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THE JACKSON HERALD
WEDNESDAY, MAY 20, 2009
Named the best weekly editorial page in the nation for 2007, 2008
Opinions
“Private opinion is weak, but public opinion is almost omnipotent. ”
- Henry Ward Beecher ~
Mike Buffington, editor • Email: Mike@mainstreetnews.com
our views
Jackson BOC shouldn’t bailout BJC; maybe Commerce should
T HE POSTPONEMENT of a bailout vote for BJC Medical
Center Monday night by the Jackson County Board of
Commissioners just extended debate over a very divi
sive political issue in the county.
The core of this debate is whether or not the Jackson BOC
should, along with Banks County bailout the faltering hospital
from its financial hole.
The short answer should be “No,” but the political game being
played is muddying the water.
What’s really happening here is regional politics where the
east side of Jackson County where the hospital is located —
Commerce — is lobbying the central and western areas of the
county for the proposed bailout.
Understandably there is more political support in the
Commerce area for a bailout. Commerce leaders fear the loss
of a long-standing community institution and the jobs it provides
as the town’s largest employer. In addition, more of that area’s
residents actually use the facility than other areas of Jackson
County.
In the central and western areas of the county — Jefferson,
Braselton, North and South Jackson — there is little support for a
bailout of BJC. Few people in those areas use the facility. In addi
tion, that area makes up the county’s largest population and tax
base and people in the area are increasingly sensitive to their tax
dollars being used for facilities on the other side of the county.
Supporters of the bailout argue, however, that the entire county
should be willing to bail BJC out of its financial morass for the
greater good. Bailout supporters say that Commerce property
owners pay taxes for county infrastructure they will never use, so
turnabout is fair play.
But that’s an apple-and-oranges comparison. Commerce area
residents may pay for a road in West Jackson, but they help elect
BOC members who made that decision.
With BJC, those living outside the Commerce area have
little input since they have no direct representation on the BJC
Authority. BJC is only nominally a joint city-counties venture; the
true emphasis in the name is “Commerce.” A vast majority of
authority members either live or work in Commerce and manage
the facility from that narrow geographic perspective.
Consider what’s really being asked: Banks County appoints
one-third (3) of the BJC Authority members and is being asked
to fund only 25 percent of the bailout; Jackson County appoints
one-third (3) of BJC Authority members, but is being asked to
fund 75 percent of the bailout; and Commerce has one-third
of BJC Authority members (3) but is not being asked for a dime.
Something’s wrong with that picture.
In addition to these representation inequities, BJC offered no
strategic recovery plan to its request for county bailout funds. If
BJC leaders have a plan, they aren’t sharing it in public.
While the hospital has been in talks with prospective buyers
for several months, there are no apparent offers on the table and
there is no vision outlined from the BJC Authority of how the
hospital plans to survive over the long-term.
In fact, one has to wonder if the BJC Authority has a clear
vision. Two years ago, it pushed hard for the county to fund a
new multi-million dollar hospital just down the road from the cur
rent facility. Leaders attempted to sell that as the solution for the
hospital’s long history of problems.
But just think of where Jackson County would be today had it
gone along with that idea; a half-built new facility for an organiza
tion that can’t afford to pay for its current operations.
Given all of this, it doesn’t make sense for the Jackson County
BOC to bailout BJC Medical Center. Most of the county doesn’t
have a seat at the table to oversee how the tax dollars are spent;
there’s no long-term plan in place; and the changing health care
market doesn’t bode well for the future of community hospitals.
What might make sense, however, is for the BJC Authority to
go to the Commerce City Council and seek a bailout from that
government.
Commerce has the most to lose if the facility closes and more
citizens of Commerce actually use the facility than other areas of
the county. In addition, Commerce has one-third of the author
ity’s board members, but does not put any money into BJC. If
Commerce leaders want to save BJC, they should be willing to put
up funding for such a gamble.
There are no good answers to the BJC financial crisis. Several
decades of dubious management decisions along with massive
changes in the health care market have led to this predicament.
The only thing clear today is that it is wrong to ask people who
will never used BJC, and who have no say or influence over its
management, to pay for a bailout.
The Jackson Herald
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Mike Buffington Co-Publisher & Editor
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Advertising Manager
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just paying off part of the national debt."
SONNY PERDUE has been an easy target for
the media during the years he has headed state
government.
Some pundits have written him off as a do-noth
ing governor who spends his time holding photo
ops when he should be tackling serious issues like
the state’s crumbling highway infrastructure or its
poorly regarded school systems.
But there are times when he has risen to the
occasion, as he did with his decision to veto legis
lation - HB 481 - that would have enacted a huge
cut in the state’s capital gains tax rate.
This bill was one of the most ill-conceived mea
sures I’ve ever seen rushed through to a vote in
the Legislature. You’d almost have to go back to
the time of the Yazoo Land Fraud to find a more
haphazard piece of legislation.
As it was originally introduced, HB 481 would
have eliminated the corporate income tax in
Georgia. It went through the standard process of
committee review and analysis, as it should have.
The House and Senate debated it extensively
before passing two different versions of the bill.
As the session was winding down, a conference
committee tried to work out a compromise on the
measure.
On the last night of the session, barely three
hours before final adjournment, the House and
Senate negotiators produced an entirely different
version of the bill. This one made no reference to
corporate income taxes and instead featured a 50
percent reduction in capital gains taxes, which are
paid on the sales of stocks, bonds and real estate
assets.
