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BARROW JOURNAL
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2008
Opinions
“Private opinion is weak, but public opinion is almost omnipotent. ”
- Henry Ward Beecher -
Chris Bridges, editor • Email: cbridges@barrowjournal.com
our views
Why the rush
on Auburn
actions?
W HAT is the real pur
pose of Auburn’s
quick moves to
change its city charter?
That is the question being asked
by some Auburn residents after
the city made several intertwined
moves in the past few months.
In September, the council dis
cussed creating an overlay zoning
district for its downtown area. At the
same time, it activated a Downtown
Development Authority.
Then in November and
December, the council has held
hearings on making changes to its
city charter, one of which would be
to allow the new DDA to issue debt
without first holding a referendum
of citizens.
All of these moves may be wor
thy efforts by town leaders. It is
true that the city is unusual in that
its charter requires a public vote
before the town can issue any kind
of debt.
But the way some of this was
handled raises a red flag.
First, the town’s public notice
information about the proposed
city charter change was vague and
did not mention anything about
removing the section dealing with
debt and a public vote. It was only
after a citizen read the proposal
and came to a council meeting that
the issue was brought to light.
In addition, the debt section has
a controversial history in the town,
having been added in 1998 by a citi
zens’ referendum. Which begs the
question: Was the council’s down
playing of the proposal an effort to
slide something by citizens hoping
they wouldn’t notice?
On top of that, when the new
DDA met to get organized last
month, Mayor Linda Blechinger
had herself named as its chairman.
While that might be legal, it’s very
unusual for a mayor to hold both
positions.
It’s clear that the Auburn council
has a mandate in all of this. The
city activated its DDA and began
working on a charter change so
that the council could have the
DDA borrow money for a down
town redevelopment project. And
with the mayor holding the key
position in both groups, the DDA is
little more than a puppet for what
ever the city council wants.
That might be OK, but before the
show goes on, all the cards should
be put on the table so citizens can
see what’s taking place. A DDA can
be a powerful organization. It can,
for example, issue revenue bond
debt to make property exempt from
property taxes. It has the power of
eminent domain. And it can set up
districts to collect special fees to
fund projects.
So the question is, why all of
this activity now? In the middle of
a major economic downturn, why
the rush to have a DDA issue debt
in Auburn?
Perhaps there are good answers
to those questions. But the coy
way the matter has been handled
by city leaders does not inspire
confidence.
The Barrow Journal
Winder, Barrow County, Ga.
www.BarrowJoumal.com
77 East May Street
Winder, Georgia 30680
Web Site: www.BarrowJournal.com
Email: news@barrowjournal.com
Phone: 770-867-NEWS (6397)
Fax: 678-425-1435
SUBSCRIPTIONS:
Inside Barrow County $15.00/yr
Senior Citizens in Barrow $13.00/yr.
Surrounding Counties $19.75/yr.
Other In-State $38.85/yr.
Out of State $44.50/yr.
Military/APO $42.50/yr.
Out of county Senior Citizens Deduct $2
Living in a right turn world
IN AN effort to cut expenses at the Clark house,
Mr. Clark has begun driving like a UPS driver. No, he
doesn’t wear a brown uniform, nor has he (at least not
yet) painted our vehicles brown, but he is making only
right turns, whenever possible.
You see, he read an article
about how UPS plots delivery
routes to use the maximum
possible number of right turns.
The idea behind this is left turns
involve more idling at stop lights
and corners and, more idling
equals more fuel use and greater
carbon dioxide emissions.
UPS began the right turn thing
a couple of years ago and it must
really work as currently 90 per
cent of the turns UPS drivers
make to deliver the nearly 15-million packages they
deliver each day are right turns. In 2007, UPS trucks
drove 2.6-billion miles and all those right turns saved
three million gallons of fuel, as well as reducing carbon
dioxide emissions by 32,000 metric tons.
Back to Mr. Clark. While 1 appreciate his efforts to
cut our fuel costs (and reduce the size of our carbon
footprint), driving through town with him is a madden
ing experience. We all know how terrible Winder traffic
is — well, add the challenge of making only right turns
and you can imagine how long it seems to take to get
anywhere in Winder with Mr. Clark at the wheel.
It reminds me of taking rides with my grandpa when
1 was little. My grandparents lived in a town much like
Winder, only smaller and with less traffic. My grandpa
was a big driver - loved driving, always had nice cars,
lived for a good road trip. So, sometimes — I suppose
it was when the urge to drive hit him, but there was no
trip planned — he would take me for a ride, all around
his little town.
