The times. (Gainesville, Ga.) 1972-current, November 14, 2018, Image 4

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The times., November 14, 2018, Image 4

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Newspaper Page Text4A OPINION Sttnes gainesvilletimes.com Wednesday, November 14, 2018 Shannon Casas Editor in Chief | 770-718-3417 | scasas@gainesvilletimes.com Submit a letter: letters@gainesvilletimes.com The First Amendment: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. 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 STORM RELIEF SPECIAL SESSION *v yl'*-'- — An\7>£ 4K-* '\l,, —-NM 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 EDITORIAL BOARD Founded Jan. 26,1947 345 Green St., Gainesville, GA 30501 gainesvilletimes.com General Manager Norman Baggs Editor in Chief Shannon Casas Community member Brent Hoffman