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THE JACKSON HERALD
WEDNESDAY, JULY 12, 2023
Opinions
“Private opinion is weak, but public opinion is almost omnipotent. ”-
Henry W ai d Beecher
What Jackson County needs...
Growth has pretty much got a death grip on Jackson
County. There are a few places that continue to have the
rural ambiance that once dominated the community —
the east side of the county has not yet seen the kind of
hyper-growth that’s happening in the west side.
Still, the die is cast. Jackson County
is quickly becoming a suburban coun
ty with all the good and bad that im
plies.
There’s no changing the arc of
growth once it begins. There is no real
way to control any of that, either, no
matter what the populist cry of “con
trolled growth” implies. No local
government has either the resources
or legal authority to control growth.
At best, communities can nudge and
respond to growth, but never really
control it.
There are upsides to this suburbanization: Local jobs
are now plentiful, and the standard of living has increased;
local schools have overall improved from the influx of
wealthier students and investments in new facilities; and
the expanded industrial tax base has helped somewhat to
balance the tax digest from being heavily reliant on resi
dential taxes.
But there are downsides as well: Increased traffic,
crowded schools, increased crime, soaring home prices
and higher property taxes.
I’ll leave it to history to determine how all that balances
out decades from now.
For the immediate future, however, Jackson leaders
should not just discuss the growth, but also ask the ques
tion: What’s missing?
It won’t be long until Jackson County hits 100,000 peo
ple. Communities change as population density increases;
old systems begin to falter and new demands get placed
on communities. (For reference, see “recreation” issues
currently floating about around the county where recre
ation has become a lot more than high school football in
the days of yore.)
I suppose there are a lot of ideas people have about
what the county needs, but here’s my list of community
assets the Jackson County community needs as it moves
into suburbia:
1. A community college. Higher education institutions
It is difficult to book a seat on a plane
or find an empty hotel room in the sum
mer in Europe. The continent is overrun
with tourists, many
of whom are students
who head over for
studies abroad or in-
depth tours.
The history and the
art give you a sense of
fulfillment, that you
are doing something
that is kicking provin
cialism in the teeth.
You know that your
tenth-grade teacher
would be overwhelmed. Ah the muse
ums—The Louvre, the D’Orsay in Paris,
the British Museum in London, the Uffizi,
home of The David, in Florence and all
that Rome has to offer—from the Sistine
Chapel to the Colosseum to the Forum to
Circus Maximus to the Vatican, St. Peter’s
and Piazza Navona.
And, you eat and drink so well wherev
er you go. Paris, Rome, Brussels, Amster
dam, Tuscany, but not greater than you do
in the small towns and villages particular
have a number of positive impacts in a community be
yond the increased accessibility to higher education for
local students. Colleges bring a degree of economic sta
bility and higher paying jobs with an educated workforce.
They enrich local arts and entertainment both from their
own student plays, music and art and also from the draw
they bring of outside businesses that want to be close to a
college campus. Jackson does have a small campus from
Lanier Tech and the community is surrounded by nearby
colleges of all sizes, but given its growth and geograph
ic location, the county needs its own college campus to
serve its growing population.
2. A hospital. I realize that small, independent commu
nity hospitals are dying as consolidation into larger facil
ities has been necessary for many health care systems to
survive. And Jackson is sandwiched between Athens and
Gainesville, both of which have large regional medical
centers, including one in Braselton on the county line.
Still, as the county grows and growth continues up 1-85,
it would make sense for Jackson to have a regional hospi
tal facility in the Commerce area to serve a multi-county
growth region (Jackson, Franklin, Banks, Madison). As
with community colleges, a community hospital brings a
lot of positive intangibles to a community, including the
development of nearby ancillary medical services. The
closure of BJC Medical Center a few years ago has left
a void. Seems like an opportunity for a large health care
system to fill that in the area.
3. A community-based arts program/musuem. There
are a lot of artists in Jackson County, but there’s no art
museum or consistent cultural focus. That may sound too
artsy-fartsy for a lot of people, but communities are en
riched by their arts and having outlets for local artists to
showcase their work and for education outreach. This is a
huge gap in the community that needs to be filled.
