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Declare among the nations, and publish, and set up a standard;
publish, and conceal not; Jeremiah 50:2
4A
Wednesday, May 9, 2018
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2017 winner: Best Humor Column - On the Porch
ON THE PORCH by Will Davis
The job interview
A n attendee at our political debate last week told me
that ours was far superior to the one hosted by the
Bibb County GOP, and I wrote a column last week
explaining why that might be. In short, as the mod
erator, I’m OK if candidates get mad and don’t like me or my
questions. We serve the voters, not the candidates.
Unfortunately, many of you never read that column because
our printing press decided they liked my April 25 column bet
ter — so they printed page 4A from the April 25 edition again
— for the second week in a row.
If you thought you were having a “Groundhog Day” experi
ence while reading last week’s edition, well, it’s not you, it’s us.
Anyway, the “missing” column (it’s on our website if you
never want to miss On the Porch) addressed the importance
of asking candidates tough questions, including about their
political philosophy. You may have read that we had an all-out
rebellion when I asked candidates how they voted in the 2016
election.
One of the enduring truths I’ve tried to teach in my life and in
this newspaper is that politics affects everything we do.
Now, come on, Will, you don’t have to bring politics into
everything!
Several people said this, nay, they shouted this, when I asked
the question.
But I’m sorry, politics is already in schools, and in everything
else. And when those politics are liberal politics, they usually
destroy the host, even at the local level.
Look at the Boy Scouts. If I told you 20 years ago that liberals
would force gay leaders into the scouts, and would force the
scouts to accept girls, you would’ve said I was paranoid. You
might have suspected that I wore a tin-foil hat to protect me
from the CIA flying UFOs over my
house at night sending messages
into my brain.
But lo and behold, liberals have
destroyed the Boy Scouts. A great
American institution has essen
tially been gutted of its original
purpose in order to mollify liberal,
politically correct leadership.
Look at marriage. It’s an institu
tion that’s thousands of years old,
the bedrock of the family unit that
is the building block of society.
It’s given security to children and
stability to nations for all of human
history. And now, political liberals,
five of them on the U.S. Supreme
Court, decided that marriage
doesn’t mean what it means. They re-defined it to include
same-sex relationships, and gutted a civilizational foundation.
Don’t tell me politics doesn’t matter.
Now let’s go back to the school board. A lot of decisions about
school policy, sadly, are made at the state and federal level. But
local school boards can still make a host of decisions about
policy that reflect our values. Monroe County school board
policies will reflect the philosophies of board members. Does
it not make sense that voters should know the basic political
philosophies of our school board members and candidates?
For instance, it is currently the policy of our school board to
actively recruit minority employees. This is stated clearly on the
school system’s employment application. Is it fair for our school
system to choose minority candidates over majority candidates
based on the color of their skin? Would the school system have
hired a convicted molester if the candidate had been white?
I don’t know, but I do know a Democrat school board
member would probably be more inclined to implement a
color-based hiring policy, while a Republican-leaning school
board member would probably be more inclined to implement
a color-blind hiring policy, not using skin color to determine
who gets hired.
So yes, voters should insist on knowing the political phi
losophies and preferences of their candidates before touching
that voting screen. School board members, and all political
office holders, serve at the pleasure of we the people. A debate
is merely a job interview where we can ask anything we want.
We are trying to make an informed decision. And if support
ers hate the question that much, it may be that they’re afraid
an honest answer would sink their candidate in conservative
Monroe County. So what should a boss do when a candidate
refuses to answer a simple question in a job interview?
They may be tempted, in the words of one orangish former
TV reality star, to say: “You’re fired!”
is published every week by The Monroe County Reporter Inc.
Will Davis, President • Robert M. Williams Jr., Vice President
Cheryl S. Williams, Secretary-Treasurer
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Publication No. USPS 997-840
PEACH STATE POLITICS by Kyle Wingfield
Protecting Georgia s Little Pink Houses’
want you to watch a movie
about eminent domain.
No, let me start over. I want
you to watch a movie about a
woman in a struggling town who
leaves a bad marriage, buys and
spruces up a rundown house with
a beautiful view, meets a man who
treats her well, and generally puts
her life back together - only to see
an ambitious governor and a cun
ning college president try to force
the entire neighborhood out of their
homes so they can give the land to a
giant corporation. She leads the fight
to stop them, culminating in a land
mark decision by the U.S. Supreme
Court.
