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Page A— Wednesday, August 25, 2021, The True Citizen
OPINIONS
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The Pledge Of Allegiance
1 pledge, allegiance, to the flag
of the United States of America
and to the Republic for which
*it stands, one Nation under
God, indivisible, with liberty and
justice for all.
★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★
LOOKING BACK
{this week in Burke County history}
10 YEARS AGO-AUGUST 24,20ll
Twenty three Waynesboro homes were about to be con
demned by the city council. Building Inspector Marcus Cobb
said the houses were unht for habitation and would face
demolition unless brought up to standards.
A Waynesboro man, Earl Alphonzo Bolar, 48, died from
injuries he received while an inmate in the Richmond County
Jail. Another inmate, Jeremy Gene Taylor, 30, was arrested
for allegedly beating Bolar to death.
Highway 56 between Waynesboro and Augusta would
be widened to four lanes if a proposed one-cent sales tax is
passed in a referendum. Other projects included construction
of a new truck route on the west side of Waynesboro.
25 YEARS AGO-AUGUST 29, 1996
The Waynesboro Police Department began enforcing the
two-hour parking limit in the downtown business district.
Violators who received a ticket were given a $10 fine.
Two truck drivers were killed when their tankers collided
at the intersection of Highways 80 and 23. The deaths were
the second and third at the intersection in less than a month.
Joe Jackson and Tim Carey won the annual Rotary Club
Golf Tournament with rounds of 55 and 58 to win by a mar
gin of 10 strokes over Wade and Mitch Marchman. Proceeds
from the tournament go to support the club’s various local
projects, including scholarships.
50 YEARS AGO-AUGUST 25, 1971
Pharmacist Walt Seeger joined the staff of Taylor’s Drug
Store. The son of Mr. and Mrs. W.R. Seeger of Midville,
he is a recent graduate of the School of Pharmacy at the
University of Georgia.
Rev. Gary Linebaugh, pastor of the Waynesboro Bible
Church since 1965, resigned to accept a call from a church
in Port Crane, N.Y.
70 YEARS AGO-AUGUST 30, 1951
Louis Pintchuck was named captain of the 1951 Waynes
boro Hurricane football team. Frank Griffin and Jones Skin
ner were co-captains. The team was set to play in its opening
game against Metter on Sept. 14.
Twin brothers Sidney and Seabie Sapp of Sardis were
working together at McChord Air Force Base in Washington
State. They were the sons of Mrs. Mary D. Sapp.
Lullaby of Broadway, starring Doris Day and Gene Nelson,
was playing at the Grand Theatre.
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Yeah...
Translator
SAFELY
DEPART.
J
KABUL
AIRPORT
EVACUATION
BEN ROBERTS
benroberts@bellsouth.net
$42,110,200.
That’s the amount of the
proposed budget for Burke
County for the 2022 fiscal year
that begins in just a few short
weeks on Oct. 1.
According to a report from
the county manager’s office,
that figure represents a 16-per-
cent increase over the 2021
budget of $36.4million.
I’m quoting these numbers
with the belief that they are
still correct. When this process
started a few weeks ago, these
were the numbers Commis
sioners were working with for
the operation of the county’s
general fund. That, however,
was a couple of budget work
sessions ago and various de
partment heads and elected of
ficials have since stood in front
of the Commissioners to ask for
various needs and wants, some
of which were not included in
the $42 million.
Admittedly, there are far
more interesting ways to spend
a Tuesday evening, but it is still
disappointing to look around
the room and see it virtually
vacant outside of whoever is
there asking for money, maybe
another media person and my
self.
Taxes and spending are the
two biggest things that tend to
get people riled up, and setting
the budget is the spending part
of that equation. In another
couple of months, the commis
sioners will meet to discuss and
set the yearly property tax rates.
Virtually nobody will show up
for those meetings either.
So just what exactly makes
up $42 million worth of spend
ing, you might ask?
Obviously, the county’s got
to keep the lights on and the
air or heat running in all their
buildings and offices. There’s
an insane amount of fuel for
everything from motor graders
to weed-eaters.
New equipment requests in
clude the usual: hretrucks, am
bulances and police vehicles.
There are tractors and dump
trucks for the road department.
The recreation department
wants new picnic tables and
facility maintenance has asked
for a new zero turn lawnmower.
The tax assessor’s office,
where I am employed, wants a
new map printer. According to
our budget request, that will set
the county back about $3,000.
The commissioners plan to
move forward with the reno
vation of one of the former
cotton warehouses behind the
new judicial center this fall.
The goal is to consolidate the
offices of the tax assessor, tax
commissioner and the planning
commission.