4. Green space downtown. Ok, Braselton has a nice
green and Pendergrass is building one with its new down
town development. But Jefferson and Commerce desper
ately need open green spaces in their downtowns to host
festivals and events. This won’t be easy given the amount
of existing development in both downtowns, but there are
some opportunities in both communities to develop some
public green spaces. If you want to save traditional down
towns, make them a place people want to go and gather.
The area’s growing millennial population will flock to vi
brant downtowns.
Europe in summer
5. More passive parks. Jackson County is currently
investing in developing passive parks for public use and
its Hurricane Shoals Park is often at capacity. Braselton,
too, has a passive walking park. But more such parks are
needed in a county geographically as large as Jackson.
People like rural green spaces for walking, family events
and just to enjoy. Now’s the time to buy available land for
the future for these; it ain’t gonna get any cheaper.
6. An expanded ag facility. I was an early skeptic
about the county’s ag center, but it has proven to be very
successful. Now’s the time to build on that with an affili
ated open-air facility where a county fair, rodeos and oth
er similar rural-based events could be held. If you want to
have a sense of “community” in a rapidly growing coun
ty, and to preserve some of its rural history, this is one
way to help do that.
7. An outdoor music venue. Ok, this may be a little
pie-in-the-sky, but outdoor music festivals are a booming
trend in rural areas all around the country. Some are more
rustic than others, but outdoor stage venues with ample
parking can bring in top talent. Athens is building such a
facility, Barrow County has its Innovation Amphitheater,
and Gainesville has Ivester Amphitheater at the botantical
gardens, so maybe the area is too saturated for another
such venue. Still, large outdoor venues with good access
could be a community asset.
8. A larger retail sector. This is a decades-old need in
the county where there is a lack of retail shops, restau
rants, and other businesses. The data is clear on this and
it’s something that citizens are increasingly demanding.
Look at the response to the new Chick-fil-A in Jefferson.
Today, people travel to Athens, Gwinnett and Gainesville
to shop, something that hurts the county’s sales tax in
come and that will increasingly become problematic as
the community grows. Governments can’t do much about
building retail establishments, but they should maybe
make the zoning and approval process easier and quicker
as an inducement to bring in these kinds of projects. (Just
do them smartly so that the county doesn’t become strip-
mall central like so many other suburban counties.)
Mike Buffington is co-publisher of Mainstreet Newspa
pers. He can be reached at mike@mainstreetnews.com.
June, also for a fortnight, and while the
restaurants of London don’t compare with
Paris, you couldn’t have a better travel ex
perience than a pub life for a fortnight in a
truly great city.
It all ends with the Open champion
ship in the third week of July. There are
eight venues which host the event—four
in Scotland (there were five until Donald
Trump bought Tumberry, and the Royal
and Ancient Golf Club, which runs the
championship, will not return to Tum
berry until Trump goes away; and four
courses in England. The Scottish courses
are Carnoustie, St. Andrews, Muirfield,
Troon and recently Royal Portrush in
Ireland is lobbying to become one of the
permanent venues on the rota. I am for
that. The English courses are Lytham &
St. Annes, Birkdale, Liverpool (Hoylake),
and St. Georges (Sandwich).
You can actually take in all of the ven
ues aforementioned in one trip, but only
if you have the time and most of all, the
money. There is no layaway plan.
Loran Smith is a UGA commentator and
columnist for Mainstreet Newspapers.
Loran
Smith
ly in the French and Italian countryside.
But don’t become dismayed when you
discover that there are as many familiar
American fast-food restaurants over there
as you find here. At least in some places.
It is the side trips that heighten travel in
Europe. Like driving 54 miles from Par
is to Givemy, the home of Oscar-Claude
Monet, but before you go, visit the mu
seum which displays his Impressionist art
in Paris.
