Newspaper Page Text
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The Braselton News
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Opinion
“Difference of opinion leads
to enquiry, and enquiry to
truth ” -Thomas Jefferson
Braseltoons by John Sheppard
"Hey, I just a great tip, you in?"
letters
our views
Hoschton government
at a crossroads
THE TOWN of Hoschton is at a crossroads. A
major financial crisis has rattled the town govern
ment this year, forcing the city council to cut its
budget just to keep operating.
Now the council is looking at next year’s budget
and the situation isn’t promising. Either a city prop
erty tax will have to be put in place, or some major
cutbacks will have to happen in the city’s police de
partment.
At the heart of this issue is this fundamental ques
tion: What do the town’s citizens expect of their city
government?
Town governments exist primarily to provide a
higher level of service than citizens can get from
a county government and to give more “local” con
trol. That’s the theory, anyway.
In reality, it isn’t unusual for small towns to bite
off more than they can handle financially. Inexpe
rience, inflated egos and mismanagement can all
wreck a small town’s budget.
That’s what happened to Hoschton last year.
Town leaders put on some rose-colored glasses
and made some major mistakes in their budgeting
process. The result is the current financial crisis.
It’s not too late for the town to turn this situation
around, but that will only happen if Hoschton lead
ers have the courage to make some tough deci
sions today about next year’s budget.
There are several guiding principals needed to
resolve Hoschton’s financial problems:
First, the town can’t spend its way out of this
mess. Putting a city property tax in place would be
a cop-out. City leaders would be taxing resident for
their own mismanagement. The first order of busi
ness in a financial crisis isn’t to raise taxes, but
rather to cut expenses.
Second, town leaders have to decide what is es
sential to city citizens and what can be done by
other governments. If Hoschton cuts back its police
force, as is being discussed, would that cripple the
town?
Not likely. The truth is, the county sheriff’s depart
ment or GBI handle the major cases in Hoschton
anyway. Cutbacks in police may not be ideal, but
it wouldn’t be devastating, either. If the city re
ally wants to cut expenses, it has look at where
the money is located. In Hoschton, like most small
towns, that means the police department.
Third, city leaders have to plan for the worst and
hope for the best. The economy is down and that
may drag on during 2008. Hoschton leaders must
plan next year’s budget with that in mind and adjust
its income projections accordingly. In short, take off
any rose-colored glasses left over from last year.
Plan for weak economic conditions.
At the end of this process, Hoschton leaders
should adopt the most conservative budget pos
sible for 2008. It is much easier to adjust a budget
up if next year proves to be better than projected,
but it is very, very difficult to cut expenses in mid
year as had to be done in 2007.
If Hoschton leaders make some tough decisions
today, they can avoid another crisis in 2008.
If officials fail, the city may be thrown into a finan
cial hole from which it may never recover.
Says taxes too high,
Dear Editor:
After reading the letters to the editor in the local
paper, I commend the people for standing up for
what they believe is the right thing to do about the
high taxes in Jackson County.
What was left out is the issue of what is Jackson
County doing for the senior citizens in this county?
I think the elected officials should be for all the
people instead of a selected few. What a shame
and disgrace it is for the seniors to be treated this
way. How can they go to church on Sunday and
brag about what they have done?
What the people do not understand is that they
have already raised taxes by raising the assess
ments on their homes. By doing this, they can turn
around and make the public believe they are the
good guys and vote down the increase in the mill-
age rate. What a laugh.
What we need to do is have a recall on all of the
elected officials. If this were to happen, I would be
happy to put my name on top of the list.
Another thing is about the City of Jefferson not
wanting churches in the downtown area. Satan
has been turned loose.
What is wrong with the preachers in this county?
They should be in the pulpits every Sunday
preaching against all the wrongdoings that are
going on in this county.
Is it going to take another Moses to lead the
Satan on the loose
people in this county out of the mess it is in?
Enough said at this time.
Sincerely,
A. White
Hoschton.
The Braselton News
A Publication of The Jackson Herald &
Mainstreet Newspapers, Inc.
Mike Buffington Editor & Co-Publisher
mike @ mainstreetnews.com
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Advertising Manager
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Angela Gary Managing Editor
angie @ mainstreetnews.com
Kerri Testement News Editor
kerri@mainstreetnews. com
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PO Box 908, Jefferson, Ga. 30549
General Phone: 706-367-5233
The well
YOU WILL hear all sorts of projections from business and planning organizations
that say Georgia’s population will grow by another two to three million people over
the next couple of decades.
Those numbers usually underlie discussions about what the state should do over
the next 20 years to cope with this expected surge in population.
These discussions are based on a faulty premise, because Georgia is not going
to add millions of new residents in the coming years. The rea
son is simple: we’re running out of water. In fact, we have just
about reached the limits of water that can be provided for the
people living here today.
This can be easily confirmed by visiting the major lakes in
North Georgia and observing how low the water levels have
dropped during the current drought. It is not a pretty picture.
State environmental officials are estimating that Lake Lanier
has about three months worth of water left. Lake Allatoona is
getting higher and drier by the day. The Dog River reservoir in
Douglas County has dropped below the 50 percent capacity
mark. The Bear Creek reservoir in northeast Georgia could run
dry by Christmas.
We’re running out of water and this is not a development that
should have surprised us. The warnings have been out there
for years.
