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PAGE 12A
The Forsyth County News
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.
Jail project depends
on informed voters
I county economic n a woefully officials climate, tough in
November will try to con¬
vince local residents to
spend their hard-earned
money on something many
would prefer not to consid¬
er in even the best of times
— a new county jail.
Doing so will be no
easy task.
Despite an indisputable
need for a new detention
center, county voters have
on multiple occasions in
recent years refused to
give their support to the
financing of a new jail.
If a majority is to be
convinced of the need to
vote in favor of a $75 mil¬
lion bond to build a 480
bed facility on Veterans
Memorial Boulevard in
Cumming, jail supporters
are going to have to be
convincing in their argu¬
ments for construction.
A successful campaign
for the new jail will have
to include:
• An open and transpar
ent government Every
thing connected to the jail
has to be available for
review and inspection,
from land acquisition doc¬
umentation to jail design
plans.
Rumor, speculation and
innuendo fostered by
secretive behind-the
scenes transactions are at
least partially to blame for
the failure of previous
votes.
• Precise and specific
information — County
residents have in the past
Letters
Lake levels
cause concern
On July 291 rode across
the [Buford Dam] and the
depth sign read “Lake Level
1071.74,” (indicting full pool)
and the actual depth is
1055.00.
You remember the Corp
installed this sign after their
depth gauge “malfunctioned”
and they released an extraordi¬
nary amount of much needed
water from the lake. Earlier in
the day I was informed by
JOA at Holiday Marina that
the lake level seemed to have
dropped significantly over
night. Is this another malfunc
tiofr ef the Corps equipment
and are we in for another
snafu?
Hopefully the Corp will
find their error before they
drain Lake Lanier dry.
Buddy Gault
Alpharetta
Synchronize
traffic signals
Why are traffic lights not
synced?
When you think of it, it is
not just an issue of time, it is
an energy issue. No doubt
about it, when you start and
stop your car in traffic, it uses
more gas than when you can
just ride through stoplights.
The question is, why is it
so dam hard for cities, coun-
FORSYTH COUNTY NEWS — Sunday, August 17,2008
proven they aren’t going to
buy a pig in a poke. If vot¬
ers are to be convinced to
finance the project, they
deserve to know exactly
what they are buying and
at what cost.
• A financially sound
foundation — Voters have
to believe that the money
is being judiciously spent
and that the proposed jail
is in line with the cost of
similar facilities built else¬
where.
They also have to
understand the current,
and potential, costs of not
building a new detention
center. Such costs include
the possibility of court
intervention at some point
to mandate construction on
a timetable that suits the
courts rather than the
county government and its
constituents.
There are certain pieces
of governmental infra¬
structure that by their very
nature generate negative
public reaction — land¬
fills, sewer plants and
county jails among them.
But time and again taxpay¬
ers have shown a willing¬
ness to do what must be
done if they are convinced
those in command are
trustworthy stewards of
public dollars.
In hard financial times,
that compelling trust in
elected leadership is more
critical than ever when
asking residents to reach
into their pockets for the
funding needed for even
the most critical of con¬
struction projects.
ties and the state to synchro¬
nize lights?
In St. Petersburg, Fla., the
city has figured out how to
synchronize the lights perfect¬
ly on the major thoroughfares
of First Avenues North and
South and Fourth Street. You
never hit a red light if you
drive at the right speed.
Wake up, Forsyth County!
Peter W. Tinkham
Gainesville, Ga
Weekend voting
badly needed
Voter turnout will never
meet expectations until week¬
end voting is implemented.
Weekend voting should
solve the problem of low voter
turnout, providing a conven¬
ient day and time to vote.
Politicians complain of low
voter turnout but they do noth¬
ing to improve the process.
Honestly, politicians do not
want to increase voter turnout
because they know the smaller
the number of voters the
.greater chance of victory for
the incumbent.
I call on our local authori¬
ty, Gary Smith and our
Secretary of State, Karen
Handel, to implement a week¬
end voting schedule for local
and state elections. A Fri -Sun
schedule gives concerned citi¬
zen’s ample opportunity to
exercise their voting privilege.
Michael Merck
Suwanee
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Politics at play in state’s election office
The most overlooked
Georgia political development
since the 2006 election may
well be the increasing level of
partisanship in our secretary of
state’s office. Most Georgians
don’t think about their secre¬
tary of state very often. If they
do, they interact with the
office in one of its more mun¬
dane functions, which include
issuing licenses for trades like
cosmetology and serving as
the filing agency for corporate
records.
