Newspaper Page Text
August 10, 2022
Page 5A
ON THE OUTSIDE LOOKING IN by Don Daniel
The buzz about
the police chief
ust in case you missed some of the news, here
I are a couple of news items you at least need to
I be aware of: first the topic of Forsyth is the city
I manager firing the police
mef. The public opinion
has varied from “it’s about
time” to “who is she going to
replace him with?” The odd
ity of the situation became
more bizarre. The firing was
not face to face with the city
manager taking the action
while the chief was on a soi
ree attending a conference.
Understanding is Major Al
exander Daniels has been
named interim chief. Major
Daniels has been with the
force, if I remember correctly his saying, for 38 years.
The comments and speculations are running ram
pant and here’s one from Tim Hall: “Reading in the
Reporter that the City Manager relieved the police
chief of his job made me wonder who actually rims
the city. It was my thinking that the mayor appoints
and fires the police chief. I realize that cities can be set
up differently but in this case if the city manager has
authority over the police chief, why have both?
Here’s another which did not make headlines: I am a
Central Georgia EMC customer. I don’t have any elec
tric service choice unless I decided to go totally non
electric which is impossible. In an email and posted
in their newsletter, CGEMC is raising customer’s bills
(rates) because I guess the price of “killer spraying
juice” increased. For real, according to CGEMC, they
are raising rates “due to recent increases in the cost of
generating electricity”.
No amount is being revealed but it will show up on
our next statements.
THEN THERE was this headline in The Wall Street
Journal: “Soaring Fuel Prices Catapult Oil Giants to
Record Profits”. Simplified, the more we pay for gas
to get from point A to Z the more profit the big oil
companies make. In other words, the higher the gas
prices, the more profit for companies such as Exxon,
making $17.9 billion in profits, and then Chevron,
which posted $11.6 billion in profits.
AS YOU are aware, our elected county commission
ers are toasting themselves and the county manager
because there is not going to be a raise in county taxes
because it looks like there is going to be an influx in
county taxes paid and projected.
Here’s a question for you to ponder: if we (the
county) are in great financial shape, why are the “they
think they are the Fantastic Five” paying big money to
a consulting firm to develop a new method of taxa
tion, Impact Fees? They think Impact Fees will give
the county manager and themselves more money to
spend.
Here are few unattributed commissioner comments:
“I was trying to make a joke”; I’m gonna tell you what
I’m thinking”; “Where is the point of no return?”;
“the real heavy lifting”; “I live in Monroe County”; “I
checked on in for you”; “It may not be pretty”; “Can
I say something on that?”; “The last thing I will say”;
“I’m right there with you on this one”; “We can split
hairs”; “What I would like to see”; “HOLY CRAP!”.
THE NAME of the cutest pet in Monroe County is
Mr. Ted. Evelyn Chappell was the first with answer.
Here’s the question for this week: What is coming to
the city of Forsyth on Wednesday, Aug. 17.
First correct answer after 12 noon on Thursday get
sthe goodie certificate for a slice of Shoney’s strawber
ry pie, Dairy Queen Blizzard, car wash at Big Peach,
single cone at Scoops, fried green tomato appetizer
at Whistle Stop, dozen Dunkin Donuts, and a slice of
pizza at Jonah’s.
THE OTHER day a couple from Maryland were
on The Square, leisurely strolling and licking on ice
cream cones from Scoops. I spoke first with a “good
afternoon”. The lady asked if I lived in Forsyth and my
reply was I live out in the county. He said he wanted
to ask me a question and the question was “where in
the city is the lake painted on that electrical box?” My
reply was I don’t know. I pointed them to the Forsyth
Convention and Visitors Bureau next to Scoops.
I need to call Gilda at the FCVB and find out
where the lake is in the city so that I can be a tourism
booster.
WONDER IF Forsyth and the county are still
negotiating how they are going to divide the Local
Option Sales Tax? They were at odds and both sup
posedly have hired separate consultants to arrive at a
compatible division. Culloden is also in the mix but
not complaining about the amount they will receive
from LOST.
I FOUND this in the book “2001 Things to Do
before you Die” by Dane Sherwood: “It’s a delightful
thing to think of perfection; but it’s vastly more amus
ing to talk of errors and absurdities”. Fanny Burney is
the author.
Here’s one from Lily Tomlin in the same book: “The
trouble with being in the rat race is that even if you
win, you’re still a rat”.
