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BARROW NEWS-JOURNAL
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2016
Opinions
“Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press,
and that cannot be limited without being lost.
~ Thomas Jefferson ~
Georgia Press Association, first place, Best Editorial Page; first place, Best Serious Column
Does Hillary have a
chance in Georgia?
Items from my political notebook as we are
less than two months away from selecting a
new president:
• There has been much discussion on wheth
er Hillary Clinton can actually win Georgia
during the 2016 presidential election. While
it’s not impossible, the chances are probably
still slim.
While many Republicans aren’t thrilled with
Donald Trump being their party’s nominee,
most are going to hold their nose and vote
for him. No Republican is so dissatisfied with
Trump that they would vote for Hillary. There
are a few, 1 suppose, that
might vote for Libertarian
Gary Johnson or not vote
at all, but Georgia is still
likely to be Republican red
on Nov. 8. And remember
in presidential races, it’s
winner take all so even
if it’s 51% to 49% in favor
of Trump, he still will get
all of Georgia’s electoral
votes.
In driving around the
area, one can see more
and more Trump for
President signs beginning to appear. Finding a
Hillary sign is similar to being on a scavenger
hunt. Quite frankly, I don’t know if I have seen
one.
Remember, the last two presidential elections
were relatively competitive in this state although
Republicans John McCain and Mitt Romney
ultimately won. It might even be a point or
two closer in 2016, but look for Trump to carry
Georgia and our state’s electoral votes.
• More people are more unhappy with the
candidates for the two major political parties
than ever before.
In Georgia, it appears the only alternative to
Trump and Hillary will be the Libertarian tick
et. Despite efforts by the Green Party and the
Constitution Party, those nominees were not
able to overcome Georgia’s burdensome ballot
access requirements. And while state Green
Party officials have challenged the Secretary of
State’s ruling which disqualifies them from the
ballot, the court battle may not be decided until
after the election.
While it’s tough for a candidate outside
the two major parties to get on the ballot in
Georgia, other states are not as anti-third party.
An interesting item in the Sept. 1, 2016 edition
of Ballot Access News shows several states will
have presidential candidates who will not be
options in Georgia.
The Socialism and Liberation presiden
tial ticket will be on the ballot in California,
Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Louisiana, New Jersey,
New Mexico, Vermont and Washington. The
Workers World Party will be on the ballot in
New Jersey, Utah and Wisconsin while the
Prohibition Party will be a ballot alternative in
Arkansas, Colorado and Mississippi. It should
be noted that the Libertarian Party will be on
the presidential ballot in all 50 states in 2016.
Independent candidate Rocky De La Fuente
will be on the presidential ballot in several
states. He actually collected more than enough
signatures to be on the ballot in Georgia but the
Secretary of State is attempting to keep him off
the ballot on a technicality. Similar to the Green
Party, De La Fuente has filed a legal challenge
to Secretary of State Brian Kemp’s ruling, but
it remains to be seen if that challenge will be
successful.
Evan McMullin, who has been presented as
a conservative alternative to Trump, will be on
the ballot in a handful of states, but not enough
to mathematically have a chance to win enough
electoral votes to be president. McMullin’s cam
paign started way too late to have a legitimate
chance in some states, including Georgia, of
obtaining ballot access.
•The Barrow County Republication Party
will open its 2016 campaign headquarters on
Tuesday, Sept. 20. Chairman Ken Young said
the local office will be at Premier Brokers of
Georgia at 20 N. Broad Street. It is the same
building the Barrow County GOP has used
in past campaigns and is located between
the historic courthouse and the Chamber of
Commerce/railroad depot. Initially, the cam
paign headquarters will be open from 1-7 p.m.,
on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, from 1-4
p.m. on Wednesdays and 9 a.m. until noon on
Saturdays.
There will be free Trump-Pence yard signs
and free bumper stickers and have Trump-
Pence oval stickers and buttons for sale.
The Barrow County GOP will hold its next
monthly meeting at the Winder Woman’s Club
on Monday, Sept. 19, at 7:30 p.m. Guests will
be Roger Fitzpatrick, former 9th Congressional
District candidate, who will have a special pre
sentation on the U.S Constitution. The public
is invited to attend.
Winder resident Chris Bridges is editor of the
Barrow News-Journal. You can reach him at
cbridges@barrowjournal. com.