Those responsibilities,
however, are not what give the
position its real power. That
comes from the secretary of
state’s regulation and adminis¬
tration of our elections. When
one controls the process of
choosing all of our other elect¬
ed leaders, one has the ability
to fundamentally influence the
direction of our government.
Before Republican Sec¬
retary of State Karen Handel
was elected in 2006, the office
was a largely apolitical
bureaucracy staffed by career
employees. Like most govern¬
ment agencies, those bureau¬
crats were varied in their abili¬
ty and commitment to their
jobs, but they were not widely
regarded as carrying out the
political bidding of the
Democratic Party, of which all
secretaries of state before
Handel were members.
In fact, the elected secre¬
taries of state were surprising¬
ly nonpartisan, often pursuing
election reforms that ran
counter to the political inter¬
ests of Democrats.
For example, Cathy Cox,
Ethics committee mired in partisan hypocrisy
In July, federal authorities
indicted Sen. Ted Stevens, R
Alaska, on corruption charges
on the grounds that Alaska’s
Prince of Earmarks concealed
hundreds of thousands of dol
lars of gifts and improvements
to his Alaska home provided
by a powerful oil services
company. Also this summer,
amid the mortgage meltdown,
newspapers reported that a
number of senators — includ
ing Senate Banking
Committee Chairman
Christopher Dodd, D-Conn.;
Kent Conrad, D-N.D.; and
Barack Obama, D.-Ill. — were
the beneficiaries of sweetheart
home loans.
In June, the Senate Ethics
Committee began an initial
look into Dodd’s and Conrad’s
discounted Countrywide
Financial VIP loans, as is fit
ting.
Meanwhile, with all of the
ethics stink bombs lurking in
Washington, the committee,
chaired by California
Democrat Barbara Boxer, is
aiming its guns at Sen. Tom
Cobum, R-Okla., for “a seri¬
ous violation of Senate rules.”
Cobum’s bad? An obstetri¬
cian by profession, Coburn
won’t heed the committee’s
threat to reprimand him for
delivering babies back home
in Oklahoma — for free.
“On my own time, I’m tak
ing care of women who have a
need, and I’m going to contin
ue to deliver babies,” Cobum
told Politico.com.
And, bully for him: “I’m
Bill
Shipp
COLUMNIST
the Democrat who preceded
Handel, successfully pursued
an early voting initiative that
made casting a ballot more
convenient. She did so even
though all evidence from other
states (and now Georgia) indi¬
cates that it results in a large
net gain in votes for
Republican candidates, partic¬
ularly in growing exurban
areas.
In addition, Cox, while
working as assistant secretary
Of state under her predecessor,
Lewis Massey, helped enact
Georgia’s first law requiring
voters to show identification to
cast a ballot. The Massey/Cox
law was less restrictive than
the recent Republican initia¬
tive requiring voters to have
photo identification which has
raised Democratic hackles.
The Massey/Cox law, howev¬
er, also met with resistance
from Democrats concerned
that their voters were more
likely to be disenfranchised by
it.
Now that Handel has taken
control of the office, nonparti¬
san tradition is gone with the
wind. She’s been compared to
former Florida Secretary of
State Katherine Harris, who
was made famous during the
2000 vote recount of the
state’s vote for president
between George W. Bush and
A1 Gore.
Debra
Saunders
COLUMNIST /
not going to stop.” When a
member of the House, Cobum
delivered 400 babies under an
agreement with ethics meisters
that allowed him to do so — if
he charged only enough to
cover his expenses.
When elected to the
Senate, which was first run by
Republicans and now
Democrats, Ethics Committee
members told Coburn that if
he wants to treat patients —
largely poor and “at risk”
mothers he could not
charge them, and thus would
have to eat the costs of his
practice,
The Senate Ethics
Committee allows big-buck
book deals for U.S. senators,
but in a May memorandum, it
told Cobum, “you are allowed
to practice medicine if you
provide such services for
free.” So he started working
for nothing.
Even free wasn’t good
enough. After the Muskogee
Regional Medical Center,
where he practices, was taken
over by a for-profit operation,
the committee told Coburn to
cease “providing any and all
medical services” by June 22,
pursuant to Senate Rule 37 on
conflicts of interest.
Coburn could practice
medicine only as a solo practi-
That comparison is not par¬
ticularly apt, because Harris
was an accidental pawn in a
game far larger than she, and
her office was essentially com¬
mandeered during the recount
drama by national Republican
operatives. In contrast, Handel
is part of a long-range plan by
Republicans to use the secre¬
tary of state’s office to solidify
and expand their hold on
Georgia politics.
Handel’s recent conduct
has provided plenty of exam¬
ples of the GOP plan in action.