Don Daniel founded the Reporter in 1972. Email him
at tullaybear@bellsouth.net.
^Reporter
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Free truck if you help pickup litter?
To the Editor:
eautify Forsyth recently chal
lenged the fitter build-up on
Montpelier Avenue and our
haul was 50 gallons. The area
involved stretched from S. Lee Street
to the baseball-tennis court parking lot
entrance of Mary Persons H.S.
But that successful effort was not the
most memorable result of the morn
ing. While working quite a distance
from my truck, I noticed a man walk
ing toward my 1998 Tacoma vehicle.
I’d left the keys visible for anyone to
see, hoping someone would steal it,
but alas the “walker” continued toward
my direction.
Okay, so the paint job is failing, none
of the tires match, windshield wip
ers are kaput, gas mileage is bad, and
you can only exit the driver’s side by
lowering the window and reaching the
outside back handle to free the door
(inside latch has fallen off). Yes, you
guessed it, my next plan is to leave
cash exposed to close the deal. Sorta
like NIL money.
Tom Perry
Forsyth
P.S. After a short, congenial conversa
tion, the “walker,” whose name will be
withheld to protect the innocent, agreed
to help fight the litter issue down Mont
pelier near his subdivision entrance. We
provided him with a pick-up stick and
thanked him profusely. We have a stick
for any other city resident who would
like the same deal. We might even be
able to throw in a truck...
PEACH STATE POLITICS by Kyle Wingfield
Make housing more affordable
by ending so many regulations
"V" A "^hat goes up
% / must come
1/ 1/ down, or at
T T least stop
going up so fast. But that
old adage doesn’t mean our
housing market problems
will soon be in the past.
After surging upward for
two years, home prices are
beginning to moderate.
Mortgage rates
have risen and
bidding wars are
receding. Listed
homes are finger
ing on the market
longer than before.
Still, there are
limits to these
changes. Prices
are still rising, just
not as fast: Price
growth for the
week ending July
30 was a percentage point
lower than the two previous
weeks, according to Real-
tor.com, but prices were
still 15.6% higher than a
year earlier. It was the 33rd
straight week of double-dig
it year-over-year growth.
More ominously, new list
ings fell for a fourth consec
utive week, this time by 8%.
Homeowners looking to
cash in on the sizzling mar
ket have noticed there’s less
sizzle than before. Although
slower home sales mean the
number of homes on the
market has increased, that
trend isn’t expected to last.
And it may simply signal
that those homes that are
hanging around on the mar
ket are less desirable.
What does all this mean
for housing affordability?
It means the basic problem
remains the same: We need
more supply.
Estimates put the national
housing shortfall at almost
4 million units.
The shortage in
Georgia alone
likely reaches
into the hundreds
of thousands,
in large part be
cause we’ve been
building fewer
new homes over
the past decade
than we did in
previous decades
when the state’s
population was significantly
smaller.
As long as those facts re
main, upward or downward
pricing trends within the
existing-home market will
not lead to the meaningful
change in affordability that
people want and need.
On this front, the news is
not great. The latest federal
data show the number of
building permits issued
nationwide in June was
slightly higher than a year
earlier, but lower than in
nine of the past 10 months.
The number of new hous
ing starts in June was lower
JyC
than a year earlier.
What will it take to jump-
start new construction?
There’s no silver bullet, but
elected officials could start
by not making it harder and
more expensive to build
homes.
Earlier this year, the
Georgia Public Policy
Foundation published a
study finding that govern
ment regulations account
for almost 27% of the price
of a new single-family
home. That’s higher than the
national average of almost
24%, and it represents a
continual ratcheting up of
that cost. For example, the
largest single culprit for this
excessive burden was com
pliance with changes to the
building code over the past
10 years, not all of which
were necessary to protect
health and safety.
More recently, our inves
tigative reporter examined
the case of Oconee County.
The median home price
there is roughly 50% higher
than the statewide average.
That in part reflects the
desirability of living in that
county, including its highly
regarded school system.
But industry experts say it
also reflects decisions by
the county commission to
mandate certain building
requirements, such as using
foundations with crawl
spaces rather than slab
foundations in many cases.
That alone is estimated to
add tens of thousands of
dollars to the cost of build
ing a home.
There are examples like
that all across the state, and
my colleagues and I will
be pointing out as many
of them as we can over the
next several months.
It’s important to empha
size that, at a time when our
trust in government to solve
problems is perhaps lower
than ever - and not without
reason - this is a problem
government can solve.
