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PAGE 10A
FORSYTH COUNTY NEWS Sunday, February 15,2004
The Forsyth County News
Opinion
This is a page of opinions - ours, yours and others.
Signed columns and cartoons are the opinions of the
writers and artists and may not reflect our views.
Legislative map
needed to be tossed
A panel of three feder
al judges last week
did what many
familiar with the map of
Georgia’s legislative dis
tricts drawn in 2001 expect
ed they threw it out.
The process of redraw
ing legislative districts after
each census is always a con
tentious one, but the process
leading up to the 2001 map
was particularly partisan
and acrimonious.
For the first time
Republicans had emerged
as a true legislative power
and Democrats, led and
abetted by former Gov. Roy
Barnes, were determined to
make them pay with
redrawn political districts
that maximized clout for the
Democratic Party while
reducing it for Republicans.
Now that the courts have
agreed with Gov. Sonny
Perdue and state
Republicans that the parti
san, gerrymandered map
violates federal law, the
question becomes one of
what happens next.
The Legislature faces a
March 15 deadline for sub
mitting a new redistricting
plan, but the odds of it
doing so successfully are
slim. If it doesn’t, the courts
will draw an interim plan
that will remain in place
until a new map can be
agreed upon by legislators.
And there is still the
chance that the state may
appeal last week’s decision,
prolonging still farther
definitive action on the leg
islative map.
Letters
Tree loss obvious
on Bethelview Road
I am jumping on the bandwagon about the
denuding of our county by developers who would
rather see subdivisions than trees that give us the
oxygen we breath.
Anyone who travels Bethelview Road has
seen the destruction in the 3300 block of this road
of all the trees that are piled in mountains of
debris.
If indeed the county has hired an arborist, he
should have a field day with this project. I find it
extremely hard to believe our politicians are let
ting developers rape our county like they are and
building houses that sit and wait for buyers while
dirt washes into our streams and roads and there
is nothing to buffer the wind.
Charles Gallimore
Cumming
Windermere Extension is a
waste of greenspace, trees
There seems to be quite a lot of meetings and
attention being given to greenspace recently. I
agree that this is an issue which needs to be
addressed so that Forsyth County can retain much
of its natural beauty and heritage. However, at the
same time the commissioners are encouraging a
new tree ordinance, county officials are planning
on needless clear cutting of thousands of trees.
Os what clear cutting do I speak of? Why the
Windermere Parkway Extension! The same
group that brought us the engineering marvel
Marketplace Boulevard is gearing up again for
another waste of taxpayer money and greenspace.
It seems that this much despised road needs to
have a 44-foot median! Why? One reason given
is that we may need to expand it for the conven
ience of Gwinnett drivers so they can more easily
get to the new ma 11... well, the mall is gone and
soon we won’t have the trees.
The county owns 140 feet of right of way that
The current scenario
poses more questions than it
offers answers.
At the very least, the
redrawing of legislative dis
tricts statewide will require
local election offices across
Georgia to spend hundreds
of thousands of dollars noti
fying voters of changes,
changing ballots, and
revamping precinct polling
plans.
At the worst, this year’s
election cycle could be
thrown into limbo, with
qualifying and election
dates postponed
The current map of leg
islative districts was inde
fensible when it was adopt
ed.
A map that establishes a
state Senate district that
includes a portion of
Forsyth County on one end
and stretches to Walton
County on the other is clear
ly badly drawn. A map that
divides Forsyth County into
four different state senate
districts and three different
state House districts without
any one of those seven dis
tricts being totally inside the
county is a travesty.
What the General
Assembly did in the reap
portionment process under
Gov. Barnes was a disserv
ice to all Georgians, who
now will pay the price for
partisan politics at its worse.
The real shame is that it
is now 2004, just six years
away from conducting the
next Census, which will
start the process all over
again.
runs between a nature preserve and a wooded res
idential community but the county is determined
to chop it all down to use all their 140 feet.
Here is the kicker ... there won’t be any trees
in this median unless the nearby residents plant
them themselves. Plus, if we want any vegetation
in this median the residents have to maintain it
themselves.
How about we skip the road, save the $6 mil
lion for expanding existing roadways and in the
process save thousands of trees in Forsyth
County?
I am looking to the county to start examining
how they do business and set a good example
before they start pointing out how the other guy
needs to behave.
