Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

♦ SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 2006 4A Muusimt BaUn OPINION Daniel F. Evans Editor and Publisher Julie B. Evans Vice President Don Moncrief Managing Editor Perry planning ahead Growth is good news for the most part, but there are times when it hits the taxpayer hard, because the infra structure must keep up with the growth, and the big payoff of more property taxes doesn’t come soon enough. The debate about requiring impact fees from subdivision developers has been going on for several years in Houston County, and many have argued that impact fees should be used rather than Special Purpose Local Option Sales Taxes to build the necessary highways, schools and other facilities that are needed to keep pace with the growing residential population. We don’t agree with that prem ise, or believe that impact fees could ever bring in enough funds to cover the massive school building and highway improvement efforts being undertaken in Houston County. We hope that all citizens will under stand that the SPLOSTs are unlikely to go away. Houston County has had huge growth, and its elected leaders are working hard to keep up. Without those SPLOSTs, we would be in gridlock now, and probably have more chil dren in trailers than in classrooms. We do, however, see a place for impact fees in the overall picture. If the fees can be kept fair and at a level that doesn’t discourage reasonable growth, then it makes sense that developers should pitch in and help with some of the costs of growth. The Perry City Council is embarking on a study of impact fees and going about it in the right way. It’s going to take a while, and it’s going to take a lot of discussion with developers and input from the community, but we think they’re heading in the right direction, and that a conservative approach is essential. The city government put out a request for proposals from consultants and on Tuesday night at their work session they heard pre sentations from two consultants, both of whom were well-informed and had exten sive experience with helping cities and counties set up impact fees. After picking one, they’ll be working toward a feasible plan. Public hearings will be part of the process, and one goal will be to have something in the long run that is so fair, and so transparent, that it will stand up under any court challenge. This is something new for this area, but impact fees are already in place in a num ber of cities and counties in Georgia - most ly in the northern metro areas. They are, where they are in place, a part of the big financial picture, not a "silver bul let” answer. The mayor and council will have a lot of homework to do, and a lot of different points of view to consider. We wish them well and hope that the end result will be good for the city, good for the taxpayers, and not too burdensome for developers. Foy S. Evans Editor Emeritus We don't agree with that premise, or believe that impact fees could ever bring in enough funds to cover the massive school building and highway improvement efforts being undertaken in Houston County. We hope that all citizens will understand that the SPLOSTs are unlikely to go away. Houston County has had huge growth, and its elected leaders are working hard to keep up. Without those SPLOSTs, we would be in gridlock now, and probably have more children in trailers than in classrooms. What a difference time has made My, how things have changed. We are at war in Iraq. If one of our soldiers kills a civil ian he could wind up going to prison. Forget the fact the civilian might kill them while they hesitate to avoid a court martial. Aerial and ground attacks that could result in death or capture of enemy leaders are called off or diverted if there is a possibility that some civilians could be killed. And when civilians are killed accidentally we break our necks apologizing. How different today than it was in World War 11. Civilians were fair targets in the war in which President Franklin D. Roosevelt said that the only acceptable outcome was “unconditional surren der” by our enemies. How long has it been since that was our policy? The Germans targeted civil ians when they bombed London and other cities in England before the United States entered the war. But it was the Allies that really went after civilians as a means of bringing an end to the war with Germany. The Allied Command decided, after bombing munitions plants and mili tary installations incessantly, that this tactic was not working. It was decided that the only way to defeat the Nazis was to destroy the morale of the German people. The way to do that was to bomb cities and kill civilians. The first truly overwhelming attack on a German city came at Hamburg. Thousands of bombs were dropped by hundreds of Allied bombers on this important city. ~ TjG«IMY,-rHKe 1 r^ o WTHE * "1 (T l<9 WiEGAL?! f ARE PILWiM's j L^E^ Sanders reflects on career, current state Sometimes you get to do some thing for free that you would pay for the privilege of doing like having a two-hour conversation with one of your political heroes, former Georgia Gov. Carl Sanders. He even bought lunch. It doesn’t get much bet ter than that. I got to know Gov. Sanders while he was a member of the board of direc tors of the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games, but I had admired him from afar long before that. I voted for him when he was elected in 1962, and I voted for him again in 1970 when he ran against Jimmy Carter for gover nor and lost. Looking fit and trim at 81 years old the former UGA quarterback works out three days a week Sanders reflected on his political career and the current state of politics in Georgia, and dispensed some advice to the cur rent generation of officeholders in the state. His