Newspaper Page Text
PAGE 4A
BARROW NEWS-JOURNAL
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 2016
Opinions
“Private opinion is weak, but public opinion is almost omnipotent. ”
~ Henry Ward Beecher ~
Statham City
Council meeting
just didn’t
look right
It just didn’t look right. City hall was locked just
before a public meeting, and city officials were
surreptitiously let in a side door.
It just didn’t look right. Those who came to pro
test didn’t think much of it either.
The crowd in front of Statham city hall Nov. 14
was large.
More than 60 people, a number with signs
opposing the sale of alcohol close to a church,
lined the sidewalk for most of a block.
No law was broken, but the council could not
have sent a worst message.
Council members stayed locked behind closed
doors until 6:48 p.m. by my
watch.
The meeting was standing
room only.
The agenda included two
controversial items - each
brought its own crowd of
protesters.
One was a proposed
change in the city’s alcohol
ordinance that would effec
tively abolish the distance
requirement for selling alco
hol.
Distance requirements
provide a buffer between places that sell alcohol
and public places such as churches and schools.
One of the church members told council the
group wouldn’t have known about the proposed
change except someone told him about it.
He implied a secrecy about the change - hoping
to get it approved without much public awareness.
The other issue is about a city police officer who
is accused of intimidating people he stops and
lying about charges placed against them.
Several speakers said council members are in
cahoots with the officer, and his boss, the police
chief.
Several DUI cases have been dismissed after
blood tests revealed no alcohol or drugs present.
Council members made no comment while a
parade of speakers condemned them, the officer
and their process for dealing with complaints.
It was a tense meeting. Only one woman began
to cross lines, speaking from the audience and
making derogatory comments about council
members.
She later took her turn at the podium.
The city attorney and mayor complimented
those attending for their behavior and orderly
manner.
Council members were told not to respond to
comments made because of the threat of lawsuits.
No suits had been filed as of that day, but multiple
speakers referred to lawsuits.
The allegations made about the police officer
and city officials are serious.
They should get a response.
But the city attorney’s warning about lawsuits
has some validity. How, then, to respond? That is
a legitimate question.
The perception about council and the police
department might be equally damaging.
The council had a dozen or more law enforce
ment officers in the room.
They were from the Georgia State Patrol, the
Barrow County Sheriff’s Office and the city police
department.
A couple of the speakers challenged the need
for so many.
Council gave everyone time to speak. Five
minutes per person was allocated; most did not
take that long. It still took most of an hour for the
complaints about the officer.
The meeting was handled pretty well - given the
emotions that bubbled over and out.
Some speakers’ voices broke and they teared
up. Two used foul language. Several voices trem
bled with emotion.
Unfortunately, nothing changed. As near as we
can see, nothing will change.
The city will take the position that it cannot
respond because of the legal threat.
Those who complained demanded a response.
Failure to respond reinforces their belief that the
council is complicit in problems with the police
department.
Statham will continue to be damaged by accu
sations that are not refuted and no action taken.
That locked door is really bothersome.
Ron Bridgeman is a reporter for Mainstreet
Newspapers. Send email to ron@mainstreetnews.
com.
Write a Letter to the Editor:
Let us know your thoughts: Send Letters
to Editor, The Barrow News-Journal, 77 E.
May Street, Winder, Ga. 30680. Letters can
also be emailed to sthompson@mainstreet-
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ject line. Please include the city of the writer..
Election numbers show
Georgia is still very red
Now that the final election totals are
in, let’s look at a couple of Georgia’s
voting trends.
One of the most definitive results
of election night was the overwhelm
ing rejection of Gov. Nathan Deal’s
“Opportunity School District”
involving a state takeover of
low-performing schools.
Voters obviously did not like
the idea of the state assum
ing the power to control their
schools and grab the local
taxes that go along with those
schools.
The “no” votes against
Amendment 1 amounted to
nearly 60 percent and the mar
gin of defeat was just under
800,000 votes.
This was an issue where
Republicans and Democrats found
common ground.
Democratic-leaning counties that
contained low-performing schools
subject to takeover such as Fulton,
DeKalb, and Clayton voted strongly
against the amendment.
What was amazing was the rejection
of the Deal takeover plan among solid
ly Republican counties that had voted
twice to elect him as governor.
Cherokee County is one of the state’s
strongest Republican counties, but it is
also where the school board passed a
resolution opposing the measure.
One of the most outspoken oppo
nents of the school takeover plan
was Georgia PTA President Lisa-Marie
Haygood, who’s from Cherokee.
Cherokee and other Republican
metro counties like Forsyth, Fayette,
Paulding, Coweta, and Hall voted
against Amendment 1.
That same level of opposition also
cropped up in virtually every county
outside the metro area.
Just a random look at the results
shows the amendment losing in coun
ties like Jackson, Dawson, Barrow,
Thomas, Grady, Bryan, Effingham,
Bulloch, Liberty Candler, Wayne,
Pierce, Rabun, Whitfield, and
Oglethorpe.
You often hear Georgia legislators
talk about their devotion to the con
cept of local control.
Many of them don’t really mean it,
of course - just look at the bills they
pass every session to pre-empt local
governments from acting on specified
issues.
In this instance, however, the voters
spoke loudly and clearly. When it
comes to running their own schools,
they really do believe in local control.
The election returns also indicated
that despite the long-running specula
tion that Georgia might be on the way
to becoming a “blue” state or a “pur
ple” state, it still remains very much a
“red” state.
The speculation is stoked by the
very real trend that the percentage of
white registered voters is slowly but
steadily decreasing while the percent
age of black, Latino, and Asian voters
increases.
This trend affected some Atlanta-
area counties with a long history of
voting Republican that went for the
Democrat in this presidential election.