Doesn’t that sound more interest
ing?
“Little Pink House” is the story of
Susette Kelo, the woman from New
London, Conn., whose last name
and hometown are synonymous
with the effort to defend private
property rights against improper
takings by government for crony
capitalists. In 2005, the Supreme
Court ruled 5-4 against her - and,
by extension, homeowners across
America - in finding governments
can use eminent domain to take
property from private citizens and
give it to other private parties.
While that power historically had
required a clear “public” purpose,
such as building a highway on the
seized land, the majority determined
that furthering economic develop
ment renders enough public benefit
to justify using it to benefit another
private owner.
As the college president claims
multiple times during the film,
“Economic development is social
justice!”
To which one of her bewildered
targets responds, “You’re gonna help
the homeless by kicking people out
of their homes?”
The Kelo decision has been much
reviled in the years
since. The silver lining is
many states responded
by restricting eminent
domain to prevent such
abuses. Shortly after the
ruling, Georgia enacted
some of the nation’s
strongest protections
for private property, but
in more recent years
there have been efforts
to chip away at those
protections. We must
remain vigilant.
But that’s all postscript
to the rich story woven
in “Little Pink House,” so named
for the color Kelo chose to paint the
exterior of her little cottage front
ing the Thames River. (Actually, as
her character, played powerfully by
two-time Academy Award nomi
nee Catherine Keener, corrects a
neighbor, the color was really named
“Odessa rose.”)
Keener portrays Kelo as a hard
working EMT who hasn’t caught
many breaks in life. Nor, it seems,
has her town. The story begins in the
late- 1990s, when the U.S. economy
was booming, but New London
remains stuck with high unemploy
ment and shuttered storefronts.
Clearing Kelo’s working-class
neighborhood to give to a major em
ployer is the brainchild of a Republi
can governor seeking re-election, en
route to a possible run at the White
House. He asks a liberal college
president (called Charlotte Wells in
the film and played by Jeanne Trip-
plehorn) to promote the
project. She recruits not
only Pfizer but a team
of eager yuppies under
the banner of creating
1,000 jobs and making
New London “hip.”
The film’s contrasts
- at one point, Susette
and her new beau have
pizza and beer in her
barely furnished home
while Wells and a Pfizer
exec dine out on lobster
and wine - work well.
But it isn’t partisan or
even ideological in
Hollywood’s too-familiar manner. It
simply tells anew the age-old story of
the powerless fighting back against
the powerful.
That Kelo comes up short in court
isn’t rendered as heart-breaking.
It’s instead inspiring - particularly
when viewers see just what came of
New London’s big plans for Pfizer
as a savior, and of the land where
once upon a time stood a little pink
house.
The CEO of the Georgia Public
Policy Foundation, Kyle Wingfields
column runs in newspapers across the
state of Georgia.
JUST THE WAY IT IS by Sloan Oliver
Sloan unveils election endorsements
W ith numerous political
signs all over the county,
let’s hope that every
voter knows that an
election is upcoming. The May 22nd
election is a primary to determine who
will appear on the November ballot.
However, several races are unopposed,
several others have no Democrat or the
election is non-partisan, so, for those
elections, the candidate who wins on
May 22nd will be the winner. The
two races receiving the most attention
in Monroe County are the elections
for Board of Education (BOE) seats,
District 3 and District 5; and the elec
tion for Georgia State Representative
District 141.
RECENTLY, I attended the two de
bates for Georgia District 141, the BOE
debate for District 3 and 5, a Planning
and Zoning Board meeting, a County
Commissioners meeting, and a
Forsyth City Council meeting. Having
attended those events, my take away is
that our current elected officials, and
those seeking office, truly care about
our community Each candidate has
put themselves “out there” for public
scrutiny and criticism. None of the
positions pay very much, yet each posi
tion requires a commitment of time
and energy that most of us have no de
sire to undertake. My hat’s off to those
candidates, who are trying to make our
city, county, and region abetter place
to live, work, pray, and go to school. I
applaud each of you. That said, I have
some issues with several candidates in
this election.
WE’VE AT I, seen athletes that had
a long career but didn’t know when
to retire. They were fantastic in their
time but their time had passed. These
figures include such great athletes as
Muhammed Ali, Jerry Rice, Mi
chael Jordan, and Brett Favre. Each
of them should have retired a year
(or two) earlier than they did. Their
final seasons (fights) became almost
embarrassing because their abilities, at
the end, were a shadow of what they
once were. Such is the case with two
current BOE members who are seek
ing re-election - Phil Walker (District
3) and Nolen Howard (District 5).
