Jonathan Mason, a candidate for the Republican nomination to the State House in District 30, said Monday that his opponent, East Ridge City Councilwoman Esther Helton, is playing “opportunistic politics.”

In a press release Mason said that Helton seconded a motion to create the East Ridge Housing Authority last year. On Monday, she along with four other councilman voted to dissolve the board.

According to the press release, during the hearing of Resolution No. 2646 to create an East Ridge Housing and Redevelopment Authority, Esther Helton seconded a motion to create the Board and voted yes during a roll call vote. In the wake of a swift backlash from furious property owners in what appears to be a purely political calculation, Esther Helton has decided she now opposes the measure.

Helton said that her vote on Monday to dissolve the ERHRA board was the result of “the council listening to the people.”

“These types of decisions to expand big government are exactly what my opponent values,” Mason said in the press release. “The motion to attack individual property rights is the same type of big government decisions that Esther Helton voted for while voting for Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012. Our primaries are intended to elect Republicans that share our values and represent individual rights and low taxes. Esther Helton’s record speaks for itself: time and again her voting record demonstrates she does not share our conservative values.”

East Ridge and District 30 voters can see right through this sort of opportunistic politics, Mason said.

Mason said he has fought on behalf of property rights for many years, working to elect Representative Mike Carter and Commissioner Sabrena Smedley, two of our county’s strongest property rights defenders.