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PACE 4A THE BANKS COUNTY NEWS WEDNESDAY, JULY 30, 2008 Editor: Angela Gary Phone: 706-367-2490 E-mail: AngieEditor@aol.com Website: www.banksnewsTODAY.com Opinions “Where the press is free and every tnan able to read, all is safe.” — Thomas Jefferson Our View Explaining the numbers A couple of stories in last week’s Banks County News about local government audits merit further explina- tion. The first article discussed Alto’s audit of 2007 as being in the red. Town officials point out, however, that when both the city’s general fund and water fund are combined, the town was in the black. That's true. This newspaper, however, covers each fund as separate entities, as do the audits. A little clari fication is necessary here. A town’s “general fund” is the money received and spent on routine government services. Generally, those funds come from taxes, fines, permits, etc. General fund expenses are for government administrative overhead, police departments, recreation and other city services. For 2007, Alto spent more in its general fund than it took in from revenue. City officials said that was due to the town’s starting a police department, which cost the city more than anticipated. But the number this newspaper reported last week was not the entire picture. When SPLOST funds were added to the revenues, the town was only $91,500 in the red, not the $179,400 as originally reported. Is that cause for concern? Not if it's a one-time thing. Cities and counties will sometimes dip into reserves to fund extra projects, as Alto did in 2007 to start a police department. However, such negative numbers can add up and if revenues don’t catch up to spending, govern ments can find themselves in the hole. On Alto’s other point, that when the city’s water fund is added to the picture the town would be in the black, we have a different view. Proprietary funds, such as Alto’s water fund, are business departments where specific revenues are used to pay for specific services. While some towns use the “profit” from water funds to subsidize general city operations, that’s a dangerous course to take in the long run. If city officials start to view their business operations as cash cows to be used to offset shortfalls in general spending, it won’t take long for both funds to be in the red. So far, Alto hasn’t done that and hopefully won’t. The two funds should be considered as separate entities, even though they are both city operations. Overall, however, Alto is in sound financial shape despite last year's red ink in its general fund. If that was just a one-year blip, there's no cause for concern. However, what Alto officials want to avoid — need to avoid — is getting into a situation like the City of Baldwin where that town's general fund had a negative fund balance and the city’s water system was barely breaking even in 2007. In addition, the town is running low on cash and has a lot of debt. Baldwin’s financial troubles run even deeper with the city’s auditor having found several significant account ing problems. Baldwin’s financial picture is troubling and appears to be the result of the town having grown its police force too large, too quick. Small towns all over the state are getting into financial trouble due to the very high cost of their police departments. Despite that, elected city officials are often reluctant to cut back on police spending because of political pressure. Baldwin has some very real and troubling financial problems that need to be addressed, now, before they get worse. The Banks County News Founded 1968 The official legal organ of Banks County, Ga. Mike Buffington. Scott Buffington . Angela Gary Chris Bridges . . . Sharon Hogan. . . Anelia Chambers Suzanne Reed... Co-Publisher . Co-Publisher Editor Sports Editor .... Reporter . Receptionist Church News Phones (all 706 area code): Angela Gary Phone 367-2490 Angela Gary Fax 367-9355 Homer Office Phone 677-3491 Homer Office Fax 677-3263 (SCED 547160) Published weekly by Main Street Newspapers, Inc., P.O. Box 908, Jefferson, Ga. 30549 Subscription in county $19.75 Subscription in state $38.85 Subscription out of state $44.20 Military with APO address $42.20 Senior citizens get a $2 discount Periodicals postage paid at Homer, Ga. 30547 Postmaster, send address changes to: Subscriptions, The Banks County News, P.O. Box 920, Homer, Ga. 30547 Member: Georgia Press Association Georgia Sports Writers Association National Newspaper Association "Now, let's see...what was I supposed to remember?" Police reports tell a story about a community Police reports typically have some interesting stories — many of them either make you laugh, roll your eyes in disbelief or shake your head in dis approval. I’ve read police and sheriff reports for the almost seven years that I’ve worked with this news organization. Occasionally, you get that incident report that you find so amusing that you read it aloud to everyone in the news room. Humor aside, informing the com munity about the incidents that our law enforcement handle is an impor tant role. Police and sheriff departments typically have the largest budgets of any city and county government. Taxpayers deserve to know what inci dents their law enforcement officers deal with and if they handled the situ ations appropriately. And unfortunately, you learn that some people continue to be “trouble makers” for law enforcement officers, as their names frequently appear in arrest and incident reports. I’ve never met most of these people, but I rec ognize their names after being printed in the police and sheriff reports so many times. The following are some of my kerri testement choice incident reports, which are actual situations described by local police and sheriff deputies: •Two EMTs called a sheriff’s office to say that a Commerce man wanted a ride to the hospital. No, the man wasn’t sick. He just wanted a ride to his buddy’s house — which was near a hospital. To the man’s credit, he had been drinking and taking some medication, which (hopefully) clouded his judg ment. As the EMTs were explaining the situation to a deputy, the man strolled out of his house — with his bags packed for the trip to the hospital. The deputy told the man he didn’t need to call 911 if he didn’t have a medical emergency, but the man said he couldn’t find a ride to his friend’s house. Instead of a ride to the hospital, he got a ride to jail. A police officer went to one house in Jackson County, where there was a suspect with a warrant issued against her. The officer told the woman, who was five months pregnant, that she was being arrested and taken to jail for the outstanding warrant. The woman then begged the officer to not take her to jail — the experi ence would cause too much stress to her unborn child, she claimed. But the officer (thankfully) wasn’t persuaded by this caring mother. He told her to extinguish the cigarette in her mouth and get in his patrol vehicle. • •• One man wasn’t thinking when he tried to steal gas. He drove his vehicle