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OPINION
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gainesvilletimes.com
Wednesday, November 14, 2018
Shannon Casas Editor in Chief | 770-718-3417 | scasas@gainesvilletimes.com
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LETTERS
A plan somewhat
compatible with
zoning is needed
Maybe I am missing something, but I really
don’t understand our Planning Commission’s
approval of the Ponderosa Farm Road proposal.
According to the report:
■ The property is currently zoned Agricul-
tural-Residential-III (AR-III).
■ The builder wants to rezone to Planned
Residential Development (PRD).
■ The proposal states that the plan “is not
consistent with the Hall County Comprehensive
Plan.”
■ The builder can build age-restricted hous
ing or traditional family housing — their choice.
Since traditional family housing is an option, it
would seem that school and busing impact needs
to be studied, but that does not appear to have
been done.
■ The proposal compares the subdivision to
11 subdivisions within one mile. They request
a density of 2.3 units per acre compared to the
largest density in the compared subdivisions
of 1.41 units per acre — almost double existing
subdivisions. They requested a minimum of
4,400 square feet or 6,000 square feet for tradi
tional houses per lot (not a misprint) compared
to the smallest minimum lot size of 25,000
square feet in the compared subdivisions. A
1,500-square-foot house with carport would
cover nearly half the lot — and they could build
a larger house if desired.
■ Some of the property is in FEMA and
Future Flood zones. If approved as is, apparently
they can put some of the houses in flood zones.
■ Part of the property is on a power line
easement.
■ As shown, the streets likely do not meet
standards for public maintenance according to
the proposal.
■ The property has several streams, which
are protected by a 75-foot buffer, which makes
the proposal impossible without endangering our
streams.
After reviewing the above, our Planning Com
mission granted “Approval, with Conditions?”
None of the conditions addressed any of the above.
We paid a lot of money for a Comprehensive
Development Plan to keep our growth reason
ably consistent. I realize we need to be able to
make small variances but our county plan is
a complete waste of money if it is completely
ignored as it appears was done in this case.
This proposal should be rejected by our county
commissioners and allow the developers to pres
ent a serious plan that is at least somewhat com
patible with the zoning and our Comprehensive
Development Plan.
I hope one of the commissioners will respond
to the paper if there is some logic behind
approval of this proposal.
Mike McConnell
Gainesville
Your government officials
U.S. government
President Donald Thimp, The White House, 1600
Pennsylvania Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20500,
202-456-1111,202-456-1414, fax, 202-456-
2461; www.whitehouse.gov
Sen. Johnny Isakson, 131 Russell Senate Office
Building, Washington, DC 20510,202-224-
3643, fax, 202-228-0724; One Overton Park,
3625 Cumberland Blvd., Suite 970, Atlanta
30339, 770-661-0999, fax, 770-661-0768;
isakson.senate.gov
Sen. David Perdue, 383 Russell Senate Office
Building, Washington, DC 20510,202-224-
3521, fax 202-228-1031; 3280 Peachtree Road
NE Suite 2640, Atlanta 30303, 404-865-0087,
fax 404-865-0311; perdue.senate.gov.
U.S. Rep. Doug Collins, 1504 Longworth House
Office Building, Washington, DC 20515, 202-
225-9893; 210 Washington St. NW, Suite 202,
Gainesville 30501,770-297-3388; dougcollins.
house.gov
U.S. Rep Rob Woodall, 1725 Longworth House
Office Building, Washington, DC 20515, 202-
225-4272, fax 202-225-4696; 75 Langley Drive,
Lawrenceville 30045, 770-232-3005, fax 770-
232-2909; woodall.house.gov
Hall County government
Board of Commissioners, 2875 Browns Bridge
Road, Gainesville, P.O. Drawer 1435, Gainesville
30503,770-535-8288, www.hallcounty.org.
Chairman Richard Higgins, rhiggins@hallcounty.
org; District 1, Kathy Cooper, kcooper@hallcounty.
org; District 2, Billy Powell, bpowell@hallcounty.
org; District 3, Scott Gibbs, sgibbs@hallcounty.
org; District 4, Jeff Stowe, jstowe@hallcounty.org.
County Administrator, Jock Connell, jconnell@
hallcounty.org
Planning Commission, 2875 Browns Bridge Road,
Gainesville, 770-531-6809.
Tax Commissioner’s Office, 2875 Browns Bridge
Road, P.O. Box 1579, Gainesville 30503, 770-
531 -6950, taxcommissioner@hallcounty.org
Tax Assessor’s Office, 2875 Browns Bridge Road,
Gainesville 30504, rswatson@hallcounty.org.
