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BARROW NEWS-JOURNAL
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 9, 2017
Opinions
“Private opinion is weak, but public opinion is almost omnipotent. ”
~ Henry Ward Beecher ~
Maxine and Maxine
There are two well known Maxines.
The more popular is Maxine of Hallmark fame, the
elderly Madam, being a cartoon character, who tells
it like it is and who doesn’t mind making the preacher
blush while standing in the pulpit.
This Maxine may be one of the most “followed”
women in America.
One of my favorite Maxine quotes is, “Ever notice
that people who tell you to calm down are the ones
who got you mad in the first
place!”
Another favorite says, “Some
people can have all the lights
on and still be in the dark.”
This last quote brings to
mind the other Maxine. I refer
to Maxine Waters from the
State of California.
If one looks at California and
all of its problems and then
looks and listens to Maxine
Waters, you can see the two
are a match for each. Not a lot
of difference there.
When it comes to conflict in the U.S. House of
Representatives, Waters stands with the best of them.
She may even have a slight edge.
According to one report, the 78-year old Los Angeles
Congresswoman lives in a 6,000-square-foot mansion
that is worth more than $4 million. She represents the
43rd District but does not live in the district.
Waters is the longest-serving African American
female in our Congress. Her residential neighbor
hood reportedly is only 6 percent African-American
but her congressional district has the second highest
concentration of African Americans in the state.
She is a longtime Democrat and supporter of the
Clintons. She endorsed Hillary Clinton in the 2008
presidential race up until it was obvious Clinton would
not win the party’s crown.
The Huffington Post, a liberal website, carried a story
that said Waters commuted home every weekend and
flew back to Washington on Monday mornings.
You would think that someone with tenure would
occupy a strong leadership position in Congress. With
that said, you would think the 40-year representative
would lead by example and demonstrate a leadership
style that would add to the sanctity of the office.
Wrong!
In 1994, Waters, on the floor of the U.S. House,
continuously interrupted New York Republican Peter
King, who was trying to give a speech. Her actions
were so bad she was threatened with mace by the
House Sergeant. She was then asked to leave for the
remainder of the day.
Like Hallmark’s Maxine, Rep. Maxine Waters likes
to speak out, although certainly not as eloquently or
funny.
Last month she took on HUD Secretary Ben Carson,
threatening to take his”...a** apart...” According to
Waters, she (herself) was probably (better) "... quali
fied to take his job. “
In one quote, the Congresswoman, while speaking
about the Tea Party, said, “As far I’m concerned, the
Tea Party can go straight to hell...and I intend to help
them get there.”
Regarding the status between Fidel Castro and
America she said, “...the decades of the 1960s and the
1970s were a sad and shameful chapter of our history
and Castro needed to be thanked for helping refugees
flee political persecution.”
Last July during an interview on MSNBC’s Morning
Joe show, the outspoken representative called
President Trump “...the most deplorable person...”
she ever met. That’s one of the nicer things she has
said about the president. She then called for his
“exile” because of his tweets. Seriously!
She has spoken out against former FBI Director
James Comey for being responsible for Hillary
Clinton losing the election.
This week she called for the impeachment of
President Trump and then said we should follow that
with the impeachment of Putin. When questioned
about Putin, she realized her mistake and corrected
it saying, “Vice President Pence.”
She also went on record saying she was consider
ing a run for the presidency.
Fortunately, she has some bugs in her background
that will help save us all. According to Mark Patricks,
in 2010 Waters was charged by the House Ethics
Committee with three counts of flouting House rules
regarding some “...shady deals with OneUnited
Bank.”
It seems Waters requested some bailout money
for the bank but failed to disclose that her husband
served on the bank’s board of directors. He also
held a large amount of the company stock.
The Ethics Committee, chaired by another
Californian, managed to allow Waters to walk away
without repercussions.
Before that, the Los Angeles Times reported that
relatives of Waters made more than $1 million as a
result of business deals with groups that Waters had
helped politically.
In 2005, 2006, 2009 and 2011 she was named one
of the most corrupt members of Congress by several
watchdog organizations.
If anyone personifies a profile for establishing
term limits in Congress, it has to be the trash-talking
Maxine Waters.
At least Hallmark’s Maxine can talk trash with
class.
Jimmy Terrell can be reached at ejterrell65@gmail.
com.
jimmy
terrell
The news just keeps getting
worse about Plant Vogtle
When it comes to the nuclear reac
tors Georgia Power has been trying to
build at Plant Vogtle, there never seems
to be any good news — just a steady
stream of ever-worsening bad news.
The latest wave of negative news
hit last week in the form of
disclosures by top executives of
the Southern Co., the Atlanta-
based holding company that
owns Georgia Power and sever
al other utilities.
They confirmed that the
total cost of the Vogtle project,
if it were ever to be actually
completed, will be at least $25
billion, but it could potentially
reach as high as $27 billion.
That final cost range of $25
billion to $27 billion is near
ly double the $14 billion that
Georgia Power estimated the project
would cost when it first proposed it to
the Public Service Commission back
in 2008.
Georgia Power is responsible for 45.7
percent of that cost, with the remain
der divided up among the other proj
ect partners: Oglethorpe Power (30
percent), MEAG Power, (22.7 percent)
and Dalton Utilities (1.6 percent).
As we have noted in this space many
times before, these cost increases will
inevitably be passed along to the cus
tomers of these utilities in the form
of higher monthly power bills - much
higher monthly bills
But wait, there’s more: Southern
Co. revealed that the service date for
the Unit 3 reactor has been pushed
back to the period between February
2021 and March 2022, while the Unit
4 reactor won’t start operating until
sometime between February 2022 and
March 2023.