Cobb voted for Mitt Romney by
38,000 votes in 2012, but went for
Hillary Clinton by a 7,000-vote mar
gin. Gwinnett flipped from support
ing Romney by 27,000 to supporting
Clinton by 19,000. Henry went for
Romney by 3,000 votes four years ago,
but flipped to giving Clinton a 4,000-
vote advantage in this election.
Those are significant changes and
reflect the growing diversity of those
counties’ populations.
But in other metro counties like
Hall, Forsyth, Coweta, Paulding, and
Cherokee, the mar
gin of support for the
Republican presidential
candidate was about the
same this year as it was
in the last presidential
election.
The same trend held
on a statewide level.
In 2008, John McCain
carried Georgia by a
margin of 204,636 votes
over Barack Obama.
The percentage split was
52-47 percent.
Eight years later, Donald Trump car
ried Georgia by a margin of 211,151
votes over Hillary Clinton.
The percentage split was 51-46 per
cent.
Despite the loss of thousands of
white voters and the addition of many
non-white voters during that eight-year
period, the Republican presidential
candidate actually carried Georgia by
a slightly larger number of raw votes
this time around.
The percentage difference was
about the same at five points.
Republicans also maintained
their control over state government.
Every statewide elected officer is a
Republican and the GOP holds close
to a two-thirds advantage in both
chambers of the General Assembly.
The explanation for this is simple. In
Georgia as in other states, white voters
usually do a better job of turning out
on election day.
The more the percentage of non
white voters increases, the more
determined white voters are to get out
and vote.
That makes a big difference, espe
cially in off-year elections.
That’s why Georgia will likely con
tinue to be a red state for the next few
election cycles.
Tom Crawford is editor of The
Georgia Report, an internet news ser
vice at gareport.com that reports on
state government and politics. He can
be reached at tcrawford@gareport.
com.
The Barrow News-Journal
Winder, Barrow County, Ga.
www.BarrowJoumal.com
Mike Buffington
Scott Buffington
Co-Publisher
Co-Publisher
Scott Thompson
Editor
Jessica Brown
Photographer
Susan Treadwell
Advertising
Sharon Hogan
Office & Reporter
Also covering beats is Alex Pace.
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: Turmoil ahead as
• Obamacare fades
One of the major issues of the recent
presidential campaign was the fate of
Obamacare. Republicans have been trying
for the past six years to “repeal” the health
insurance structure adopted in 2010.
But the election of Donald Trump as
president won’t necessarily mean a full
“repeal” of the law. Doing that would throw
both the insurance community and health
care industry into financial chaos.
More likely is for certain parts of the
law to be kept, other
parts abolished and
some new provisions
put into place.
Here’s a rundown
of some of the key
areas that will be part
of that debate:
• MANDATE
mike
buffington
Obamacare man
dates that everyone
in the nation have
health insurance, or
pay a penalty. The
idea behind that was to force younger,
healthier individuals into the system as
a way to subsidize older, sicker people.
But the mandate isn’t liked by many and
will probably go away under the coming
reforms. That will leave the insurance
pools with sicker people, which in turn
could force rates even higher.
• PRE-EXISTING CONDITIONS - Before
Obamacare, insurance firms could exclude
sick people or in some cases, kick off peo
ple who developed an expensive illness.
That can’t be done today. This part of the
law is very popular and will likely be kept,
but look for insurance firms to try to make
it go away. Insurance companies would
love to have the ability to get rid of their
sickest enrollees.
•AGE 26 COVERAGE - Keeping chil
dren on an adult’s policy until age 26 is
also popular. Republicans probably won’t
seek to change this, either.
• STATE EXCHANGES - These are the
heart of Obamacare’s system and will
likely go away, especially if the mandate
goes away. The individual market in the
exchanges is dying. Insurance firms are
fleeing it because it’s bringing in sick
er patients and not drawing in younger,
healthier people. If this goes away, so will
the subsidies for poor people to purchase
insurance.
•GENDER DISCRIMINATION - Before
Obamacare, insurance firms could charge
one gender, usually women, more for
insurance. That’s no longer possible, but
might change under reform.
•COMPANY INSURANCE - Under
Obamacare, firms with 50 or more employ
ees were mandated to offer health insur
ance. That threshold may go up to 100 or
150 employees to give small businesses a
break.
• MANDATED COVERAGES
Obamacare more or less structured insur
ance policies by forcing insurance compa
nies to cover certain things. Some of those
had to be free, such as birth control for
women. Look for some of this to change
under reform so that insurance companies
have more freedom to include or exclude
certain coverages. The downside will be
that comparing insurance policies could
get more complicated and will require
more consumer study.
As both a small business owner and
someone who has a chronic illness that
requires a lot of medical interventions, I
see this issue as both a businessman and
as a healthcare consumer.
On the business side, dealing with health
insurance has gotten to be more complex
and more expensive. Small companies
like ours don’t have enough employees
to negotiate cheaper plans or to be partly
self-insured. And the Obamacare paper
work has increased to a point that is crazy.
This year, we had to switch insurance
firms due to a major hike in our rates.
That is a pain for both management and
employees.
As a patient, however, having health
insurance is not a luxury, it’s necessary. My
total healthcare cost over the past year was
probably over $150,000 for scans, medi
cations, treatments, biopsies, etc. For six
months, I was taking a daily pill that cost
$10,000 per month. A recent group of infu
sions at Emory Hospital was over $40,000.
No individual can afford that kind of
medical expense. Without insurance,
patients with chronic medical conditions
would go bankrupt, or perhaps face dying
from not getting treatment.
Before Obamacare, the nation’s health
care system was in disarray. Insurance
firms were dropping sick patients and
See Buffington on Page 5A