In my opinion, housing these
offices under one roof will
greatly ease the burden on tax
payers and property owners. A
permit to move a mobile home
into Burke County requires a
visit to all three of those offices.
This move will make that far
less time consuming. And it’s
not uncommon to walk into the
tax commissioner’s office with
an issue and immediately be
told you need to go to the tax
assessor instead - or vice versa.
Still, that renovation will cost
well over a million dollars, and
that’s before the county has
purchased the first new desk,
office chair or computer.
Of course, the county also
employs a large number of
people, including myself. Re
gardless of the amount of your
paycheck, a job with the coun
ty is a pretty good one: full
medical benefits for full-time
employees, a pension plan
funded solely by the county and
discounted dental and vision
plans are all provided at no, or
extremely low, cost.
The county has a “step plan”
pay scale where for every year
of employment, you get a two-
percent raise. Throw in another
two-percent cost of living ad
justment for 2022, and every
county employee is looking at
a four-percent raise sometime
over the next 12 months.
The commissioners have
generously done this every
year that I’ve g^
been employed
by the county, BIRD DOG,
and that’s coming 5
Don Lively
(Reprinted from 2017)
I hear them often.
There seem to be two sepa
rate families.
I think one of the families
spends its nights on the eastern
edge of my property, deep in
the trees. The other, I believe,
resides somewhere in the op
posite direction, to the west,
across the road on the late
judge's tract, within easy access
to the water in the old irrigation
pond that Daddy and Willie
built all those years ago.
Two families.
Two packs, actually.
Coyotes.
I nearly always hear them
on full moon nights and new
moon nights.
I know why they howl on
full moons.
It's in response to my worth
less dog, Lucy AKA LooseE,
and me, doing some howling
ourselves.
The coyotes, sometimes both
packs at the same time, follow
suit.
I have no idea why they also
seem to always howl on new
moons.
Maybe they're scared of the
dark.
Yes, I hear them, but I almost
never see them.
I saw coyotes regularly when
I lived Out West. I saw them
in the mountains and on the
plains. In the country and in the
city. Winter and summer. They
were always around.
Not so much, around these
parts.
I can only assume that South
ern coyotes are not as amicable
as their Rocky Mountain coun
terparts.
That's okay.
Hearing them without seeing
them only adds to their myste
riousness for me.
It's one of the things that
makes living in the country
unique.
One of many.
Out here in the country most
of us have potholes that dot
the length and breadth of our
driveways. Most are not packed
or paved and when the rains
come, the rivulets wash away
the weak places leaving behind
barrelhead sized impressions.
They're more of an inconve
nience than a real problem. We
spend a lot of time talking about
how to patch them and we make
plans to do just that. We just
never seem to get around to
OUT YONDER
it. The upside is, nobody can
sneak up to the house without
being heard.
The air is unquestionably
clearer and more clean out
in the country. There always
seems to be a balmy breeze
keeping the tree leaves and
needles in a constant, gentle
motion. Most days you can
smell the pines or cedars. My
trauma damaged old lungs love
to take in the country air.
That's not to say that ev
erything in the country smells
good. One recent year the fel
low that farms the old home
place decided to treat the held
with some concoction part of
which was processed chicken
renderings. I suppose it would
have been fine if the sun never
came out and started baking the
nasty mess, but, when that hap
pened, it stunk to High Heaven
for days. In my non-farmer
mind, I can't imagine what
benefit the soil got from hav
ing poultry guts spread all over
it, and I can't fathom anything
nastier. Thankfully, that only
happened once.
Let's hope it stays that way.
Out in the country there are
still plenty of forested areas.
My place is no exception and
the adjoining properties are also
heavily wooded. If I so choose,
lean walk to most of the homes
scattered in every direction
from my house and never leave
the cover of the trees, only
touching asphalt when I cross a
road. After living semi isolated
in the woods for the past several
years, I'm not sure I could ever
again get used to living with
neighbors just a few feet away.
Speaking of relatives, folks
who live in the country tend to
form familial pockets in which
kin people live close by. It has
much to do with the fact that
some of the land where the
homes are built is ancestral,
having been in the clan for cen
turies. In my own locale, I live
so close to the homesteads of a
dozen cousins and a few aunts
that I could walk to their places
without getting out of breath or
pulling a muscle. I like that.
Living in the country means
quiet days and even quieter
nights.
It means night birds and other
tree critters singing you to sleep
at night and others greeting you
awake in the morning.
Things seem to move at a
slower pace.
Which gives me plenty of
time to ponder and think.
Like, maybe it's time to patch
the driveway.
Or, maybe not.