Perhaps her most egregious act
was her recent attempt to dis¬
qualify Jim Powell, a
Democrat running for the
Public Service Commission.
Powell, a candidate widely
regarded as an appealing
prospect for the PSC, was
forced to go to court to block
Handel’s attempt to remove
him from the ballot the day
before this summer’s primary.
Handel tried to boot Powell
at the last minute, despite the
fact that an administrative law
judge, to whom Handel had
referred a question regarding
Powell’s residency in his PSC
district, reviewed the evidence
and ruled that Powell was eli¬
gible to run for the office.
Other recent examples of
partisan shenanigans have
occurred as well. In June,
when state Sen. Joe Carter (R
Tifton) withdrew as a candi¬
date for re-election to ran for a
judgeship, his Senate seat was
left without a candidate.
(Carter was running unop¬
posed.) State law requires that
Handel reopen qualifying for
tioner, for a private entity that
provides services for free, or
for a government or tribal
health facility.
What’s really going on
here? The senator — who
prefers to be called Dr.
Cobum — has been a thorn in
the side of both big-spending
Republicans and Democrats.
He calls earmarks “the gate¬
way drug” to Washington’s
spending addiction. The
Washington Post’s Dana
Milbank wrote back in 2006
when the GOP ran the Senate,
“Tom Cobum is like an imam
at a pig roast: He sees pork
everywhere, and he doesn’t
like it.”
Cobum bucked party lead¬
ers as he tried to block
Stevens’ $229 million ear¬
mark, largely for a bridge
between Anchorage and an
island with 50 residents, infa¬
mously dubbed the “Bridge to
Nowhere.”
When Democrats took over
the Senate, Cobum challenged
their pork-barrel projects as
well. In July, when Senate
Majority Leader Harry Reid
bundled 35 spending bills into
a $10 billion omnibus pack¬
age, Coburn successfully led
the charge to block the meas
ure citing next year’s pro¬
jected $482 billion deficit. As
Coburn likes to say, the
American people elect sena¬
tors to “make hard choices and
live within our means.”
After I called Sen. Boxer’s
office, a committee spokesper¬
son sent me a note that said,
the seat, but she brazenly did
so only for Republicans,
ensuring that the party would
not have an open Senate seat
to defend. State Democrats
considered challenging her
decision in court but demurred
when their state party could
not produce a candidate.
Handel also has been fight¬
ing tooth and nail to allow
state Rep. Mike Jacobs (R
Atlanta) to run unopposed.
Jacobs made an odd decision
to switch from Democrat to
Republican in an intown,
Democrat-trending seat, dur¬
ing what may be the worst
Republican year since
Watergate.
Handel kicked his
Democratic opponent off the
ballot, and is doing everything
in her power to keep Michelle
Conlon, an independent candi¬
date, out of the race as well.
Conlon is now suing Handel
for throwing out a multitude of
seemingly valid petition signa¬
tures collected by Conlon to
qualify as an independent.
What we are . witnessing is
the skillful and shameless
exploitation of power to ensure
its perpetuation. As Handel
and her partisan minders
march on, each small decision
makes a Democratic comeback
in Georgia less and less likely
— a plotline that should be
left for the voters to decide,
not some state bureaucrat.
Bill Shipp's column is pub¬
lished each Sunday and
Wednesday. You may write to
him at P.O. Box 2520,
Kennesaw, GA 30156, or via
e-mail: shippl@bellsouth.net.
“The work of the Ethics
Committee is confidential and
we cannot comment on mat
ters that may be before it.” In
July, Boxer told the
Washington Post, “He knows
what he’s supposed to be
doing.”
The savvy observer has to
conclude that because Cobum
has challenged Senate pork,
the Ethics Committee essen¬
tially is willing to stick it to
poor pregnant women, who
might benefit from a free
delivery. ,
It’s a tactical blunder. If the
committee continues to push
for a public reprimand,
Cobum has the right to ask for
a full Senate vote. While
Boxer may not mind coming
across as petty and vindictive,
other senators might hesitate
before publicly bullying a man
for delivering babies for free.
As Coburn spokesman
John Hart noted, there have
been many stories about law¬
makers, their friends and fami¬
lies profiting from earmarks,
but “no one has ever chosen to
have Dr. Coburn deliver her
baby in order to sway his
vote.”
With Democrats in charge,
the Senate Select Committee
on Ethics is no more ethical
than it was under the GOP. In
going after Cobum, its man¬
date is clear: Forget ethics, it’s
payback time.
Debra J. Saunders is a
nationally syndicated colum¬
nist. You may e-mail her at
dsaunders@sfchrvnicle.com.