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BARROW JOURNAL
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 2011
Opinions
Georgia Press Association Best Editorial Writing 2010, 2011
Best Serious Column Writing 2011
National Newspaper Association Best Editorial 2011
our views
It’s time to unseat ‘King Thompson’
Halloween fun,
past and present
W HEN a politician has been in
office for a while, we look to
his record when he comes
up for re-election. From that, we can judge
if the official deserves to be re-elected, or
if someone new should be given a shot at
the job.
In reviewing the record of the Winder
Mayor’s office, it’s clear that someone
new should be given a chance at the
seat.
If there was any doubt that a new direc
tion in Winder’s leadership is needed,
one only has to look at the recent fiasco
over the city’s move to purge 40 percent
of the city’s registered voters, a move that
was rife with mishandling and errors.
Winder Mayor Chip Thompson is large
ly responsible for that snafu.
He sets the tone and the standard for
what happens in city hall. The buck stops
on his desk.
If the voting mess had been Thompson’s
only leadership mistake, perhaps citizens
would give it a pass.
But Thompson’s record as mayor is
one of arrogant leadership and multiple
misjudgments.
Here’s his record:
• In 2009, Thompson refused to follow
state law in how the city adopted its bud
get. When a woman asked the mayor at
a meeting why the city wasn’t following
the law, Thompson accused her of play
ing “some little word search.” In addition,
Thompson’s right-hand city manager at
the time said to her, “If you are looking
for an opportunity to sit there and do a
conversation or have input back and forth
between citizens and the council and the
mayor, that does not happen.” In other
words, citizens shouldn’t dare question
“King” Thompson.
• In 2010, Thompson held several illegal
secret meetings. When this newspaper
questioned that, the mayor shot back by
saying the Journal was a “tabloid” for dar
ing to question his authority. Thompson
essentially set the
city budget in secret
and doesn’t believe
citizens should have
any say in the pro
cess. Illegal meetings
don’t seem to bother
him.
•Also in 2010,
Thompson accused
a council member of
“overstepping your
bounds” when a
councilman wanted
to know about the
hiring process and salary range for a new
city administrator. Thompson was upset
that the city council wanted to have some
say in the hiring process of the town’s
administrator. Thompson later made that
hiring decision without full city council
input (one councilman did sit in on the
meetings, but Thompson wouldn’t allow
him to take resumes out of city hall);
and he refused to release the top three
candidate names 14 days in advance as
required by state law. Even worse, after
hiring someone, he refused for several
days to tell his own city council whom he
had hired.
•Thompson presented the Winder
council a wastewater plan one night in
2010, and then lied to the council by say
ing he needed immediate action that night
to meet a federal deadline. But there was
no immediate deadline. What Thompson
really wanted was for the council to rub
ber-stamp his plan before it had time to
study the matter or ask questions.
• Thompson pressured the city council
to quickly approve a 40-year, $4.9 million
loan to build large new city facilities, again
saying there was an immediate deadline
and that the council had to act that night.
But again, there was no deadline. The
council eventually overturned that action
and ordered the mayor to cancel the loan.
But as far as we know, Thompson didn’t
take action to follow the council’s direc
tive until last month.
• Last year, Thompson gave the council
a new engineering contract to approve for
the city without the council even knowing
a new contract was in the works. It was
another example of how he tried to pres
sure the council into a quick action with
incomplete information.
•Thompson presented a storm water
tax for the council to vote on at one
August 2010 meeting, again claiming there
was a deadline and the issue couldn’t
wait. Alas, the mayor was again lying to
his council about a deadline. It was a bid
by Thompson to pressure the council to
act before it could look into the matter fur
ther. The mayor tried to ram through the
new tax with no public hearings and no
advance notice. After the Journal report
ed on the matter, a strong public backlash
stopped it.
It is very clear from his record that
Thompson views the mayor’s job as a
petty dictatorship. He does not think the
mayor should consult his city council
before making major decisions and he
abhors any kind of public input in city
government. He strongly resents media
coverage of the city government, actively
holding secret meetings to avoid news
coverage. Even worse, he has a track
record of having misled his council mul
tiple times about phantom deadlines that
really didn’t exist.
Winder needs a change in its mayor’s
seat. Chip Thompson is a nice man who
comes across as an easy-going public offi
cial. But his actual record is very clear —
he wants to run Winder without any input
from his own city council or the public.
Based on his record as mayor, Chip
Thompson is not a man who can be
trusted. The ballot box is the place to send
him a message about his record.