Mr. Walker and Mr. Howard were
totally unprepared for their debate.
Gentlemen, thank you for your years
of service to Monroe County but I urge
you to step aside. The game has passed
you by and it’s time to pass the baton
to more qualified candidates. During
the BOE debate, Matt Morris, District
5, was “hitting homeruns” while Nolen
Howard had trouble “holding the bat.”
And Greg Head, District 3, was hitting
3-point jumpers while Phil Walker
struggled to dribble the ball. The dif
ferences between the candidates were
that drastic. Let’s thank Walker and
Howard for their service but let’s elect
Greg Head (District 3) and Matt Mor
ris (District 5) to the school board.
THE DISTRICT 141 election pits
four candidates seeking to replace the
retiring Allen Peake. The candidates
are Gary Bechtel, Shane Mobley, Todd
Tolbert, and Dale Washburn. I give
“kudos” to Mr. Peake for his 12 years
of service and for championing the
medical cannabis oil
issue. As much as I ap
preciate Peake’s elected
service, he is a resident
of Macon-Bibb County;
and I always felt that he
gave more love to Bibb
County than he did to
Monroe. However, that
can be corrected in the
upcoming election as
Todd Tolbert is the only
candidate who lives in
Monroe County
AS STATED above,
I went to both debates
for District 141. After each debate,
I came away feeling that I could live
with three of the four candidates to
represent Monroe County, but not the
fourth. Let me explain. Recall Senator
Harry Reid (D-NV) who was a five-
term (30 years) Democrat senator. Reid
would say or do anything to get elected
or to get a fellow Democrat elected. He
told half-truths, lies, and innuendos to
hint that his opponent was lying while,
in truth, it was Reid doing all the lying
and the one being dishonest.
IN THE District 141 election, Shane
Mobley is our Harry Reid. You see,
Mobley tells half-truths, untruths, and
innuendos in an attempt to discredit
his opponents and to bolster himself.
First, Shane bragged that he is self
funding 99.9% of his campaign, saying
that he doesn’t want to owe anything to
anyone. Well, on his election website,
guess who’s asking for donations?
That’s correct - Mobley is asking for
your dollars. Secondly, because Bechtel
is a former Macon-Bibb County
commissioner, Mobley hints that
Bechtel is responsible for the terrible
financial situation that Bibb County
finds itself. What Mobley doesn’t say
is that Bechtel was one of the few fiscal
conservatives on the county board, and
if not for him, Bibb County would be
in worse shape. Third, “Shady” Shane
has implied that Tolbert is responsible
for Monroe County Hospital’s (MCH)
financial problems. He did this by
stating that MCH debt increased to
$10.4 million while Tolbert was chair
man of the MCH Board of Directors
(MCHBD). Like with Bechtel, this is
very deceitful because if not for Tolbert,
the MCH might very well have closed
in 2017 - here’s why
BACK IN January 2017, the MCH
was weeks away from
closing. The Monroe
County Commission
ers appointed Tolbert as
chairman of the MCH
BD in a last ditch effort to
save the hospital. Tolbert
reviewed the hospital’s
financials and gave the
commissioners two
choices: 1. Close the hos
pital which would cost
the county $6 million
or 2. Save the hospital
by asking voters to
approve increasing
our property taxes by
1 mill. In March 2017 voters approved
the 1 -mill increase, which was then
used to fund a bond issue which was
used to restructure debt and ultimately
to save the hospital. The hospital bail
out is much more complex than this
short explanation; the takeaway should
be that Tolbert helped save the hospital
and helped save 100 jobs while Mobley
hints that Tolbert’s leadership was “bad
management.” Mr. Mobley, you’re be
ing very “shady” with your accusations.
We don’t need a Harry Reid represent
ing Monroe County I’ll be voting for
Tolbert because of his proven leader
ship and conservative values.
WEEKLY QUOTE: “Republicans
are the only party with a religious
conscious. We are the “right to life
party” and we are, also, the “quality of
life party’ - Todd Tolbert at the District
141 debate.
Sloan Oliver is a retired Army officer.
He lives in Bolingbroke with his wife
Sandra. Email him at sloanoliver@
earthiink.net.