We’d go to the post office to get his mail, then visit
a few of his merchant friends downtown. Then we’d
cruise around to see “the new construction,” which in
this town meant a new roof, a freshly repaired drive
way, a new swing set in a back yard, or a repainted
restaurant sign. Sometimes we’d go out to the airport to
“see if there’s any new planes.” There never were.
Other times, we’d drive out in the country to “see the
wheat.” (My family had a wheat farm outside town and
let me tell you, wheat grows pretty slow if you’re check
ing on it frequently.)
The ride would wind down with an ice cream cone
at the Dairy Queen. The last stop was always to “go see
the badger.” (The high school mascot was a badger
and they kept a poor, sad, sample specimen in a cage
out by the airport.) Sometimes, we’d take the badger a
snack. Other times, we’d just check on him.
I remember these rides as being pleasant in their own
way, but also pretty boring and slow. It seemed like my
grandpa could cruise around for hours, not really see
ing anything. And he didn’t even know about the right
turn thing.
One day, sitting next to Mr. Clark as he wound his
way through Winder making only right turns with no
hope of reaching our destination in sight, it hit me. This
was just like going to see the badger with my grandpa,
only I’m much older now, have a lot less patience and
there’s no ice cream cone involved. No wonder I’ve
started sending Mr. Clark out on errands alone most
of the time!
“Too bad there’s no badger in Winder,” I told him. “If
there was, at least we could go see him as we wind our
way through town, one right turn at a time.”
“How do you know there’s no badger in Winder?”
Mr. Clark responded. “Maybe we’ll stumble upon him
on one of our “trips” (to and from the grocery, the post
office, the bank, etc.)
I don’t know if Winder has a badger. Maybe, instead,
there’s a Wog somewhere, in a little cage, hoping for
some visitors or a snack.
If he’s out there, we’ll find him. Then “seeing the
Wog” can become part of Mr. Clark’s right turn routes
through Winder.
In the meantime, think of all the gas we’re saving...
Lorin Sinn-Clark is a columnist for the Barrow
Journal. She can be reached at lorin@barrowjournal.
com.
Chambliss had history on his side
THERE WERE many explanations being floated for
Saxby Chambliss’ smashing success in last week’s run
off election for the U.S. Senate.
He raised a lot of money. Even
with a late surge of funds to Jim
Martin from Democratic party
leaders in the Washington, D.C.
area, Chambliss still had nearly
three times as much money for
his reelection campaign.
He realized after the close
call in the general election that
he needed a ground game and
beefed up his get-out-the-vote
operations for the runoff.
Chambliss and a host of inde
pendent GOP committees ran
wave after wave of TV attack ads
that hammered Martin during the runoff.
He utilized the star power of celebrity Republicans
like Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and presidential nominee
John McCain, who campaigned for Chambliss and
energized Republicans who weren’t enthused about the
senator’s record and voted for a Libertarian candidate
in the general election.
He also capitalized on the success of Democratic
candidates in Senate races in other states. Chambliss
argued that electing Martin would enable national
Democrats to get dangerously close to a filibuster-proof
majority of 60 seats in the U.S. Senate. The voters
responded well to this “firewall” argument.
All of those factors played a part in helping Chambliss
win another six-year term, but the simplest explanation
for his runoff victory can be summed up in one word:
history.
In all of Georgia’s general election runoffs over the
past two decades, history shows that Republican vot
ers do a better job of coming back to the polls than
do Democrats. That pattern held true in this election
as Chambliss and Lauren “Bubba” McDonald, a GOP
candidate for the Public Service Commission candi
date, both enjoyed landslide runoff victories over their
Democratic opponents.
There are strong historical parallels between 2008,
when Chambliss held off Martin, and 1992, when
Republican Paul Coverdell came back in the runoff to
topple Democratic Sen. Wyche Fowler.
Both elections were held in the same year that a
Democrat was elected president (Bill Clinton in 1992,
Barack Obama in 2008). In both elections, the voter
turnout for the mnoff amounted to about 56 percent of
the number who voted in the general election.
In both elections, the president-elect tried to help
the Democratic candidate. Clinton came to Georgia
to campaign personally for Fowler. While Obama did
not travel to Georgia, he did radio commercials and
robo-calls for Martin, and also dispatched staffers from
his presidential campaign to help with get-out-the-vote
efforts.
In both elections, Republican voters were anxious to
push back against the election of a popular Democrat
for president and turned out in heavy numbers for the
runoff.
