Newspaper Page Text
PAGE 4A
October 8. 2008
^Reporter
Opinion
Declare among the nations,
and publish, and set up a standard;
publish, and conceal not;
Jeremiah 50:2
OUR VIEW
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Minutes show that at the end of a Sept. 4, 2007 com
mission meeting, after a closed session, the board ap
proved putting the shelter at the rec department.
Keep it in the light
M bnroe County commissioners just returned
from a retreat aimed at training them how
to communicate better with one another.
Now, how about a seminar to help them
communicate better with the taxpayers?
Whether it’s cutting down trees on the courthouse square
or building an animal shelter at the recreation department,
the Monroe County government seems to forget sometimes
to tell people its future plans.
Most readers know the tree story. Commissioner Larry
Evans and the courthouse renovations committee had
merely discussed the idea of cutting down trees on the
courthouse square. They had a vision of putting down new
sidewalks and landscaping on the square. All fine and good.
However, no plans were ever produced, no vision was prom
ulgated, and no vote was ever taken. One day, all of the
sudden, Evans orders county workers to the square with
their bulldozers and chainsaws. After residents protested,
there was a standoff between two commissioners, criminal
charges were filed and the county was left with a black eye.
It all could have been avoided with a little communica
tion. Once it was discussed openly, commissioners agreed
unanimously to Evans’ plan.
Which brings us to the animal shelter. We applaud the
county for building a new shelter, as the current one is
abysmal. But in planning where to put the shelter, commis
sioners again didn’t really engage the taxpayers. A copy of
the minutes from a Sept. 4,2007 commission meeting is
shown above. The minutes reveal that around 8:05 p.m.,
after meeting in open session for more than two hours,
commissioners closed the meeting to the public to discuss
the purchase of real estate. At that late juncture, few mem
bers of the public are going to stick around and wait for the
meeting to open back up.
State law does allow commissioners to close the meeting
to discuss real estate acquisition (to protect the county’s
ability to negotiate a fair price). But the law forbids them
from discussing anything else without the sunlight of pub
lic scrutiny. Yet, after 35 minutes of closed doors, they
opened the meeting back up and announced they had
reached a “consensus” to have transportation director Sid
Banks prepare a site at the rec department for the animal
shelter. If that decision was made or even discussed behind
closed doors, it is at odds with the spirit of the open meet
ings law. Now a year has passed, and commissioners have
apparently had very few public discussions about their
intentions to build a shelter at the park. That is, until the
dirt started moving last month. Commissioners have said
it’s a good location because it will help the county adopt out
more dogs. But county officials now admit they don’t even
have a license to adopt out animals to the public. Only
Save-A-Pet can do that through its Bolingbroke farm.
Nevertheless, after commissioner Jim Ham explained
that the dogs will remain inside a spray-down building, and
that the shelter will not be accessible from the park, it was
easier to understand.
But this explanation could have been part of a public
debate in the very beginning. We at the Reporter apologize
to our readers for not picking up on this story earlier.
Whoever wins office next month, we hope they’ll make it
their priority to tell the people what county government is
doing - on the front end, not the back.
is published every week by The Monroe County Reporter Inc.
Will Davis, president
Robert M. Williams Jr., vice president
Cheryl S. Williams, secretary-treasurer
OUR STAFF
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Contributing
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Business Manager
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Advertising
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Graphics Artist
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Editorial Assistant
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Publication No. USPS 997-840)
On the Porch
The new AT&T: If s like New Coke
W ould you like
to know
what I think
of AT&T this
week?
Sorry, we can’t print that
in a family newspaper. Let
me tell you why, and it may
save you some grief.
Our newspaper staff has
had email accounts from
BellSouth (now AT&T, dag-
gumit) for at least five
years. That is, until last
Monday. Then they
were gone. All of
them. Disappeared
like A1 Gore during a
cold snap. They
wouldn’t work in our
email accounts. They
wouldn’t work on
webmail.
Monday is
deadline day
at the
Reporter, and
we’re already
wound tight trying to put
your hometown paper to
bed. Now I had to call
AT&T. The operator said in
May that someone had
moved our DSL line from
our main number to our fax
line. She assured me the
problem would be fixed by 5
p.m. Lie No. 1.
I called the next day and
learned that a repair order
had never been placed on
Monday. This time I was
told that those emails were
gone forever. In fact, she
said, someone cancelled our
DSL service in May. The
operator told me we had
been “riding” those accounts
months after they should
have been disconnected.
“Freeloader!”
This took my mind back
to May, when a college-aged
AT&T rep came by the
office. He told me I could
save $30 per month by
signing a two-year DSL
contract. Why not? Now, I
knew why not. All they
could say was, sorry.
Valuable email
addresses that had
kept us in touch
with important
advertisers and
news sources were
now gone forever
because of their
incompe
tence. I
S— simmered
" long
enough
and called again to see
what kind of credit we
might be due for our trou
bles. Third call, third differ
ent story.
This time, I was told that
no order was ever placed in
May. She didn’t know what
had happened. Desperate, I
demanded a supervisor.
Miss Supervisor glumly
said it was a lost cause. But
if I insisted, they can try a
super-secret method that
would have an outside
chance of retrieving those
long lost email addresses
again. They would try (but
it probably won’t work) and
should have an answer by
Thursday. I was skeptical.
By Friday I still had not
heard from AT&T. Our staff
had already asked their
contacts to use the newer
email addresses, the
mymcr.net accounts which
are connected with our
website. I decided to call
one more time to see about
a credit for hours spent
being tossed around the
AT&T call center like a
John Edwards for President
sign. While I waited, on a
whim, I tried to access my
old BellSouth email
address. Voila. It worked.