The same governments
that create those regulatory
burdens can ease them. The
same governments that rim
inefficient permitting pro
cesses can make them more
efficient - or allow builders
to use private third parties
that are more efficient.
But to do that, our law
makers will have to stay
focused on those mundane
but essential tasks - and not
wowed or distracted by ris
ing or falling prices.
Kyle Wingfield is president
and CEO of the Georgia
Public Policy Foundation:
www.georgiapolicy. org.
ON THE PORCH
Continued from page 4A
a clarification to the story because they
had decreed in their Code of Ethics
that they couldn’t tell anyone what
they say and do behind closed doors.
Does this make any sense?
But give them credit, commission
ers found a workaround. They voted
by email to authorize commissioner
Eddie Rowland to tell the Reporter
some of their secret plans for county
government that they didn’t want any
one to know until it looked like a tit
for tat. Rowland wrote in a letter to the
editor published July 27, and this is my
own summation, that it was not tit for
tat, it was tat for tit. County manager
Jim Hedges had planned to propose
the raise and promotion for Fortner
secretly in May. Only after that did she
spend her taxpayer-funded time wav
ing pom poms for her man Hedges.
Phew! Glad we got that straight.
And then, to pile legal absurdity
upon legal absurdity, county attor
ney Ben Vaughn had the commis
sioners vote on Aug. 2 to codify this
all-important release of super, duper
secret information to the Reporter
retroactively. Thus the commissioners
rested comfortably knowing that their
violation of their Code of Ethics wasn’t
a violation of their Code of Ethics
because they retroactively waived their
Code of Ethics in order to straighten
out a story that was mis-reported due
to their Code of Ethics. Capice?
If commissioners truly want to serve
Monroe County, to be honest and
straight forward and to begin building
back trust that has been lost through
a series of missteps, then they would
immediately repeal two parts of their
Code of Ethics at their next meeting
on Aug. 16.
Both are found in Section 2-85 of
their Code of Ethics. They read that
commissioners should “keep con
fidential all matters ... identified or
marked as ‘discussion for executive
session ... and are not otherwise re
quired to be disclosed by the Georgia
Open Records Act” and to “keep con
fidential all matters that are discussed
or considered in closed or executive
session.”
Commissioners basically took a vow
of secrecy AGAINST their own con
stituents. It is wrong and belongs only
in a Code of Vices. It is this kind of
secretive mentality that led to commis
sioners illegally selling river-front land
in Juliette last summer for just $1,000
per acre to a well-connected duck
hunter. Beacuse the county hid the
transaction from public view, it wasn’t
known until the Reporter uncovered it
months later that the county failed to
advertise the land properly. So com
missioners had to apologize and now
the transaction may be the subject of a
lawsuit and may be reversed. Secretive
government has bad consequences.
To turn a new leaf, commissioners
should change their Code of Ethics to
say the exact opposite of what it says
now. It should say that commissioners
shall NOT keep any secrets unneces
sarily from their constituents. Further,
commissioners should vow only to
meet secretly under exceptions to the
open meeting law when it is absolutely
necessary.
Maybe that would stop local politi
cos from using their favorite phrase: “I
can’t talk about that, we discussed that
in executive session.”
Because it is not true. Georgia law
never says elected officials cannot
discuss publicly the things they discuss
in closed session. That is an invention
of government officials to try and mu
tually prevent their plans from being
released to the people they’re supposed
to serve. The only thing the law says
is that they’re ALLOWED to meet
behind closed doors for certain pur
poses. It never says they have to, and it
never says they can’t share what they
did. In fact, the law says they must say
and record any actions they take.
Lord Acton, the great English writer
and purveyor of political freedom,
wrote, “Every thing secret degener
ates, even the administration of justice;
nothing is safe that does not show it
can bear discussion and publicity.
And on this side of the Atlantic,
our Founding Father Patrick Henry
wrote, “The liberties of a people never
were, nor ever will be, secure, when
the transactions of their rulers may be
concealed from them.”
Monroe County commissioners’
Code of Ethics has it exactly back
wards. It is unethical for government
officials to keep secrets from those
they are supposed to serve. That goes
for the Forsyth city council and Mon
roe County School board too. Sun
shine disinfects. Insist that your local
government officials trust you enough
to tell you what they’re doing. Any
“Code of Ethics” that says otherwise
should be immediately repealed.