Paul Germer
Cumming
Dissuss issues without
the personal attacks
As a long-time resident of Forsyth County, I
have seen a lot of letters to the editors criticizing
positions and votes taken by our county commis
sioners. I think it is good that people are able to
express their opinions about the issues facing our
county. However, some letters have made a per
sonal attack against a commissioner, and I don’t
think those have any place in the pages of your
paper. We can differ on the issues without making
hurtful comments about an individual.
Don Buigess has reduced his apparent support
of the proposed tree ordinance to efforts to dis
credit a commissioner who doesn’t agree with
him. Commissioner Kreager has done nothing
except question a proposed ordinance and offer
suggestions for changes she would like to see.
This is what she, and all other commissioners,
have been elected to do, and they should not be
personally attacked when they do their job.
Considering all the recent admitted errors and
oversights that were in the proposed tree ordi
nance, I am glad that someone was there to ques-
———
W?; I W
ft t )
"No, thanks! I've had
enough close shaves lately."
North vs. South in state politics
If we in the media have led
you to believe that the most
important battles in the
General Assembly are waged
between Democrats and
Republicans, we should apolo
gize. We have misled you. The
partisan debates over such
items as teen-age drivers’
licenses, the definition of mar
riage and the selection of the
tree frog as the official state
amphibian are minor skirmish
es.
The significant legislative
struggles that shape Georgia’s
economic future take place
between representatives of
North Georgia and South
Georgia or, to be more pre
cise, between metro Atlanta
lawmakers and those from the
rest of the state.
These inter-regional fracas
es, which focus more on
money than morals, transcend
party lines. Even in the bad
old days when Democrats held
the exclusive franchise on
state government, non-Atlanta
lawmakers were in constant
conflict with their urban and
suburban counterparts over
everything from highway
spending to local option taxes.
Today, with a two-party sys
tem flourishing, the fight
between metro interests and
the rest of Georgia is fiercer
than ever, perhaps because so
much more is at stake in these
cash-scarce times.
Here are snapshots from
the rural-metro war front:
• The Republican adminis
tration and the GOP-con
trolled Senate argue in favor of
r i
Bill .
Shipp
granting the solidly
Democratic city of Atlanta
permission to hold an unprece
dented municipal sales-tax ref
erendum to raise money for
sewer repairs. Many of these
same Republicans are leading
the campaign to use the state’s
good credit to bail Atlanta out
of its financial mess.
Try explaining the Atlanta
aid package to Democrats and
Republicans who represent
non-metro communities in
desperate need of financial
help to install sewer-and-water
systems and make other
improvements to stimulate
economic development. These
left-out folks aren’t buying the
Save Atlanta program.
• In education, Gov.
Perdue’s proposed spending
plan will eliminate S3BO mil
lion for per-pupil funding,
sl.l million for school trans
portation and $1.56 million for
reading and math programs.
Many non-metro school dis
tricts are so strapped that they
cannot raise local taxes
enough even to come close to
compensating for the loss of
state funds. Some rural legisla
tors are furious at being put on
such an untenable political
spot. State funding formulas
for education already favor the
most populous (and prosper
ous) areas and shortchange the
tion this. It takes a lot of time and personal sacri
fice to be a commissioner and while I may not
agree with every thing our commissioners say or
do, I do respect their elected position and am
grateful for their dedication. Mrs. Kreager is
doing her job and, for one, I appreciate her efforts
on my behalf.
Stan Mooney
Cumming
Judge is out of line with
ruling on Commandments
Federal Court Judge William O’Kelly has no
authority to question the existence of God as the
source of American law. The Constitution’s
Article VII recognizes the conclusion of
American sovereignty documented to exist within
the rationale of the Declaration of Independence.
That sovereign authority is conditional because
it relies directly upon the founders’ chosen
rationale —a rationale endorsed by each founder
as truth, self-evident truth.
That rationale requires God to be the source
of all American sovereign authority. Because on
July 4th 1776, American sovereignty depended
upon the founders’ rationale being truthful, and
because the nature and extent of the sovereign
authority documented to exist on that day has not
changed in all the years of the American nation,
the founders’ rationale must indeed still be true
for that same sovereign authority to exist today.