Real estate property, P.O. Box 2895, Gainesville
30503, 770-531-6720; personal property, P.O.
Box 1780, Gainesville 30503, 770-531 -6749
Public Works, 2875 Browns Bridge Road,
Gainesville, 770-531-6800, krearden@
hallcounty.org
Extension office, 734 E. Crescent Drive,
Gainesville, 770-535-8293
Marshal’s Office, P.O. Drawer 1435, Gainesville,
770-531-6762
Elections Office, 2875 Browns Bridge Road,
Gainesville, 770-531-6945, elections®
hallcounty.org
Sheriff’s Office, Sheriff Gerald Couch, 610
Main St., Gainesville, 770-531-6885, www.
hallcountysheriffsoffice.org
Democratic tide reshapes
political landscape across state
Last week’s election did
more to reshape the politi
cal map of Georgia than any
since 2002, when Sonny Per
due’s victory in the governor’s
race triggered the shift to a
Republican majority in the
General Assembly. We can
say that, even before the last
details of the election have
been ironed out.
In metro Atlanta, Demo
crats picked up a congressio
nal seat, two state Senate seats
and 14 House seats. It could have been
worse for Republicans. The outcome of
the 7th District congressional race still
is in dispute, and several Republican
legislative incumbents won by razor-thin
majorities, in districts they were winning
a decade ago by 65 percent or more.
Assuming Brian Kemp wins the gov
ernor’s race, a Republican will preside
over the next reapportionment. But
unless Republicans stage a comeback in
2020, he will be dealing with Democratic
majority delegations from all the core
metro Atlanta counties, and local delega
tions are generally given wide latitude
in drawing their maps. Democrats took
the majority in the Cobb and Gwinnett
delegations last week, and they now hold
every seat on the DeKalb delegation.
Republicans drawing new legislative
maps after the 2020 census will be facing
a problem much like the one Democrats
grappled with in Georgia two decades
ago. They have to figure out how to
protect their incumbents in rural areas,
which will be losing representation, while
minimizing opportunities for the opposi
tion party in the growing metro counties
and fileting out the metro districts where
their party can win.
As the Democrats proved,
having control over the pro
cess brings with it a huge
danger of overreach and unin
tended consequences.
Excitement over Stacey
Abrams’ campaign for gov
ernor lifted the blue tide all
over the metro area, speed
ing changes many observers
hadn’t expected for another
cycle or two.
“When a friend of mine;
suburban, married, early 40s
with two kids and a GOP voting record
brags to me on Facebook that she trav
eled from Cherokee County to Cobb to
knock doors for Stacey Abrams, we’ve
lost the messaging war,” Cobb Republican
Chairman Jason Shepherd opined in a
post-election report.
But races like Sen. Jen Jordan’s con
vincing victory over challenger Leah
Aldridge look like evidence of a deeper
shift. Jordan won the special election to
replace Republican gubernatorial candi
date Hunter Hill last year. This year she
defended the seat against a well-funded
and highly regarded challenger.
Democrat Matthew Wilson’s win over
incumbent Meagan Hanson in the battle
ground Brookhaven House district high
lights the problems Republicans faced in
the metro area this year. It’s safe to say
Hanson was the first Republican ever to
cut a campaign ad touting her support for
Marta. But in addition to co-sponsoring
the Marta expansion bill, Hanson cooper
ated with the Republican effort to abolish
the DeKalb CEO, making her vulnerable
to the blue tide.
Looking back to previous elections
helps one to fully appreciate what Kemp
pulled off last week. He didn’t just win
rural Georgia overwhelmingly. He got
more votes in counties which have static
or declining populations than they gener
ated a decade ago.
Going forward, the problem for Repub
licans is that even with a turnout in the
rest of the state which will be hard to
repeat, Kemp’s narrow majority (assum
ing it holds up) still depended heavily on
metro Atlanta. His three top counties in
number of votes were Cobb, Gwinnett and
Fulton.
Hall — the home of outgoing Gov.
Nathan Deal and Kemp’s primary rival,
Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle — was his fourth
best, and DeKalb, where he got less than
16 percent, was his fifth best.
It’s a paradoxical situation where the
hard core of Kemp’s support is thinly
spread across the state, while the margins
are highly concentrated. That’s a com
bination which will require some pretty
clever governing strategies for him to
have many successes as governor.
Some of the Democratic victories in the
metro area were as thin as Kemp’s lead in
the governor’s race, and could be undone
in the next voting cycle.
