPEAKER_01 46:45

That holds you in check. Exactly. It holds you in check. It really does. And uh, I I think that that's a positive thing. I don't think that's a negative at all, to be honest with you. Everybody needs accountability, every person, because there will be a time, there'll be a time that every human on earth, we do something that's not right. We all sinners, we are, you know, and uh we have to take that, and we need our support from our churches, from our preachers, from our friends. Yeah, but like when you said, you know, it made a lot of sense what you said about the 2,000 best friends in the church. I don't have 2,000 best friends, and I know everybody in Dogen. I don't I can't call 2,000 best friends, you know. So when you get into smaller community churches like that, it really is nice because you know everybody's name. You know, if you need something, you can call them, you know, and I I really enjoy it. I do. But I I agree with your what you said. You know, if you got 4,000 people at a church, if you've got a hundred churches or 40 churches with a hundred, I think you can service uh whatever you're doing better with that that smaller portion, larger count.

SPEAKER_00 47:39

People ask me, they say all the time, well, what's your standard? What do you think is about the appropriate church size? And I always say, How many names can your pastor remember? That's a good point. You know, that so it can be kind of elastic that way. Yeah, but pretty much however many names your pastor can remember, that's about the size of the church should be.

SPEAKER_01 47:55

I agree. So I agree with that. That'd be great. Now, finances, I have no idea how church works with finances. I know it's usually through offerings and things of that nature. So I know that prohibits that a lot. It seems like, you know, if we go back to every problem in the world, unfortunately, it always boils down to the the the rootie of love, money. You know, I mean the love of money, right?

SPEAKER_00 48:12

For the love of you make the exact well that's a big that's an important distinction. But yeah, but for the most part, I really it's it's it's encouraging to me to see someone who has of who has a deep faith and whose conscience is being shaped within their participation of in the body of Christ is taking that responsibility and those skills and that conscience into representative government. And so that's very that's encouraging to see.

SPEAKER_01 48:35

It is you gotta have great morals, you gotta have a good foundation, you have to have that support, like you said. Everybody's gonna make a bad decision and a bad mistake, it doesn't matter who you are, if it's the president of the United States or if it's the you know the babysitter. I mean, everybody is gonna have a challenge in life, and uh that's just the humanity of things, it is, you know. So we need that backup and that support 100%.

SPEAKER_00 48:56

Well, thank you very much for coming and talking to me. This has really been a pleasure. Hey, and I appreciate it.