Newspaper Page Text
♦ SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2007
4A
Daniel F. Evans
President
Editor and Publisher
Julie B. Evans
Vice President
Tax reform or tax shift?
Skip Dawkins, longtime member of the Houston
County Board of Education and current presi
dent of the Georgia School Boards Association,
took a moment at
last week’s board
meeting to express
some apprecia
tion to Gov. Sonny
Perdue.
As Dawkins point
ed out, the gover
nor has expressed
some strong doubts
about House
Speaker Glenn
Richardson’s plan
to end Georgia’s
property tax and
replace those reve
nues by adding the
sales tax to gro
ceries and a wide
range of services.
While ending
the property tax
sounds like a good
deal to many at
first glance, the
problem that has
been brought up
by Dawkins and
many other elected
officials at the local
level is that the
proposal, if passed, would deal a crushing blow
to local control, turning over the redistribution of
revenues to the state government.
The plan, if passed, would also mean that poor
families, while not getting much relief from the
end of the property tax, would find themselves
paying more for necessities such as food and
non-emergency medical services.
Richardson has done a service in getting
See TAX, page 8A
Letters to the editor
Volleyball group needs support
As I sat at the Houston County Board of Education
work session this past Monday night and watched
them review the multimillion-dollar budget, I thought those
are my tax dollars at work ... and yours. I was there to pres
ent a request to use Houston County School gymnasiums
for Central Georgia Volleyball Association, a non-profit all
volunteer organization competing on a national level with
exposure to college scholarship opportunities. Without the
use of community facilities our program could not exist.
On Tuesday at the HCBOE meeting our request was
denied. This is tragic for our program since there are very
few existing community gyms in Central Georgia with vol
leyball standards.
I am parent and a philanthropist in Houston County and I
am confused by the message this sends. We are encour
aged by the schools to get them off the sofa for some
exercise in their ‘Wellness Policy” and to get connected
with our kids in their proposed “Be There” campaign which
would cost an estimated $14,900 next year. We already get
it. We are there for our kids and many others from Houston
County (but) it seems like the board is talking out of both
sides of their mouth.
Schools in the Atlanta area and in our neighbor states
allow access to their gyms and they are able to develop
highly competitive programs by providing kids as young as
10 years old the opportunity to play volleyball. As a result,
the girls receiving college scholarships for volleyball are
from Atlanta and other states - not central Georgia.
We have proven that our program can help our girls be
competitive.
This is the fifth season for Central Georgia Volleyball
Association. We’re hoping it is not “The season that never
was”. CGVA’s Board, coaches and parents will persevere
for our 50 boy and girl athletes, because anything is pos
sible.
Carolyn Marshall, CGVA, Vice President
HOW TO SUBMIT:
Thsre are three ways to submit a letter to the editor: E
mail it to hhj@evansnewspapers.com, mail it to Houston
Home Journal at 1210 Washington St., Perry, GA 31069, or
drop it off at the same location between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m.
Monday through Friday.
Letters should not exceed 350 words and must include
the writer’s name, address and telephone number (the last
two not printed). The newspaper reserves the right to edit
or reject letters for reasons of grammar, punctuation, taste
and brevity.
Foy S. Evans
Editor Emeritus
Don Moncrief
Managing Editor
“Richardson has
done a service in
getting the issues
of taxation open for
public
discussion and
debate, and there is
general support for
tax reform, but the
plan he reportedly
plans to present to
the Georgia House of
Representatives at
the beginning of the
2008 session is
troubling to
virtually all of
Houston County’s
local elected
officials.”
BELIEF
Thanksgiving: I guess that's it
Thanksgiving: I guess that’s
it. Thanksgiving: My favorite
holiday(s) of the year. We get
Thursday (and, actually, we usually
close early on Wednesday) and Friday
off. Couple that with the weekend, and
you have four days in a row. And, it’s
not too hectic - especially for me since
I don’t prepare the Thanksgiving din
ner - and there’s lots of family. It’s very
nice. Yes, Thanksgiving is probably
it for me. Which, gets me to thinking
about all I have and have had for which
to be thankful. Here are some of them.
Just a few.
| A mother, who at 87 years is still
“sharp as a tack,” is a joy to be around,
and makes the best roast beef, rice
and gravy and Thanksgiving meal in
America.
| A wife who is always positive,
always cheerful, and is ready to tackle
any project, no matter how big or com
plicated. Yeah, I know, “Janice is the
best thing that ever happened to me”.
E An inside bathroom and a hot
shower, and that wonderful “during
my life-time invention” called air con
ditioning, which made the hot Georgia
summers tolerable. And, it made
Georgia the best place to live in the
world!
B A farm. Our own farm. Momma
says I got my love for the land from my
daddy. I guess I did -1 can see him now,
in my mind, down on his knees dig
ging in his peanuts to see if they had
“pegged-down yet” - or cutting young
pecans in two to see how the fruit was
going to be.
B And speaking of Daddy, his read-
/'"T/’'#%>,O / ...Don’t worry. \
A /-\ ( How much longer j
f x J ) \ can hold on? J
.w-Vj]
Messy neighbors paying the cost
The thud you are about to hear
is my very wise (and tidy) wife
fainting.
