Newspaper Page Text
Page 4A
ON THE PORCH by Will Davis
Accountability for
train-wreck land deal
T he case of Monroe County’s secret, river-front land
deal just keeps getting curiouser and curiouser.
Last week we reported that commissioners had
given a sweetheart land deal to two businessmen at
an apparent loss of $600,000 in a red-hot real estate market.
Since then, we have learned that Monroe County com
missioners never took a public vote, never discussed the
deal publicly and failed to meet the minimum advertising
requirements under the law before selling 103 acres on the
Ocmulgee River for $103,000 last July Deeds done in the
dark sometimes take 9 months to appear in the light. And
that’s what happened here.
Commissioners have a very capable full-time public
information officer. I know because he worked for us for 10
years. Yet somehow they never had him publicize this pretty
important news. Did they not want anyone to know?
Anyone with even a passing interest in Monroe County’s
real estate market knows that finding land for $1,000 per
acre has been impossible here for years. Finding land with
more than half a mile of river frontage on the Ocmulgee
River at $1,000 per acre would be scoffed at as a dreamer’s
fantasy. Unless it’s owned by Monroe County commission
ers, apparently.
Commission chairman Greg Tapley has often mocked the
Reporter as being Fake News. But even Tapley is having a
hard time dismissing the clear facts of this story.
Four years ago, Monroe County commissioners sold the
county on the idea of hiring a county manager and giving
him a generous salary. It was an investment to ensure the
county has strong professional leadership, they said. He
would be someone to make sure we do things right. But
it’s hard to imagine this land deal could have been more
poorly handled. The county apparently never had the land
appraised to see what it might actually
be worth in today’s real estate market.
The county did rim one advertisement
in the legal organ, this newspaper, back
on April 28,2021. But it advertised that
bids were due just a day and a half later,
. , _ , at 1 p.m. on Friday, April 30. State law
requires such ads rim at least 15 days
Wk before the bids are due.
That self-same ad proclaimed the
(y-v county was declaring 94 acres to be sur-
plus to be auctioned off for bid. Yet two
months later, the county actually sold
103 acres. The county apparently sold 9
acres that it never declared as surplus and never advertised
for bids as required by law.
The lone bid came from (surprise!) the men who first
approached the county about buying the land. The bid?
$60,000 for 100 acres. The county wound up adding the
other 10 acres, re-negotiating the price to $103,000, and
then closing the deal without re-advertising it for open bid
as required by law.
How’s that for professional management?
To his credit, commissioner George Emami concedes
that “mistakes were made” in his guest column on page 5A.
Were not sure why Emami, who seems to have had little in
volvement in the deal, was the one who had to be marched
out to try to explain this fiasco. Perhaps it’s because he’s
the only one of them who faces an electoral challenge this
year. The only thing missing from Emami’s column is who’s
gonna be held accountable as a result. No one is above the
law. When the county government breaks the law and tax
payers get hosed with a big loss in revenue, someone should
be held responsible.
County manager Jim Hedges is the man charged with
running the day to day operations of county government.
But Mr. Hedges lives in Ashburn, Ga„ 100 miles away from
Forsyth. His only relationships here in Monroe County
seem to be with the commissioners to whom he reports and
the department heads he oversees. He only seems to leave
his office to return to South Georgia. How can someone
who doesn’t live here and doesn’t have relationships in our
community care about the interests of Monroe County?
See ON THE PORCH . Page 5A
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is published every week by The Monroe County Reporter Inc.
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EDITORIALS
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publish, and conceal not. - Jeremiah 50:2
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DRAWING ON THE NEWS by AF Branco
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REECE’S PIECES by Steve Reece
Self-made people in educated world
A great deal of
/\ importance is
/ 1 placed on a college
■X. .^education. A degree
can give increased access to
job opportunities and increase
earning potential. Higher
education can open doors and
help with personal growth.
There are 20 million students going
to college in the United States and 44
million student loan borrowers who
owe a debt of over $1.5 trillion. Some
argue that the debt is too high. They
say that students who go to college
are delayed from buying homes and
getting married. They contend many
jobs do not require degrees and many
successful people never graduated from
a higher institution of learning.
Some of the greatest people in
history came from nothing. Benjamin
Franklin, known as our country’s first
self-made man, was born the 10th son
of a soap and candle maker who had
a total of 17 children. By the age of 10,
his formal education had ended, yet he
became one of the most famous men
in the world, as a printer, publisher,
author, inventor, scientist, and diplomat
who helped draft and signed the
Declaration of Independence.
Franklin’s list of inventions is
impressive. He is famous for his
experiments with electricity such as his
kite experiment, which we all learned
about in elementary school. After he
accidentally shocked himself in 1746,
he invented the lightning rod in 1749.
He was an avid swimmer and invented
swim fins at 11 years old. As he grew
older and his vision was getting worse,
he invented bifocals, an invention
that is helping me now as I write this
column. It was so cold in Pennsylvania,
he invented the Franklin Stove and
gave away all rights for public use
saying, “As we enjoy great advantages
from the inventions of
others, we should be glad
of an opportunity to serve
others by any invention of
ours; and this we should
do freely and generously ’
A full list of Benjamin
Franklin’s accomplishments
is impossible in this space or
even the entire page.