While you are in France, take a trip to
the invasion beaches in Normandy but
stay for a week. The tour is astounding,
the story of the beginning of the end of the
Nazi regime will make you proud; find a
cozy little cross-roads restaurant where
the food is very good. The wine won’t
disappoint and the Calvados (apple bran
dy) will exhilarate but only if there is no
wake-up call.
There’s Bruges, with the greatest of
charm in Belgium, with its sights, restau
rants and canals; the stunning Amalfi
Coast and a pizza at oT Napoli; Rem
brandt’s Night Watch at the Rijksmuseum
in Amsterdam; the Alhambra at Grenada;
Salzburg and Viennese coffee; the Bos
porus in Istanbul and walking the streets
of Prague, as electric of a city as can be.
I would like to live there for a summer.
Lastly, Maastricht, pretty much off the
beaten path, but I promise if you go there
you will vow to return. What a lively, up
beat place!
If you are into sports, you have more
options than you do most anywhere.
There’s the Henley Regatta the last of
June. Talk about tradition and sophisti
cation, for a sporting event—featuring
white tablecloths and candelabra. The
Tour de France begins in late June and
lasts for three weeks and gets more cov
erage than an SEC football rivalry. The
running of the bulls at Pamplona, the feast
of San Fermin, the second week of July
where Spanish aficionados drink more
sangria in a week than they do beer at the
Super Bowl. The French Open at Roland
Garros is a fortnight of Grand Slam ten
nis competition, but you will never tire of
the sights and sounds of Paris along with
walks down the boulevards adjoining the
Seine and dinner at a sidewalk cafe in the
evening.
Wimbledon begins the last Monday in
Could we be safer?
Dear Editor:
So much “feeling” goes into these discussions that is
related to personal circumstances and history. I grew up
with guns. My brother had a BB gun by the time he
was 8, a 22 rifle by the time he was 12, and hunting
with shotguns by the time he was a teen. Our kids were
taught gun safety from a young age. That was not uni
versal then and less so today.
There are reasons drivers’ licenses are required to op
erate vehicles. Would not the same type of requirements
for guns make us safer? Know how the weapon works,
know the safety rules for using the weapon, know the
laws governing use of the weapon, and suspension of
license if convicted of a crime using a weapon.
I do not want to take guns from any responsible gun
owner. But I am not convinced that a good guy with
a gun handles a bad guy with a gun. In 2021, approx
imately 49,000 deaths were related to guns, of which
4750 were children under the age of 18. An average of
70 women are shot and killed by their intimate partner
every month. Would gun licensure prevent all these
deaths? Of course not. How many lives saved to equal
the inconvenience and cost of gun registration and li
censing? I say one. What do you say?
Sincerely,
Dene Kirby
Commerce
Georgia should join energy
revolution movement
Dear Editor:
For decades, Texas was synonymous with prosperity
based in very large part on fossil fuel production and con
sumption. But times they are a ‘changing. Texans know
something that Georgians don’t, but soon will:
Solar power is as much as 33 percent cheaper than gas
power in the United States and onshore wind may be nearly
45 percent cheaper.
Clean energy provided 25 to 30 percent of Texas power
in 2022, up from less than 1 percent in 2002. In 2022, solar
and wind power reduced Texas wholesale energy costs by
a reported $11 billion!
Utility fees paid by Georgians are sky-rocketing! Geor
gia consumers should be saving billions of dollars every
year by having access to very cheap renewable energy.
Along and growing list of America’s largest corporations
and fastest growing companies have committed to conver
sion to 100% renewable energy and are seeking locations
where they can obtain it.
Now is the time for Georgia and Georgians to know what
Texans know! The time for Georgia’s urgent transition to
renewable energy and to harvesting the savings and pros
perity that transition can bring is now!
Sincerely,
Bruce Menke
Athens
The Jackson Herald
Jefferson, Ga. 30549
Founded 1875
Merged with The Commerce News 2017
The Official Legal Organ of Jackson County, Ga.
Mike Buffington Co-Publisher
Scott Buffington Co-Publisher
Alex Buffington News Editor
Taylor Hearn Sports Editor
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