Without the founders’ rationale being true, a
reading of the Declaration of Independence indi
cates that the American British Colonists had no
actual right to authorize their representatives to
declare American independence. If they indeed
had no right to declare independence, then the
rightful sovereignty of this nation was actually
declared in error.
If the rationale of the Declaration of
Independence can therefore be proven false, then
the American sovereign authority Constitution
ally distributed to Judge O’Kelly is false as well.
Judge O’Kelly’s authority must respect its
people-scarce and cash
starved rural school districts.
• In the past year, a total of
S4OO million has been elimi
nated from state health-care
services, costing more than
13,000 jobs and leaving hun
dreds of thousands of citizens
(including countless children)
without medical assistance.
More than half these cuts fell,
disproportionately, on the
shoulders of rural Georgia.
• When officials in
Columbus and its West
Georgia neighbors opposed
Gov. Sonny Perdue’s position
in favor of retaining more
water in Lake Lanier to help
metro Atlanta developers, Gov.
Perdue struck back. He
rescinded his support of a
multimillion-dollar federal
grant to clean up the
Chattahoochee River between
West Point and Lake Walter F.
George.
In a prepared statement,
Carol Couch, the governor’s
top environmental official,
explained that the governor
blocked the federal grant to
“underscore the serious need
for Georgians to work together
rather than in opposition to the
governor’s leadership in water
resource planning.” The water
wars, perhaps more than any
other controversy, dramatize
the political differences
between metro Atlanta and
down-state Georgia.
• Republican plaintiffs,
including Senate President Pro
Tern Eric Johnson of
Savannah, successfully
pressed a lawsuit in federal
own origin. For Judge O’Kelly to place into ques
tion the existence of God as the source of
American law, he also questions his own authori
ty to do just that. The logic is circular. Therefore,
if Judge O’Kelly treats the existence of God as
anything but self-evident truth, as did the
founders, he also places his own and all national
American sovereignty into question.
If God is indeed truth, as our founding docu
ment asserts, there can be no establishment of
religion by acknowledging God as the source of
our laws. Religions deal with beliefs, not truths.
So for every purpose that the sovereign authority
of this nation may be rightfully utilized, that
authority must respect the existence of God as
truth. Judge O’Kelly has stepped beyond his own'
authority by failing to acknowledge its source.
Hank Sullivan
Cumming
Criticisms of president
do not make sense
I would like to ask the following questions: If
President Bush molded intelligence, then would
n’t he have to mold the intelligence that came
from other countries?
It was an unanimous vote in the UN for reso
lution 1441. It appears to me that other nations
thought Hussein was out of compliance with
international law. Our president’s adversaries
gave Hussein 12 years to comply with interna
tional law, but they won’t give our president and
our troops 12 months to find them.
We are all acting like there are no WMDs.
Can these people assure me that this is true? Just
like there is no proof that there are WMDs, there
is no proof that there are not any WMDs. I
believe that they exist and I believe that if you
give us the time we will track them down and we
will find them.
Rick Bailey
Cumming
court to strike down Georgia’s
legislative redistricting plan.
The GOP leadership was jubi
lant when the court published
its decision that could substan
tially increase suburban
Atlanta representation in the
Legislature at the expense
of rural Georgia.
Any legislator from south
of 1-20, regardless of party
affiliation, should delay cele
brating until the dust settles on
the redistricting decision. And
the long-term benefits to the
GOP of the new maps are not
guaranteed.
Remarkably, the generals
on both sides of this intrastate
north-south war hail from non-
Atlanta Georgia. Gov. Perdue
comes from Houston County;
Senate President Pro Tern
Johnson from Savannah; Lt.
Gov. Mark Taylor, Albany;
Speaker Terry Coleman,
Eastman; and Speaker Pro
Tern Dubose Porter, Dublin.
With that much rural clout
in the executive branch and the
General Assembly, non-
Atlanta interests should pre
vail on nearly every issue,
right? Sorry, it doesn’t often
happen that way. Behind-the
scenes lobbyists, representing
big-business clients, call most
of the shots on major legisla
tion. Many of the lobbyists’
employers place the fortunes
of economically robust metro
Atlanta ahead of those of the
rest of the state.
Bill Shipp’s column
appears each Sunday and
Wednesday. His e-mail ad
dress bshipp@bellsouth.net.