Tides, including blue tides, ebb and
flow. But this one changed the landscape,
giving a new stage to leaders like Gabe
Okoye, the Democratic Party chair in
Gwinnett, where the party flipped seven
legislative seats, two county commission
seats, at least one school board seat and
defeated incumbent Solicitor General
Rosanna Szabo.
This tide also exposed new opportuni
ties for Democrats, like the 7th District,
where Republicans can now expect
repeated challenges in the future.
Tom Baxter is a veteran Georgia
journalist who writes for The Saporta Report.
TOM BAXTER
tom@saporta
report.com
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JIM POWELL I For The Times
House Democrats should put these deals on table
BY MICHAEL R. STRAIN
Bloomberg News
With Democrats set to take over the
House, it’s easy to get the sense that they
have only one goal: to go after President
Donald Trump and his administration.
Using their subpoena powers, they will
hold oversight hearings and investigate
corruption, as they should.
But Democrats in the new House will
miss opportunities to help themselves and
the nation if that is their exclusive focus.
Instead, they should work with Republi
cans and send bills to the president.
Why? Divided government can serve
the nation well. Divided government fos
ters legislative achievement because each
party can blame the other for parts of a
new law that their voters find unpalatable.
Take three examples. The 1986 tax
reform — which simplified the tax code,
broadened the tax base and lowered tax
rates — was enacted with Ronald Reagan
in the White House, Republicans control
ling the Senate and Democrats in the
House majority. Compromises that led
to significant changes to Social Security
occurred in 1983 when Republicans con
trolled the White House and the Senate,
and Democrats had the House.
When Congress reformed the welfare
system in 1996, Republican Newt Gingrich
was speaker of the House, Republicans
were in power in the Senate, and Demo
crat Bill Clinton was president.
The most fertile ground for compro
mise in the next Congress would find
Democrats trading permanent legal
status for the “Dreamers” in exchange
for funding Trump’s “wall” along the
U.S. southern border. Around 700,000
immigrants who were brought to the
U.S. illegally as children are enrolled
in the Obama-era Deferred Action for
Childhood Arrivals program, which
is currently shielding them from the
threat of deportation.
But they need a permanent solution.
Republicans are hoping for $5 billion for
a “border wall system” of enhanced secu
rity. There’s a deal to be had here, with
plenty of details left to negotiate.
House Democrats are planning hear
ings on the new tax law, and want to focus
on how the law could be changed to pro
vide more tax relief to the middle class. In
a press conference Wednesday, the presi
dent said that “if the Democrats come up
with an idea for tax cuts — and I’m a big
believer in tax cuts — I would absolutely
pursue something even if it means some
adjustment.” The president even said he
was open to raising the corporate tax rate.
In my view, the corporate tax rate
should stay where it is. But some increase
in the tax burden faced by high-income
households — by further broadening the
income tax base — to provide tax relief
for the working class could make sense.
Better would be to offer them more eco
nomic opportunity. A major failing of the
new tax law was the absence of an expan
sion of federal earnings subsidies for low-
income, working adults without children.
The new Congress might be able to work
with the president to correct this omission.
There are opportunities to work
together on infrastructure policy that
include measures to reduce the bureau
cracy associated with projects. Under
President Barack Obama, Republicans
were outspoken deficit hawks. Under
Trump, Democrats have voiced concern
about the deficit. At a minimum, the new
Congress could agree not to make the
deficit worse. It would be possible for the
parties to work together on lowering the
cost of prescription drugs, as well.
Apart from legislation, Republicans
and Democrats should come together to
support and protect the investigation of
special counsel Robert Mueller.
Politics will make this difficult, because
any Democratic compromise on legisla
tion — not on Mueller, whose congressio
nal support should not be compromised —
inevitably means giving Trump a victory.
And I have no doubt that the president
will continue his streak of outrageous and
dangerous behavior. As we get closer to
the 2020 election, he will only become a
bigger obstacle to bipartisan compromise.
But even if it means handing the
president a bill-signing ceremony or two,
Democrats will need a record of accom
plishment to present voters in 2020 that
goes beyond actions against him.
Republicans and Democrats might
remind themselves — and the American
people — that Congress is a co-equal
branch of government. By working
together on legislation to address the
nation’s many concerns, there’s a chance
that Congress might lead the country at
least some distance out of our current
hostile, partisan stalemate, restoring some
civility and sense of common purpose.
That’s a chance worth taking.
Michael R. Strain is a Bloomberg Opinion
columnist. He is director of economic policy
studies and resident scholar at the American
Enterprise Institute. He is the editor of “The
U.S. Labor Market: Questions and Challenges
for Public Policy.”
She fumes
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