Mike Buffington is co-publisher of the
Barrow Journal. He can be reached at
mike@mainstreetnews. com.
Coverage reflects the community, be it good or bad
“When you change the way you
look at things, the things you look
at change. ” — Max Planck
Schools are a big topic in this
newspaper. Much is written about
student achievement, test scores,
and accomplishments. Much is also
written on the editorial pages and by
the on-line commenters. This (with
the exception of the mostly negative
on-line comments) is as it should
be. The Barrow County school sys
tem is the largest local employer
and it is hard to cross paths with
someone whose life isn’t touched
by the local schools. Covering the
schools is the newspaper’s job — in
good times and in bad.
For years this community had one
paper reporting only good news
from our schools. There was no
analysis or critical thinking — simply
the regurgitation of school gener
ated press releases and some “it’s
all good” coverage of events and
school board meetings. In one way
of thinking, that is good school
news coverage. No controversy, no
difficult questions, no tough issues
— just supportive journalism that
makes the community look good,
right?
Well, maybe — except the under
scoring reality, when it involves
things like poor test scores and
problematic graduation rates,
remains part of the reality and not
reporting on it does not make that
go away.
When this newspaper arrived on
the scene, things got shaken up.
No more canned press releases; no
more “it’s all good” school news.
We started digging and it didn’t
take long to come up with some
problems in the schools that need
to be addressed. Add to this, a new
superintendent whose MO is trans
parency and all of the sudden the
community is reading things about
the schools it’s never read before.
This has resulted in people becom
ing upset.
Whenever reality meets the pret
ty picture someone tried to paint
of reality, there are growing pains
and things get
ugly. We are
in the midst
of that ugli
ness now with
some school
people saying
“the press”
is all nega
tive and other
people saying
the schools
need to be
held account
able. The net
result seems to be a shut down in
constructive dialogue between “the
schools” and “the press.”
Squarely in the middle of all this
sit the students, teachers, parents
and school staff who meet the chal
lenges that occur when children are
being educated every day, head on.
Their enthusiasm, skill and obvious
caring is the part of school news,
as features editor, I am challenged
to report on and I take that job
very seriously. I am pro-teacher,
pro-student and pro-Barrow County
Schools.
I want to be sure this newspaper
has as much interesting, uplifting,
inspiring school news as possible
— school news that goes beyond
the welcome, yet sometimes not so
moving snapshots we get from the
schools of their events.
At the beginning of the school
year I sent an e-mail to the 15 school
principals introducing myself and
requesting their help in letting me
know about the unique, fun, touch
ing and very special things going on
at their schools. Each school has
its own “personality” and the dif
ferent schools have different things
to offer school news-wise. I figured
the invitation to a positive PR piece
would generate some interest. So
far, I have heard from one principal
- only one. And, the story we talked
about went into the paper the week
after we talked about it.
So, what’s going on? Part of it is
that principals are busy; part of it
is that a lot of educators don’t sub
scribe to this paper, so they don’t
know what they’re missing. And,
part of it is that school people, like
other people, tend to focus on the
negative, while the positive rolls off
their backs unnoticed or uncom
mented on.
At a recent school board meeting,
one of the elementary school princi
pals said: “...it is important for us to
help re-educate the community. Our
results are not declining; the bar is
being raised...The media right now
is often very negative about us and
there are lots of wonderful things
going on in our schools...People
need to...see what we’re doing and
see what it’s all about. The negative
press really drags us down. It does
a number on the morale of our
teachers.”
Well, yes and yes. The reality,
however, is that this paper gener
ates way more positive school news
than it does negative school news.
In addition to our excellent school
sports coverage and all the school-
submitted news that we run, last
year I generated 23 positive stories
and photo features. Some of them
ran on the front page, others were
full page spreads on the front of our
Community Living Section.
This year I have generated 19 posi
tive school news stories or photos
so far and we’re barely past fall
break. It’s all about perspective. If
you don’t subscribe to the paper,
you miss all the good school news.
If you only buy a paper when you
hear there’s a negative piece about
the schools in it, your perspective is
skewed. When negative things hap
pen in the schools, they are report
ed on. Conversely, we do our best to
keep the good things happening in
the schools at the forefront.
The decision to focus on the nega
tive or the positive is a personal one
school and non-school people alike
make each day.
Negative stories generate more
talk and on-line commenting, but
that doesn’t mean the positive sto
ries don’t have an impact. They
do; we just don’t hear about it.
An educator’s subscription to the
paper is $8.65 per year, including
our E-Edition. Why not subscribe?