When the lady finally
picked up the phone and I
told her the news she added
we had already been credit
ed for our troubles.
Suddenly,
AT&T/Bellsouth/Mother Of
All Phone Monopolies was
out of my doghouse.
Meanwhile, I had asked a
former BellSouth employee
in Forsyth what had really
happened to us. He didn’t
pause. That young, hotshot
salesman, he replied, gets a
better commission if he
cancels our DSL and starts
a new account. That’s what
he did, and that’s why we
lost all our emails.
Well, what about the dif
ferent stories I was getting
from the operators? “Oh,
they get points for trips
everytime they turn a call
around,” he noted. “It’ll
always take about three
calls to get the right
answer. That’s why I quit.”
We can only access our
email accounts through
webmail now, and so we
probably won’t use them
much anymore. But now
you’ve been warned when
the AT&T salesman comes
calling.
The episode reminds me
how much we rely on email,
and how it’s changed the
way we do business. I can
remember at my first full
time newspaper job as a
reporter for The Hartwell
Sun, we were rumored to
have an email address in
the production department.
There was only one person
on staff, a hard-bitten
Yankee reporter named
Edith Gaines, who bothered
to use it. This was 1997.
About once a month, she
would get up from her desk
and announce that she was
going to check the email.
She would disappear into a
backroom with that lone
computer. She would return
to report that some elec
tronic note had come in
from another state, proba
bly written in computer
language. I was thinking
email would probably go
the way of the 8-track.
Obviously, I was wrong -
and will remain so until
AT&T gets a hold of every
one’s email address! Then,
all bets are off.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Reader: Bailout vote courageous
To the editor:
n Thursday, Sept. 18, a
global financial panic
started that seemed to be
headed full speed toward
a collapse of catastrophic
proportions. It was in the midst of
that panic that Secretary Paulson
announced his $700 billion rescue
plan. Following his announcement,
the panic subsided as the financial
world waited to see if Paulson could
deliver.
Paulson’s plan, even after congres
sional modifications, is an imperfect,
complicated, ugly, expensive plan
that has evoked anger from just
about everyone- including people
that supported it. It did, however,
restore sufficient confidence in our
financial system to quell a panic that
hadthe potential to do immeasurable
harm to Americans of all walks of
life.
I can remember a few moments of
crisis when my dad would say, “It’s
time to do something, even if it’s
wrong.”
I believe the financial panic of Sept.
18 was clearly such a moment, and it
did not give us the luxury of much
time to do anything other than to
make a few modifications to the
Paulson plan and get on with it.
I believe Jim Marshall reached that
same conclusion, and that is why he
held his nose and cast a potentially
politically unpopular vote in favor of
the House-modified version of
Paulsen’s plan even with a November
election right around the corner. I
consider Jim’s vote in favor of this
bill one of the most politically coura
geous acts I have seen in a long time.
I deeply respect Jim as a man of
conviction who will do what he
thinks is right, not just politically
expedient. That is the kind of back
bone and character I want represent
ing me in Congress.
Joe Evans
Smarr
Who’s stealing my Nobama signs?
To the editor:
placed several yard signs
along my property last
week that said “Nobama.”
Within 12 hours, they
were gone.
Reckon why? Did I break the
law? I look around our great
county and see an abundance
of political signs on the side of
the road. So why were my
signs gone after 12 hours?
Funny, four years ago, I
placed a Bush/Cheney yard
sign in the same place. Funny,
four years ago, it too was
taken.
If the person who took my
signs is reading this, may you
one day be held accountable for
your actions of stealing another
person’s property. I hope you
do not breed and spread more
of your kind into our society. I
also forgive you. It’s funny:
taking my signs does not near
ly anger me as much as my
signs obviously angered you.
Your actions have given more
attention to my signs by hav
ing the Reporter publish this
letter than if they had been left
along my road.
Dr. Clell Morris
Forsyth
MORRIS
Reader: School bus not for errands
To the editor:
recently attended a school
board meeting concerning a
budget increase. In the
Reporter following, Mrs.
Herring reported I was criticiz
ing the school board and asking for
justification on said budget increase.
If in fact I was critizing, it was con
structive criticism - not destructive
criticism.
Now in this week’s Reporter, some
one by the name of K. Lee thinks it’s
okay to use taxpayer money for bus
drivers’ doctor visits and other per
sonal trips. If he or she can explain
to me, or anyone who pays taxes,
how you can get a school bus or any
vehicle from the point the last stu
dent was dropped off to the doctor’s
office without using taxpayer’s fuel
or wearing out any moving parts I
would like the make and model of
this vehicle. Probably everyone could
use a vehicle just like that. The last
figures I could find on the Internet
concerning bus drivers’ salaries in
Monroe County were for 2003.1 will
assume the county or school board
needs more tax money to keep this
up to date, as well. The salary in
2003 was approximately $12,000 for
three and a half hours a day. When
this amount of daily hours is multi
plied by 180 school days you get 630
hours and come to a $19.04 per hour
salary.
I drive a privately owned vehicle
capable of transporting 2,400 gallons
of hazardous material at least 250
days a year for less per hour. I have
the responsibility of thousands of
peoples’ lives every day I turn the
key on this truck. I must account for
every mile and go through a FBI
background check. I think I under
stand a bus driver’s responsibility.
I did not see or hear from anyone
by the name of K. Lee at the meet
ing. Is this a taxpayer in Monroe
County?
Roger Holland
Forsyth