I am about to commit nearly 650
words to the subject of cleaning up
after yourself, not one of my strong
suits.
OK, maybe not even a suit at all,
more like a no trump or not playing
with a complete deck.
The subject arose after a couple ideas
crossed my mind this weekend (a third,
picking up my socks, escaped me).
I read in the business section of
Sunday’s Independent that, according
to a recent national survey, 45 percent
of respondents said leaving a mess was
a pet peeve of theirs at the office. That
ranked only behind gossip and slackers
as the worst of workplace behavior.
This was one day after I read a story
on the newspaper’s front page that
it will take 10 years and S2O million
to clean up the mess somebody left
on Engleman Road. Granted, volatile
organic compounds with names so long
they have to have numbers attached is
much more serious than the tuna fish
on rye sitting two weeks in the break
room fridge.
The cause, however, is the same.
Somebody failed to clean up after
himself.
()//(' ro/rr ((/ft nn/fi'c a
Larry
Walker
Columnist
lwalker@whgb-law.com
ing the “funny papers” to me before I
could even talk, resulting in my first
word being “read” and my love of
books and reading.
g| Four great children and seven
wonderful grandchildren, all within
10 miles of where we live, and all of
whom are mighty sweet to us. What a
blessing!
| And writing of children and
grandchildren, what about our four
super-sharp in-laws? No wonder our
grandchildren are so special. And, my
great in-laws, J. O. And Judy Knighton.
Mr. Knighton is gone, but still remem
bered.
B A great place to live. Clean - both
physically and politically. Progressive
and yet with deference to the past and
tradition.
| A good church - not perfect, like
the people in it - but, mighty good.
Good music and the “best-in-the-pul
pit” preacher I have ever heard.
B Friends - so many wonderful
friends! They are there in happy times
and they are really there in sad times.
We know, we have experienced it both
ways. I’d like to name them, but I don’t
have the space, and I’d surely omit
some that we love very much.
George
Ayoub
Morris News Service
george.ayoub@morris.com
If you want to take me to the over
simplification woodshed, fine, but I
would argue that leaving a mess for
someone else to take care of means
socks on the floor, funky sandwiches
in the refrigerator and 1,000 tons of
contaminated dirt leeching poison into
the groundwater.
The difference, of course, is that
nobody gets sick or worse with the
first two.
No, I did not leave 1,1-dichloroethyl
ene, 1,1,1-trichloroethaneor 1,1-dichlo
roethane in the ground and eventually
the water. Yes, I do leave my socks on
the floor, but even after a good workout
my Gold Toes and Swooshes pose a
threat only to the olfactories. They do
not sicken anyone.
It may take us as long in court to
determine who failed to clean up after
themselves on Engleman as it does to
clean it up. Superfund site regulations
oil'*,
Al
HOUSTON HOME JOURNAL
■ An invitation to go quail hunting
or “fish in our pond”. Do you know
how much it cost to have a good pond
or to have bird dogs, bird buggies, and
quail?
El Mr. Weir and Ben. I couldn’t have
a farm without their help. Thanks at
Thanksgiving.
El Great teachers, when I came
along, who are still living. Florence,
Herb, Earl Herman, Jeanne, Molly, and
Jim come to mind. I’m thankful that I
can call them by their first names, but
I don’t often do it, do I, Mrs. Harrison,
Coach, Mr. Cheek, Mrs. Bledsoe, Mrs.
Moss, and Mayor?
■ The Georgia Bulldogs. They don’t
win all of the time, but they win
enough to make us happy more than
most. Go Dawgs.
El Water. “They” said it would be
more important than oil. Well, it looks
as if “they” might be right. Thanks for
one of the world’s largest underground
aquifers right here in Middle Georgia.
At least, that’s what “they” say.
| Riley Hunt, Frank Shelton, Larry
Wood and Perry Volunteer Outreach.
| Battle Creek, Mich., and the com,
wheat, rice and oats products that
emanate therefrom. Without these, I
might have starved to death!
■ Law partners. Good lawyers and
great people. And, the best staff I’ve
had in 42 years in the business. And,
memories of past staff ‘super-stars’
like Lois Athon, Richard Home, and
Mary Lynn Harrison. I could name
others.
■ Four wonderful grandparents
See WALKER, page SA
compel those responsible to pay for the
cleansing, even though the damage has
already been inflicted on the environ
ment and certainly on the psyche of
those who want to trust that a glass of
cold water from their faucet is safe to
drink.
Simply paying for your mess differs
from taking responsibility for it.
In the office, according to research,
few things irritate us more than a co
worker who leaves behind a mess: the
copy room in shambles, the break room
littered, the conference room unfit for
conferences.
In the workplace we grumble a little
first. Then we post notes, threatening
to padlock the refrigerator, get rid of
all the coffee cups or do away with the
microwave.
Occasionally a brave soul will get
directly in the grill of the offender to
detail his or her messy shortcomings.
That usually works.
It is not exactly clear how one goes
about handling a messy neighbor up
the groundwater stream when a com
pany, sometimes a large, impersonal
and secure company, is the problem.
Four Grand Island subdivisions who
have filed a lawsuit to fix responsibil
ity are asking themselves the same
See AYOUB, page