My old friend Charlie Seabrook, one of the best environmental reporters who
ever worked for the Atlanta newspapers, once wrote an article about the coming
water shortages for the Journal-Constitution. Here are some excerpts from that
article.
“Federal water experts on Tuesday presented data that suggest fast-growing
metro Atlanta is taking all the water that Lake Lanier and the Chattahoochee River
can provide, decades before it was forecast to have reached that limit. . ..
“State environmental officials had predicted metro Atlanta would not exhaust
Lanier and the Chattahoochee until 2030. Officials with the Georgia Environmental
Protection Division insisted Tuesday their data show that projection is still sound.
“But new water use data presented by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers sug
gest the region already is close to reaching - or in some cases exceeding - the
predicted 2030 levels. The corps said metro Atlanta, which grew from 3 million
runs dry
residents in 1990 to 4.1 million in 2000, actually exceeded expected water use for
2030 during some of 1999 and 2000. . . .”
That article was published in 2002 - when state officials still had time to address
the problem.
Environmental Protection Director Carol Couch, who recently ordered a clamp-
down on outdoor water use in North Georgia because of the drought, thinks the
state can work through its water problems by building a series of new reservoirs
and possibly transferring water from one basin to another.
That may not be politically possible. Any large-scale efforts to pipe more water
into the metro Atlanta area would probably trigger a civil war with people in other
parts of the state who don’t want to share their water. You’ve also got developers
who, thanks to the new “private cities” law, want to build planned communities in
South Georgia that will drain away even more of the precious resource.
Even if you could somehow overcome these political obstacles, where are you
going to find the billions of dollars it would take to build all these reservoirs? The
current political leadership in the governor’s office and the Legislature are ideologi
cally opposed to any tax increases.
House Speaker Glenn Richardson, in fact, is pushing a proposal to eliminate
property taxes that would empty the state treasury even more. If Richardson’s
property tax proposal becomes law, we won’t even be able to fund the current level
of services provided by state government, let alone build expensive new reservoirs.
What then?
When Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle sat down for an informal chat with capitol reporters
last week, I asked him if Georgia, just maybe, was reaching its upper limit of popu
lation growth because of the water shortage. Absolutely not, he replied.
“I think there is a concerted effort to try to create fear among Georgians by stop
ping growth with the threat of no longer having the water resources,” Cagle said.
“If we simply will manage the resource that falls from the sky - not necessarily the
abundance of resource that we have on the ground - then we can take care of our
needs way, way into the future.”
With all due respect to the lieutenant governor, I don’t think so. The depleted
reservoirs across North Georgia are a stark reminder that the well has just about
run dry.
Tom Crawford is the editor of Capitol Impact’s Georgia Report, an Internet news
site at www.gareport.com that covers government and politics in Georgia.
Homecoming
traditions
IT’S THAT time of year again
when the photos of high school
homecoming queens will be pub
lished in local newspapers.
It’s also that time of year when
high school administrators will al
low students to wear funky outfits
that serve no educational purpose.
The outfits will follow themes, such
as “baby day,”
“twins day” and
“blast from the
past day.”
And it’s that
time of year
when high school
rivalries reach
their peak for the
school year.
Ah, fall is finally
here (although it
officially “arrived”
almost a month
ago).
Homecoming is supposed to be
the season when you return to your
alma mater and reflect on the days
of the past.
I spent my high school days in
two states, Texas and Georgia. It’s
a big culture shock coming from a
high school in Texas that compares
in size to Mill Creek High School
to a significantly smaller school in
Georgia.
You know that saying that high
school football is everything in
Texas? Well, it’s true.
Football is king in the lone star
state — the stadiums are bigger,
the cheerleading squads have
more people, and the drill team
members can stand arm-to-arm
from goal post to goal post.
Nothing is spared when it comes
to high school football in Texas.
That’s especially true during home
coming.
At my high school in suburban
Houston, homecoming was a major
money-making event — especially
for local florists and crafts stores.
Mums were the big — and I
mean big — thing at my high
school in Texas. The mums in
Texas are not the little flower ar
rangements pinned on high school
students here in Georgia. No,
the mums in Texas are massive,
head-to-toe arrangements that let
everyone know that, yes, you have
school spirit.
My mum during my freshman
year of high school in 1994 cost
$60 for my mother to assemble
— a bargain considering that most
mums for girls at the time were at
least $100.
Texas mums generally included
an artificial flower, plenty of rib
bon in the school’s colors, a small
figurine of the school’s mascot and
even small bells. The mums usually
weighed so much that there was a
clever way to pin the ornament to
a bra strap to keep it from ripping
clothes.
I would later show my Texas mum
to some of my Georgia high school
friends and they seemed aston
ished that most of the student body
would wear such a thing.
Likewise, I felt uncomfortable
about one homecoming tradition at
my high school in Columbus, Ga.
At the time, the student body was
asked to select two “representa
tives” for the freshman, sophomore
and junior classes for homecom
ing.
The catch was that for each
class, one of those students was
white and the other was black. The
senior homecoming queen, how
ever, wasn’t limited by race.
It’s hard to believe that about 10
years ago, my high school was
still following the traditions of a
segregated south when it came to
homecoming.
Thankfully, that homecoming tra
dition ended shortly after I gradu
ated from high school.
Kerri Testement is the news editor
for The Braselton News. Her e-mail
address is kerri@mainstreetnews.
com.
Keri
Testement
kerri@mainstreet-
news.com