to the gas pump, pressed the necessary buttons to start the pump and proceeded to load up on fuel. When the man tried too quickly leave the gas station, he forgot that he used his grocery store discount card to start the transaction. Police had his basic identification information, which the grocery store provided. Kerri Testement is the news editor of The Braselton News, a sister pub lication of The Banks Coun ty News. E-mail comments about this column to kerri@mainstreetnews.com. Letter to the Editor Appreciates help of fire departments Dear Editor: Thanks to all fire departments who responded to the fire at 485 Hwy. 105 on Wednesday morning, July 16. No words can really express our appreciation for the many fire depart ments, volunteers, neighbors and friends who came. I am thankful my daughter and her two girls escaped safely and that no firefighters were hurt. Thanks also to Hal Dowdy and staff with State Farm, who helped an old fogey who lost his insurance policy. All the firefighters looked good coming in, but the pretty ladies from Alto brightened up an other wise gloomy day. Thanks to everyone. Sincerely, Jerry Williams Letters to the editor policy given The Banks County News has estab lished a policy on printing Letters to the Editor. We must have an original copy of all letters that are submitted to us for publication. Members of our staff will not type out or hand-write letters for people who stop by the office and ask them to do so. Letters to the Editor must also be signed with the address and phone number of the person who wrote them. The address and phone number will be for our verification purposes only and will not be printed unless the writer requests it. Mail to, The Banks County News, RO. Box 920, Homer, Ga. 30547. E-mailed letters will be accepted, but we must have a contact phone number and address. Letters that are libelous will not be printed. Letters may also be edited to meet space requirements. Anyone with questions on the policy is asked to contact editor Angela Gary at AngieEditor@aol.com or by calling 706-367-2490. News department contact numbers Anyone with general story ideas, complaints or comments about the news department is asked to call edi tor Angela Gary at 706-367-2490. She can also be reached by e-mail at AngieEditor@aol.com. Anyone with comments, questions or suggestions relating to the coun ty board of commissioners, county government, county board of educa tion and crime and courts is asked to contact staff reporter Chris Bridges at 706-367-2745 or by e-mail at chris@mainstreetnews.com. Bridges also is sports edi tor of the paper and covers local high school, middle school and recreation sports. Anyone with comments, ques tions or suggestions relating to Alto. Lula. Baldwin and Gillsville, should contact Sharon Hogan at 706-367-5233 or by e-mail at sharon @ mainstreetnews. com. Calls concerning the City of Maysville should go to staff report er Justin Poole at 706-367-2348. Calls for information about the church page should go to Suzanne Reed at 706-677-3491. Church news may also be e-mailed to churchnews@mainstreetnews.com. The Banks County News website is updated throughout the week and can be accessed on the Internet at www.banksnewsTODAY.com. The clock ticks toward the November vote “To sin by silence when we should protest makes cowards out of men.” — Ella Wheeler Wilcox • •• The front page story of USA Today earlier this week informed us we were 100 days away from the Nov. 4 presiden tial election. That count is now under the century mark until millions of Americans go to the polls in what can easily be argued will be our most important presidential election in decades. With what many historians agree ing has been the worst eight-year stretch our country has been through presidentially from 2000-2008,1 can only hope people will take this presi dential election seriously when they go into their voting precinct this fall. Afterall, we have been through two terms of a president who at best has been a disaster and at worst was never elected legitimately to begin with. Remember, Bush lost the popular vote to A1 Gore in 2000. That cannot be disputed. There is also mounds of evidence which show he really did not win the state of Florida eight years ago. Even with his brother as Governor of the state, a Florida Secretary of State who acted unethically by working for his campaign and by helping to illegally purged voters from the register (it has been documented over and over folks if you care to take the time to look at the evidence), indepen dent studies have shown if a complete recount was conducted in Florida, Gore would have won. The 2000 election is over, however. While there should have been an uproar from Americans over this injustice, most went about their daily lives as if noth ing happened. Why did so many people sleep walk through this miscarriage of justice? Your guess is as good as mine. A similar injustice occurred in 2004, only this time in the state of Ohio with a similar unethical Republican Secretary of State. Once again, the evidence is there for those who care to read about it, research it and look beyond what is told to you on FOX News. Numerous books written by award winning political journalists, college pro fessors and those who follow the election process for a living have outlined how these two elections were decided under the shadiest of circumstances. Yet, where is the outcry from the people? Where is the demand for justice? It’s nowhere to be found just like it was nowhere to be found when Bush pushed the unconstitutional Patriot Act, not once, but twice. It’s nowhere to be found just like when Bush signs laws to illegally spy on Americans, going against the very grain of the Bill of Rights. This is the president who once said afterall, “this would be much easier if it were a dictatorship.” He’s proving as much. For me, I’ve had it with the two par ties which for the most part have very few differences. As I’ve stated in the past I’ve joined the Bob Barr crusade. Barr, who is the Libertarian candidate for president, has also seen enough although he comes from the other side of the aisle. Barr is a former Republican who saw personal liberties trampled on by our current president and had to take a stand. Like me, Barr said, “Enough is enough.” I must say it’s been enjoyable to be enthusiastic about a presidential candi date again. It’s been a while since I have really felt that way. I know a Barr presidency would mean an end to our violation of civil liberties. I know a Barr presidency would mean an end to an ongoing use of our troops to occupy a foreign country. A Barr presi dency would mean an end to the uncon stitutional FISA bill and Patriot Act and a restoration of Habeas Corpus. Bob Barr has drawn a line in the sand. I have too. We would love to have you join us. Our freedom depends on it. The clock is now at less than 100 days. A h chris bridges Chris Bridges is a reporter for The Banks County News. Contact him at 706-367-2745 or e-mail comments to chris@mainstreetnews.com.