Then maybe it will be clearer that
“the press” is simply holding up a
mirror — it’s up to us as a commu
nity to shape the reflection we see
into the one we want it to be.
Lorin Sinn-Clark is features editor
of the Barrow Journal. She can be
reached at lorin@barrowjournal.
com.
The Barrow Journal
Winder, Barrow County, Ga.
www. BarrowJoumal. com
Mike Buffington Co-Publisher
Scott Buffington Co-Publisher
Chris Bridges Editor
Susan Norman Government News Editor
Lorin Sinn-Clark Features Editor
Susan Treadwell Advertising Manager
Susan Mobley Office Manager
Jeremy Ginn Marketing Manager
Jessica Brown Photographer
Katie Cofer Reporter
POSTMASTER: Send address changes
to: The Barrow Journal, 77 East May
Street, Winder, Georgia 30680
Published 52 times per year by
Mainstreet Newspapers, Inc.
Periodicals Postage Paid at Winder, Ga.
Email: news@barrowjournal.com
Phone: 770-867-NEWS (6397)
Fax: 678-425-1435
SUBSCRIPTIONS:
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Surrounding Counties $19.75/yr.
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Military/APO $42.50/yr.
Out of county Senior Citizens Deduct $2
HALLOWEEN HAS always been a
favorite holiday for me.
I say holiday although I'm not really
sure it qualifies
as such. No
one that I know
had the day
off Monday.
The mail was
delivered.
The banks
were open.
Students were
in school.
Whatever
designation
you want to
give it, Oct. 31 has long been associ
ated, at least in my mind, with fall and
that alone makes it a memorable day
for me. We finally seem to have shak
en the heatwave of 2011. Personally,
I’m glad, although my better half has
been shivering a lot lately with the
temperatures no longer in the 90s.
Beyond the association between
Halloween and fall, I suppose my
fondness for the last day of October
goes back to my childhood. I wasn’t
much into trick-or-treating since I grew
up without being able to see another
house, but there were still Halloween
carnivals to attend at my school and
even the church we attended allowed
for plenty of fun with others my age.
Halloween also has that air of
mystery about it. Ghost stories have
always fascinated me and I stayed
awake most of late Monday night/
early Tuesday morning listening to
the late-night radio show “Coast to
Coast AM.” Each Halloween the show
renames itself “Ghost to Ghost AM”
as callers share their own experi
ences with things that go bump in
the night. Admittedly, some of the
stories were a little far fetched, even
for a believer like me, but some were
downright spooky, especially hearing
them told at 3 a.m. (What was that
noise I just heard?)
By the time the first ray of day
light arrived Tuesday morning, I had
regretted staying up most of the night,
but rest can come later in the week I
told myself.
I actually enjoy decorating for
Halloween more than I do Christmas.
It’s easier to do (for me anyway) and
I always set out the Halloween-related
items at least a month in advance. I
hate the thoughts of removing them
now, but I know it will be necessary
to put the Christmas decorations in
the forefront soon.
Another personal tradition for me is
to watch horror movies on Halloween
night. Many are traditional for me (and
others) like John Carpenter’s 1978
classic simply titled, “Halloween,”
which I still believe has the best musi
cal score of any movie belonging to
this genre. I was able to convince
my better half Pam to watch a horror
movie with me this year. She’s not the
fan that I am but if I ask nicely enough
then she will usually permit one to be
played while she is in the room.
By the time I got home from the
office Monday evening, most of the
trick-or-treaters in my neighborhood
had already shuffled by. I didn’t have
my door bell rung once this year
which is probably a sign of parents
not allowing their kids to roam neigh
borhoods in the dark simply to obtain
candy from people they really don’t
know.
One down side to Halloween pass
ing for another year is the fact it sig
nals that winter is now fast approach
ing. I know we have really just begun
to enjoy fall temperatures, but we are
in November now and that means
worsening weather with each week
that goes by. I still have nightmares
about our winter last year.
For this week anyway, I’ll take fall
with all its glorious colors. Pumpkins
are plentiful, both on the peoples’
front porch and as part of the land
scaping, complete with hay bales and
corn stalks. Falling leaves can be seen
floating by and ending up on my yard,
asking to be raked. It seems I’ve been
looking forward to Halloween for so
many weeks now that its passing
snuck up on me once again. Still, I
know Halloween 2012 is not far away
and those favorite horror movies can
be watched any time of the year.
Chris Bridges is editor of the
Barrow Journal. You can reach him
at cbridgesQbarrowjournal. com.
chris
bridges