The proposal to cut capital gains came out of
Thank you, governor
tom
crawford
nowhere. It had not been
part of the original legisla
tion, it was not reviewed
or analyzed in any com
mittee, and it only came
up for a vote with the clock
running down.
A quick analysis of the
bill showed that 77 percent
of the benefits from the
capital gains cut would go
to the wealthiest 1 percent
of Georgians (in terms of
income); 92 percent of the
benefits would flow to the
top 5 percent of income earners. The bottom 80
percent of Georgians - most middle-class workers
and families - would receive about 1 percent of the
total benefits from the tax cut.
This jerry-rigged bill was hastily passed by
both the House and Senate before the session
adjourned for the year.
The bill was not only slanted to benefit Georgia’s
most affluent citizens, it also would have wrecked
the state budget for years to come. By the time
the tax cut kicked in fully during fiscal year 2012,
it would have reduced annual state revenues by
nearly a billion dollars. This billion-dollar reduc
tion was being proposed at a time when the eco
nomic recession was already blowing a hole in the
budget of $2 billion to $3 billion a year.
Perdue did the right thing in vetoing this junk leg
islation. He noted that the tax cut for the wealthy
would have made it virtually impossible for his suc
cessor as governor to develop a balanced budget.
“During a period of growth in our economy,
the budget may be able to absorb tax cuts that
result in short-term revenue reductions but provide
long-term economic benefits,” he said in his veto
message. “We are not, however, experiencing a
growing economy at this point. Accordingly, in
the current budget environment - where revenues
are continuing to decline and are not expected to
recover in the near term - the short-term revenue
reduction resulting from large tax cuts cannot be
sustained in a manner consistent with the budgets
passed by the General Assembly.”
As he told reporters more succinctly: “It has to
be affordable or it’s not possible.”
When he describes his relationship with the
Legislature, Perdue sometimes compares himself
to an exasperated parent who’s trying to keep
unruly teenagers from fighting with each other.
That comparison is especially relevant in this situ
ation.
You had a bunch of lawmakers dropping in a
radical tax proposal on the last night of the session
that would have crippled any attempts to pass a
balanced budget for years. Somebody had to be
the adult who stepped in and kept the kids from
tearing apart the house.
Perdue may leave office in 2011 without a lot of
accomplishments or much of a legacy to show for
his two terms as governor. In vetoing this bill, how
ever, he has performed a commendable service
for Georgia and its citizens.
Tom Crawford is the editor of Capitol Impact's
Georgia Report. He can be reached at tcrawford@
caDitolimDact.net.
Maybe fussing over
music will stop
M AYBE, just maybe, the pro
longed fussing over noise
in downtown Jefferson
will end following Monday night’s
city council action. The Jefferson City
Council changed its noise ordinance
after several years of complaints about
loud music coming from Mike’s Down
Under bar.
At times, the feuding over the noise
has been
louder than
the music
itself. The
matter came
to be domi
nated more
by personal
ity conflicts
than by the
problem
itself. There
have been
no winners,
only losers.
In part,
the city itself
shares some of the blame. When the
city approved a bar in the small down
town area, it opened the door to these
kinds of conflicts.
The trade-off, the city no doubt
hoped, would be the opening of addi
tional restaurants downtown that would
generate business and revenue for the
city. In fact, that idea was central to
the city’s action two years ago to ban
churches from the immediate down
town area out of a fear that their geo
graphic proximity would make restau
rants that served alcohol impossible.
But as the city has learned, policing
conflicts between residents and bars
is no easy task. Unlike restaurants that
serve drinks, bars that mix drinks and
music often create a different, more
unruly climate. Put a bar in the middle
of a residential area and conflicts are
going to happen.
In the larger picture, this issue high
lights the ongoing debate over how
downtowns should be developed. Over
the last 20 years, every small town of
any size has pursued revitalization proj
ects of various kinds.
The driving force behind that has
been the explosion of big box stores,
malls and strip commercial centers
that have lured commercial businesses
away from traditional downtown areas.
That movement has left many small
towns with boarded up storefronts
and the sense of a dying community
center.
The response has been to shore up
older downtowns through a variety
of government programs designed to
lure new tenants and create revitaliza
tion of public infrastructure, such as
sidewalks, parks, etc. Jefferson is doing
that now.
The effectiveness of this has been
mixed. Some communities have had a
unique blend of location, community
leadership and investment that have
transformed once dying towns into
“destination” locations. The one that
everyone points to — and wants to
emulate — is the town of Madison.
But not every town can be a
Madison. The quaintness quota only
goes so far; if every town copies
Madison, then there would be nothing
unique about any community. And an
area can support only so many cute
antique stores and boutique restau
rants.
Which brings the discussion back to
the conflicts that arise from businesses
that find themselves in controversy
over noise or other complaints. On
the one hand, towns don’t want empty
buildings and storefronts. But towns
also don’t want businesses that contin
ually tax city services and the patience
of nearby residents.
Like a lot of towns, Jefferson is trying
to ride out the economic downturn.
Many businesses are hurting; some
may not make it. Time are tough.
But a little common sense by both
businesses and city leaders could go
a long way toward helping businesses
succeed without having an undue
impact on nearby neighbors.
Mike Buffington is editor of The Jackson
Herald. He can be reached at mike@main-
streetnews.com.
mike
buffington