School boards speak out
against OSD amendment
Gov. Nathan Deal very much wants
to do away with local boards of educa
tion that run Georgia’s public school
systems.
The school boards are starting
to fight back.
Local boards in Cherokee,
Troup, Fayette, Henry, Savannah-
Chatham, Bibb, Dougherty,
Richmond, Newton, and Clayton
counties have passed resolu
tions opposing Deal’s proposed
constitutional amendment that
would create an “Opportunity
School District” (OSD).
Their counterparts in Barrow,
Douglas, and Rockdale counties
may be voting soon on similar
resolutions.
The Opportunity School
District, which is on the Nov. 8 election
ballot, is a mechanism for a state take
over of low-performing schools.
The district would be headed by a
superintendent, appointed by the gover
nor, who could take over schools where
students underperform on standardized
tests.
“We still have too many schools where
students have little hope of attaining the
skills they need to succeed in the work
force or in higher education,” Deal said.
“We have a moral duty to do everything
we can to help these children.”
Many of the schools targeted for state
takeover are in the Atlanta, DeKalb, and
Fulton County systems. Opposition to
the proposal, however, is coming from
conservative, Republican-leaning coun
ties like Cherokee, Troup, and Fayette
that don’t have any schools on the hit list
and voted for Deal both times when he
ran for governor.
“The big part of this in my mind is
that as a member of this school board
our job is to protect the children of
Cherokee County, and I see no benefit
in this to them,” said Kyla Cromer, who
chairs the Cherokee school board, in a
typical reaction to Deal’s proposal.
Much of the opposition centers on the
issue of local control, which would be
eliminated when a school is taken over
by the governor’s hand-picked superin
tendent.
“This will remove local control, would
remove the funding, restrict community
access to public facilities, instructional
materials and school equipment, and
will allow the diversion of state edu
cation funding away from local pub
lic schools to taxpayer-funded private
schools, or charter schools,” Troup
County Supt. Cole Pugh said.
“Once you give up autonomy of those
institutions, you’ll never give it back,”
Gwinnett County board Chairman
Robert McClure warned. “We believe we
know how to do education in Gwinnett.
We can tackle our own challenges.”
“A superintendent appointed by
the governor and managing up to 100
schools from an office in Atlanta can
not be expected to do any better in
turning these schools around than
the experienced educators who are
on site and working with teams from
the district and school to analyze the
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issues and determine strategic interven
tions,” said Allene Magill, director of
the Professional Association of Georgia
Educators (PAGE).
Another sensitive issue
is that the governor’s
superintendent could
bring in for-profit char
ter school companies
to run these designated
schools.
“What the ultimate
motive is, is to privat
ize public education,”
Decatur County Supt.
Tim Cochran said.
“What I believe the plan
is, is to contract with
for-profit charter schools
and let them come in
and run it.”
Many of the problems faced by
schools stem from the state’s decision
to drastically reduce formula funding
to local systems. The governor and the
legislature have cut more than $8 billion
combined over the past 12 years that
should have gone to public schools but
was instead diverted to other budget
areas.
“Why doesn’t the state give local
boards the finances to be able to do the
things that they’re saying they can do?”
Newton County board member Almond
Turner asked.
Teachers’ groups like PAGE and
the Georgia Association of Educators
(GAE), as well as the Georgia PTA, are
also opposed to the school takeover
plan.
“If our teachers are happy being teach
ers in the cultures in the schools that we
have created, then they need to fight this
with their heart and souls,” said Barrow
County school board member Lynn
Stevens. “And they have the power,
along with the administrators, to send
a message to the governor to go to hell
and take his money with him.”
It’s a simple question to decide on
Nov. 8. If you like the idea of faceless
bureaucrats in Atlanta spending your tax
dollars and running your schools with
out your having any say in it, vote yes. If
not, you should vote no.
Tom Crawford is editor of The Georgia
Report, an internet news service at gare-
port.com that reports on state govern
ment and politics. He can be reached at
tcrawford@gareport. com.
The Barrow News-Journal
Winder. Barrow County. Ga.
www.BarrowJoumal.com
Mike Buffington
Co-Publisher
Scott Buffington
Co-Publisher
Chris Bridges
Editor
Jessica Brown
Photographer
Susan Treadwell
Advertising
Sharon Hoaan
Office & Reoorter
Also covering beats are Alex Pace and Scott Thompson
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Never forget
Sunday morning, 1 attended the 9-11 remem
brance service hosted annually by the Winder
Fire Department.