Coverdell trailed Fowler by 35,000 votes in the general
election, but he won the runoff by more than 16,000
votes, a turnaround of 51,371 votes. Chambliss, who
finished just below 50 percent in the general election,
increased his advantage over Martin from 109,671 votes
to more than 318,000 votes, a huge improvement.
Republicans had the added incentive of pushing back
against a president-elect who was not only a Democrat
but the country’s first African-American president as
well.
“The Georgia electorate is easily the most racially
polarized of any state we polled regularly during the
2008 election cycle,” said Tom Jensen of Public Policy
Polling (PPP), one of several firms whose runoff polls
underestimated the turnout by white Republicans.
You could predict the outcome of the runoff election
by comparing the early voting statistics.
In the general election, nearly 35 percent of the early
ballots were cast by black voters who were obviously
enthused by the prospects of voting for Obama. That
heavy turnout helped Obama run a closer-than-expect-
ed race against McCain (he lost by only 5 percentage
points) and enabled Martin to finish within 3 points of
Chambliss.
The early voting for the runoff election was another
story entirely. The percentage of black voters dropped
to less than 23 percent. The proportion of white male
voters, who are more likely to vote Republican than any
other group, increased from less than 30 percent to
nearly 36 percent of the early vote. Those were all signs
that Chambliss was headed for a big victory.
In the end, Republican voters came back to the polls
and Democrats didn’t. With that bit of history on his
side, it would have been hard for Chambliss to lose.
Tom Crawford is the editor of Capitol Impact’s
Georgia Report. He can be reached at tcrawford@
caDitolimDact.net.
Remembering
a politician
of the people
DURING the late spring of 1998,
I set about the task of deciding
who I was going to vote for in the
primary for Lt.
Governor.
With an
open race that
year, a number
of candidates
were set to be
on the ballot
in both the
Democrat and
Republican
races. After
reading
numerous
newspapers articles on each of the
candidates who had signed their
name on the dotted line to run, one
clearly stood above the rest in my
opinion and that was Mac Barber.
While I had heard of the name
Mac Barber prior to 1998, (you can’t
consider yourself a Georgia political
junkie and not have heard of him) I
admit I really didn’t know that much
about him. After my own research
was done, my better half Pam began
telling me what she knew about him
since Barber was from Commerce,
near her home.
All things pointed to one conclu
sion: Mac Barber was a politician for
the people. His No. 1 priority was to
represent those he served. He didn’t
care about procedure or giving in
to those who thought he should do
things a certain way. Barber’s pri
mary reason for being in office was
the people. In fact, I often referred
to him as the “people’s champion.”
The people lost that champion,
however, on Sunday when Barber
died at the age of 91. His death
leaves behind a political legacy
which will be remembered both for
its quirkiness as well as its honesty,
which is more than can be said
for some of his political opponents
through the decades he served in
various offices.
Going back to 1998,1 enjoyed
being a volunteer for the “Friends
of Mac Barber” campaign. Political
observers really didn’t know what
to make of his attempt to run for
Lt. Governor. Barber stepped
down from the Public Service
Commission (a decision that left
many scratching their head) to run
for the second highest elected office
in the state. Many believed, or per
haps feared, he might actually win
the Democratic primary.
None of his opponents in the sum
mer of 1998 had the name recogni
tion he did and Barber had been
on the statewide ballot for so many
election cycles, there was legitimate
talk he just might win this election
as well. Barber’s campaign method
of running newspaper ads and using
yards signs didn’t translate into vic
tory this time, however, as Mark
Taylor won win the Democratic
primary and eventually the Lt.
Governorship.
Barber would try to regain a seat
on the Public Service Commission
after 1998 on three occasions
although he would not be successful
in those efforts either. Barber did
win the 2004 Democratic Primary
(I admit to encouraging him heavily
to run), but he fell in the General
Election to Bobby Baker as by this
time the Republican tidal wave had
completely swept over the state.
This would be his last run for elect
ed office.
In the many times I spoke with
him since 1998,1 always found
Barber to be humbled by the oppor
tunity he was allowed to represent
the people of Georgia. He always
put them first. He wasn’t in office
for financial gain like some who
become career politicians or some
who do little more in office than
promote an idea and bask in the
national attention it garners.
No, Mac Barber was a man who
never forgot he was in office for the
citizens of Georgia. A politician who
doesn’t forget those who elected
him once he takes office. How
refreshing is that? We could use a
few more Mac Barbers today, that’s
for sure.
Chris Bridges is editor of the
Barrow Journal. He can be reached
at chris@mainstreetnews.com.
chris
bridges