tenure as governor came at a critical time in the state’s history as the South grappled with the volatile issue of integration. “Looking back,” he said, “I wasn’t thinking about his tory then. I was thinking about doing the best I could as governor, and as it turned out, some of the work I did has stood the test of time.” Sanders, generally considered the first “New South governor,” led Georgia through one of its most tur bulent periods and put the state on an economic path that helped it .leap frog past neighboring states, in part because of the way the state handled its civil rights issues. “At the time I was elected, Birmingham was as well posi tioned or maybe better positioned OPINION Hamburg was bombed into ruins and then incendiary bombs were dropped to burn the destroyed buildings. According to historical documents, more than 60,000 German civilians were killed in the destruction of Hamburg. There was no outcry in the United States demanding that servicemen and military leaders be tried for their actions. Americans cheered while being shocked at the same time. They knew that our side finally was winning. We learned about the destruction of Hamburg through newspapers. There was no television. Theaters at that time showed movie newsreels weekly and we saw the city being bombed in not so clear black and white. Other cities in Germany were bombed to break the morale of the German people. Another city that suffered tre mendously was Dresden. Our soldiers were sent to war to win a war. They were not criticized for doing it as best they could. President Harry Truman made the call to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan. Civilians were targeted to break the morale of the Japanese government. It worked. Despite the fact that hundreds of thousands of Japanese were either 6Y mots a PUBLIC CELEBRATIONS Foy Evans Columnist foyevansl9@cox net Dick Yarbrough Columnist yarb24oo@bellsouth.net as Atlanta, but look what happened there,” he said. “We had some tensions in Albany and Crawfordville and a few other places, but we were able to avoid significant clashes in our state between law enforcement and people who were protesting.” The governor talked about the sup port he received from white business leaders such as Robert Woodruff, the legendary Coca-Cola executive and phi lanthropist, bankers Mills Lane and John Sibley, Atlanta Mayor Ivan Allen, along with the black leaders of the day: Leroy Johnson, the state’s first black senator, State Rep. Grace Hamilton, educator Benjamin Mays, and Martin Luther King Sr. Collectively, they were instrumental in keeping a lid on the emotions of both black and white Georgians. “I will always be grateful,” Sanders said, “to these business and community leaders for their support of my efforts.” Sanders also credits his predecessor, the late Ernest Vandiver, for making the decision to keep the state’s uni versities open when politicians like Alabama Gov. George Wallace were blocking the schoolhouse door to keep black students out. Sanders, then a state senator, admits he “strongly” counseled Vandiver, in an emotional 1 :: HOUSTON DAILY JOURNAL killed or injured there was no outcry in this country condemning President Truman. War is hell, as Gen. Sherman said, and we looked at it that way more than 60 years ago. Times have changed. And we haven’t won a real war since. ■ ■■ The movie “Borat” has been pack ing theaters the past few weeks. I had some spare time during a trip last weekend, so I dropped in and took a look at this movie. In my opinion, it was juvenile and silly and I walked out on it in about 20 minutes. ■ ■■ Some viewers were shocked when Rep. John Murtha, a vowed opponent of ethics reform in Congress, said “we should be dealing with the Iraq war not ethics”, adding that dealing with ethics is “pure crap.” I got the impression that the outcome of the recent elections was a demand by vot ers to clean up the corruptness that has infected Congress. ■ ■■ Australia is making it clear that it will not tolerate radical Islamic Muslims putting their religious beliefs above loyalty to the country. Radical Islamic Muslims have been ordered to leave the country and clerics unwill ing to pledge their loyalty to Australia have been put on notice that they will be deported. meeting with the governor and mem bers of the Legislature, not to close the University of Georgia. Did he feel a lot of pressure to knuckle under to those who wanted to emulate our neighbors in Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas and other Southern states? “Not one bit,” Sanders says with emphasis. “I knew what I was going to do. We were going to follow the law of the land. I appointed the lead ers in the Legislature, and they knew they had better support my programs. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be in the leadership for long.” Such tactics wouldn’t fly today, he admits. “When Lester Maddox was elected governor, the Legislature took a lot of political power away from the governor’s office, and they have never given it back.” Sanders doesn’t think having Georgia governors eligible for two terms is nec essarily a good thing. “They become risk-averse in the first term so they can get re-elected,” he says, “and then take eight years to do what previous gover nors did in four.” He cites Roy Barnes as an example of a risk-taking gover nor, whose first-term activism cost him a second term. We finally got around to talking about his run for governor in 1970 against Jimmy Carter. “Jimmy Carter effectively used race as a wedge issue against me,” Sanders says matter-of factly. More next week on the sleazy campaign Carter conducted, the one he would like you to forget. You can reach Dick Yarbrough at yarb24oo@bellsouth.net P.O. Box 725373, Atlanta, Georgia 31139 or Web site: www.dickyarbrough.com.