Every year I am able to attend, they always
welcome me and thank me for coming. 1
tell them, “I just wish we didn’t have to have
this kind of service.” We all wish this day 15
years ago had turned out to be mundane and
uneventful like the days prior.
It’s somewhat difficult for me to put into
words what this day
means for myself and
the people in my gen
eration. As a student
of history, I’m accus
tomed to research
ing and analyzing the
gmesome events of the
past. They never hit
close to home though.
I can read accounts
from Sherman’s march
of destruction through
Georgia and not feel the
amount of raw emotion
I feel on 9-11.1 suppose if I read of Sherman’s
devastation back in 1880, I’d feel very much
the way I do now.
For my generation, we were never fazed
by the terror we read in our textbooks in the
same capacity.
The Civil War was generations before our
births so it feels so far away from us. We
weren’t alive to watch the moon landing or
the brutality of the Vietnam War on television.
It wasn’t until 9-11 that we really understood
what our parents and grandparents felt.
We became part of history. We saw it hap
pening live on television and on the radio. It
was inescapable. I remember I was eight years
old, just going to school at Hebron Christian
Academy. The day started normally and we
were unaware of the events that happened
until a couple hours later. I can’t remember all
that much of the school day. It was uneventful.
Maybe another teacher came in to our class
room and broke the news to our teacher? It’s
fuzzy. We were told school was releasing early.
We didn’t know why.
It was pure chaos in the carpool lines as
kids flocked to their parents’ cars excited that
school was cancelled. That’s when my mem
ory becomes crystal clear. I got in the car with
my mom and wanted to know what was going
on. She shushed me and turned up the radio
reporting the falling of the Twin Towers. At
eight years old, I didn’t really understand the
gravity of the situation until I got home and
we sat in front of the television watching the
news. It’s something 1 can’t ever forget.
Now 15 years later, it’s still very emotional
for our nation. 1 saw that at the remembrance
ceremony. Here we had members of our com
munity gathered together to mourn the loss
of innocent Americans whom we most likely
never knew. Most of us in Barrow County
didn’t know those who died personally, but
we know something that connects us all.
The victims were businessmen and women.
They were first responders and firemen and
police. They were people traveling for work or
vacation. They were husbands, wives, moth
ers, daughters, sons, and fathers. They were
Americans. We didn’t need to know them
personally to grieve their untimely deaths
because, though stranger in name, they were
part of us in heart and spirit.
I held back tears until I reached my car.
After the service there were so many small
moments that made my heart ache.
I saw a 17-month-old little boy being held by
his grandfather wearing a Fire Department of
New York ball cap. The grandson kept point
ing at the massive American flag waving from
the ladder of the fire truck.
I heard the empty silence of the crowd
as the bell was wrung. Not even the small
children in attendance cried or fussed. They
didn’t ask their parents what was going on,
nor were they shushed. All was hauntingly
quiet except for the ringing bell.
I witnessed a veteran — one of the strongest
groups of people to ever walk this earth —
reduced to tears as the flag was lowered to
half mast.
I saw a fireman and his five-year-old son
who was dressed just like his hero, his daddy.
They stood inside the fire station holding
hands while “Amazing Grace” played.
After the ceremony, I saw a young mother
with her children looking at the small 9-11 stat
ue on the front table. The little boy scanned
all of its details even if he didn’t fully under
stand its meaning. That’s when I realized that
there’s an entire generation who will never
know how those of us who witnessed the
tragedy truly feel.
I wondered what it would be like as a
mother to explain 9-11 to her child. And then 1
witnessed part of that conversation.
As I walked back to my car, overwhelmed
with emotions, 1 overheard a mother talking
to her daughter. She said, “What those people
did on the plane is called sacrifice. Sometimes
we have to make a sacrifice to help others.”
May we all remember that word: sacrifice.
May we never forget how we feel on this day.
May we always educate our children on what
this day means and pray they never witness
the same types of horror we saw 15 years ago.
Winder resident Jessica Brown is the staff
photographer for the Barrow News-Journal.
You can contact her at picsbyjessica I @gmail.
com.