A lessor known self-made person is
Madam C.J. Walker, recorded as the
first self-made female millionaire in
the Guinness Book of World Records.
She was born in Louisiana as Sarah
Breedlove in 1867 just after the Civil
War as the first member of her
family to be born as a free
person. She started out on the
same plantation where her
parents had been enslaved and
both her parents had died when
she was 7 years old. She married
when she was just 14, had a
daughter 3 years later, and
three years after that, Sarah
became a widow. She then
moved to St. Louis to start a
new life where her brothers had gone
a decade earlier as part of the exodus
from the devastated South.
She became a member of a church
where the women there told her she
was more than just an illiterate wash
woman even though she was com
pletely uneducated and only knew how
to pick cotton and wash clothes and
her life began to slowly improve. But
tragedy struck Sarah’s life when both of
her brothers died in 1894, and she went
through a disastrous marriage. The
stress became so much that her hair be
gan to fall out and she became ashamed
of her appearance.
Then one night Sarah had a dream
where a big man appeared to her and
gave her the formula to repair her
balding scalp. Some of the ingredients
had to be shipped from Africa but after
mixing everything together and apply
ing the mixture to her scalp, her hair
began to rapidly grow back.
She moved to Denver in 1905,
married a newspaperman, and soon
started running ads in a local black
newspaper selling her product under
the name “Madame C.J. Walker” She
thought since the French used the
term “madame” it would be considered
fashionable. Even so, it was difficult
to sell her product to black women in
a state with so few black residents, so
she went on the road to Texas, Kansas,
Oklahoma, Mississippi, and to where it
all began, Louisiana. She visited
towns giving demonstrations
and recruiting sales agents
along the way and was the first
in history to increase sales in
this manner. This was long
before Mary Kay.
In 1909 she wound up in
Indianapolis and started
advertising in the Indianapolis
Freeman which was nationally
distributed. Her ads included
testimonials from women who were
sales agents proclaiming how much
better their lives had become from
selling Madame Walker’s products.
She was soon training thousands to
be sales agents and created an army
of black women gaining economic
independence while becoming rich
and well known as a philanthropist. She
worked hard all her life and once said,
“When I was a washerwoman, I was an
excellent washerwoman.”
Education is a wonderful and neces
sary thing, but we all don’t have the
same opportunities. Sometimes we
must make do.
Steve Reece is a writer for the Reporter
and a known crime fighter. Email him at
stevereece@gmail. com.
CAROLYN S CORNER by Carolyn Martel
Have you ever failed a white-glove test?
N ot long ago, we had an
unexpected morning visit
from a family friend, who
was traveling through
our area. We had made a few home
improvements, and our
friend wanted to see every
room in our house. I was
not comfortable with the
request and said, “Let’s
wait til your next visit. I’ve
got a couple of rooms that
I haven’t cleaned up this
morning.” I had immedi
ately closed the door
to our bedroom and
my office when I saw
our unexpected visitor
pull into our driveway.
I knew that this person kept an im
maculate house, and it is so pristine,
spotless and ultra clean that it doesn’t
even look lived in. I couldn’t say that
about our house that morning or
probably any day for that matter.
I THINK my denial to view every
room in our home frustrated our old
friend, because the opportunity to
perform the “white-glove” test was
derailed. But I wanted to be spared the
snobby critique of being questioned
about a paint color we chose, or let
ting our unexpected guest view the
carpet in our bedroom that needs to
be vacuumed daily, because our dog
sheds like crazy! I wanted to
avoid an inspection of my of
fice that has newspapers, and
personal notebooks scattered
across my desk. I always orga
nize my work area at the end
of each day, but my office and
the rest of my house has never
measured up to the
critical eye and white-
glove test of our visitor.
If you are like me, there
are some people you’d
rather talk to on the phone and be
spared a personal visit.
I’D LIKE to pose a question. Can
you imagine Jesus walking through
your house and looking into every
room? Let me be a little clearer. I’m
not talking about a house that is made
of brick or wood. I’m talking about
Jesus doing a walkthrough inspection
of your heart. Actually, Jesus doesn’t
need a guided tour. He already knows
about the things in our heart that
need to be cleaned up, cleared out and
decluttered.
I’M SO thankful for the day
Jesus became my Savior. Unlike our
judgmental visitor, he didn’t come
to criticize, condemn or perform a
white- glove test. When I repented of
my sins, my Savior’s incredible grace
and forgiveness flooded my soul. I
experienced a peace and love I had
never known!
I CAN hear Jesus saying to those
who are yet to make him their Savior
and Lord, “Don’t be timid about
inviting me into your home and your
heart. I’m not standing at the door
with white gloves in my hands-jirst
holes in my hands.” If you hear Jesus
knocking at the door of your heart
today, there’s only one piece of advice I
would give you: gladly welcome Him
in!
Carolyn Martel is the retired advertis
ing manager of the Reporter. Email her
at carolynmartell @bellsouth. net.