When the project was initially autho
rized by the PSC, Georgia Power said
Unit 3 would be operating by 2016 and
Unit 4 by 2017. That means the project
is now at least five to six years behind
schedule.
There is one faint bit of optimism
for the Vogtle partners. Westinghouse,
the primary contractor on the project,
was forced into bankruptcy in March
because of the cost overruns. Southern
Co. has now assumed management
responsibility for completing the reac
tors.
Toshiba, the parent company of
Westinghouse, has said it will pay the
Vogtle partners $3.68 billion because
of the bankruptcy, an amount that
would be deducted from the current
cost estimate of $25 billion. That would
seem to be some good news among all
the bad.
However, Toshiba is on increasingly
shaky financial ground itself and could
eventually end up filing for bankruptcy
as well - which puts the future of that
$3.68 billion payment very much in
doubt.
The PSC’s public interest advoca
cy staff has already suggested that
Georgia Power’s shareholders should
have to eat the cost if Toshiba skips
out on that $3.68 billion payment. The
Write a Letter to the Editor:
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of the writer.
staffers said in a recent filing: “the
risk of non-collection of the Toshiba
Parental Guarantee is appropriately on
the company, not ratepayers.”
The Southern Alliance for Clean
Energy, an intervening party in the
Vogtle case, filed a sim
ilar recommendation
with the PSC.
That recommendation
set off a nuclear reaction
from Georgia Power’s
chief attorney, Kevin
Greene. He fired off a
sternly worded letter
to the PSC demanding
that the commissioners
reject the recommen
dation — a move that
would, of course, enable
the utility to pass off that
possible loss of funds to the ratepayers.
“Approving such recommenda
tions will have far reaching adverse
impacts upon the Vogtle Project, the
Company, and all customers,” Greene
complained.
In the same week that all this bad
news came crashing down in Georgia,
two South Carolina utilities made the
difficult decision to kill a nuclear proj
ect that was similar to Vogtle in some
significant ways.
The South Carolina venture involved
the construction by Westinghouse of
two reactors that are identical in design
to the reactors at Vogtle - and like
Vogtle, the project had nearly doubled
its original construction budget.
Southern Co. will soon be faced with
the same decision. Company officials
say they will tell the PSC by the end of
August whether they are going to can
cel the Vogtle project or continue with
construction.
But even pulling the plug on Vogtle
would not be cheap
“If a decision is made to cancel the
project, we have estimated Georgia
Power’s cancellation cost at approx
imately $400 million,” Southern Co.
CEO Tom Fanning said.
That cost would also be passed
along to ratepayers, just in case you
were wondering.
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 Ron Bridgeman.
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Schools growing
reflect ‘pains’
of counties
School enrollment is up in the area.
That’s the good and bad news.
The smallest system, Commerce, report
ed 1,666 students the first day an increase of
more than a hundred. The largest, Barrow
County is “bumping up against” 14,000
although administra
tors are quick to say
that might drop a bit.
In the other two
Jackson County
systems, Jackson
County has about
7,800 or so, and
Jefferson City has
about 3,500 or
so. Both reported
increased enroll
ment.
That is one sign the
local economy has
improved and is improving.
Higher numbers are a mixed blessing,
especially for Barrow and Jackson counties
which both need new schools. Jefferson
City Schools have been growing and could
reach a point where out-of-district students
won’t have a seat.
The growth, by and large, is good for the
school districts.
But that “by and large” is a big caveat.
This is the time of year when superinten
dents and principals worry about adding
students in the “wrong” places. If a partic
ular class adds a single student, it could
require another teacher. That is an extreme
case, but it has happened.
More likely a particular class may get two,
three or four students, and that pushes the
district into hiring a person.
Superintendents also are prone to
emphasizing that a student does not “bring”
enough revenue with him or her to pay for
the cost of that student. What they mean
is that the adults with the student probably
don’t pay enough in property taxes to cover
the per pupil cost of each student.
That is almost always the case.
Superintendents also are quick to tout the
value of industries, which contribute to the
property tax base, but don’t require specif
ic costs for adding students. (Abatements
for industry is another topic and another
column.)
If a new student does not cause the hiring
of a new teacher, he or she “brings” new
state money and some local tax money.
That is “new” money for the system.
Those 100-plus students at Commerce
may well generate enough money state and
local, that it is a net plus in revenue. Even
in Barrow County, where the school board
has talked about its portable classrooms the
last two meetings, new students can help
with revenue.
It is not a simple nor straight-line equation.
Five students generate between $25,000
and $40,000 in state and local money. The
school district’s cost for those five kids may
or may not increase that much.
More kids probably mean more houses.
Listening to anecdotal comments, houses
are going up and being sold before they
are finished. Those comments are heard
through Jackson and Barrow counties.
This, also, is good news, bad news for
schools. Most of the house being built are
$300,000 or less in value. Those houses
generate, maybe, $2,000 in school property
taxes.
The least expensive local school system
spends more than $6,000 per year per
student. Most of that money, more than
$4,000 of it, comes from the state. Others
may spend more than $8,000 per pupil. If a
house generates $2,000 in property taxes, it
comes close to that lower total, except the
“more than” part of that equation.
School board and superintendents have
to think in those dollar figures. Principals
and teachers have to think about “the
babies.”
Stand at any elementary school in the
morning as kids get off the bus or out of
cars. Hugs are common. Cheerful tones
are required.
Even the high school students are usually
greeted by name and cheerfully. Dollar
signs are not part of that equation.
But money always lurks in the back
ground. “Throwing money” at education
does not mean better learning, but more
money often means better opportunities, if
only because that often means people are
thinking about education more.
Ron Bridgeman is a reporter for
Mainstreet Newspapers. Send email to him
at ron@mainstreetnews.com.
ron
bridgeman