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PAGE 4A — THE MADISON COUNTY (GA) JOURNAL. THURSDAY. JULY 23. 2009 Opinions Frankly Speaking frankgillispie671@msn.com By Frank Gillispie Dogsboro sewage treatment will boost commerce The Madison County Industrial Authority has finally lined up enough financing to proceed with the Dogsboro water treatment plant. The facility is designed to provide water treatment for several areas around the Dogsboro area. Several large tracts in the area have been zoned for commercial development, but little progress has been made due to lack of infrastructure. Two of the three key facilities are in place. There is a good supply of water and highways in the area. A $500,000 grant comes from the OneGeorgia Authority financing program, and a $1.6 million Georgia Environmental Facilities Authority grant and more than $300,000 in private investments. Initially, the facility will be available to com mercial users only. Residential buildings in the area will continue to depend on septic tanks for water treatment. Septic tanks are not adequate for most large water users, but are the only choice at the moment. The Ingles store, for example, was originally intended to be a fully developed shopping center, but the septic tank system currently used by the store will not handle the sewage that a shopping center would produce. The water treatment facilities being devel oped would allow greater use of that area as a retail center. Several other commercial areas between Dogsboro and Hull-Sanford school have failed to find developers due to lack of water treatment. The proposed facility would allow more rapid develop ment of the area. Madison County lags far behind neighboring counties in commercial development due to deci sions made in the past. For a long period of time, the leaders of the county, with the approval of the local residents, opposed any kind of growth in the county. It was their wish to keep the county a quiet rural area depending on agriculture as its primary industry. As a result, numerous opportunities to build a commer cial system were rejected. During the Kennedy/Johnson administrations, a program to develop the Appalachian region then considered the most poverty-stricken area of the nation, including Madison County. There were programs to develop infrastructure available to the county but the powers that be chose not to apply for them. Several production and processing plants sought to locate in the county, but they also met with local resistance and chose to locate elsewhere. Shortly after I launched The Madison County Journal, I had a conversation with an official from a national restaurant chain. They wanted to locate a steakhouse in the Dogsboro area. A comer of the Ingles parking lot was left unpaved as a possible location for the store. But company officials dropped their plans when they learned that there are no sew age lines in the area. They said that they could not operate a major restaurant on a septic tank. That lot still sits empty. A fully developed commercial center around the Dogsboro intersection would greatly benefit Madison County. Not only would it provide jobs for many of our unemployed citizens, it would produce a major boost in the county's tax revenues, both property taxes and local sales taxes. So keep your fingers crossed that the new effort to build a com mercial water treatment plant is successful. Frank Gillispie is founder of The Madison County Journal. His e-mail address is frankgillispie671@ msn.com. His website can be accessed at http:// frankgillispie. tripod, com/ The Madison County Journal (Merged with The Danielsville Monitor and The Comer News, January 2006) P.O. Box 658 Hwy. 29 South Danielsville, Georgia 30633 Phone: 706-795-2567 Fax: 706-795-2765 Email: zach@mainstreetnews.com ZACH MITCHAM, Editor MARGIE RICHARDS, Reporter/Office Manager BEN MUNRO, Reporter/Sports Editor MIKE BUFFINGTON, Co-publisher SCOTT BUFFINGTON, Co-publisher FRANK GILLISPIE, Founder of The Journal. Jere Ayers (deceased) former owner of The Danielsville Monitor and The Comer News Periodical postage paid at Danielsville, Georgia 30633 SUBSCRIPTION RATES: Madison & surrounding counties $19.75/year State of Georgia $38.85/year Out-of-state $44.50/year Military personnel with APO address $42.50/year Senior rate $2 off all above rates College student discount rate $2 off all above rates POSTMASTER: Send address changes to: THE MADISON COUNTY JOURNAL P.O. Box 658, Danielsville, GA 30633 A publication of MainStreet Newspapers, Inc. The photo on the refrigerator I lifted my daughter up to the freezer door recently to look at all the family pictures held in place by magnets. She pointed at the ultrasound. “What’s that?’’ she asked. “Your little brother,” I said. She frowned, then wiggled free from my arms and left the room. It’s hard to distinguish much on that alien-shaped black and white photo. Could that be a nose? The ultrasound photos are like staring into a deep sea and trying to make out a shape of something swim ming at the bottom. A trained eye can point out the detail, but not me. And it’s hard to make the con nection between that blurry photo and the next big word in my life — son. My daughter hasn’t been so sure about the new word in her life — brother. “Am I smart?” she asks, getting a quick “yes” in reply. “Will the boy be smarter than me?” My wife and I talk some with Addie about the big change ahead. In the Meantime zach@ mainstreet news.com By Zach Mitcham but neither of us feel we need to pressure her too much to feel acceptance. She’ll come to that on her own time. And I guess we’re just as busy trying to prepare our selves for the change, too. It’s a little overwhelming. I keep thinking about the actual birthday. As Jana started contrac tions with Addie four years ago, I went to bed and told her to wake me up when she needed me. Looking back, I can’t believe that was me. I’m a pretty hor rible worrier, but I slept soundly that evening. I remember thinking that at least one of us needed to be clearheaded when we actually went to the hospital. So, I put my head on the pillow and was imme diately gone. In retrospect, I don’t know if it was confidence or ignorance that allowed me to sleep that night. Maybe it was a confident igno rance. Don’t the two often go hand in hand? But this go around, we’re still several weeks off and I’m often struggling to shut my mind off at night. Of course, the world feels pretty different than it did four years ago. Life feels a bit more fragile to me than it did back then. Our society, in general, feels like it’s been knocked wobbly. And we’re waiting to see if we can stay on the bike. I can go on and on about all my apprehensions, my worries. I can get pretty grim if I let myself. In fact, I’m quick to do so. And I think I can offer some pretty good rea sons for expressing a sour attitude at times. But I don’t really enjoy being like that. It’s a constant fight inside, one that I often lose. But I don’t want to crowd out the good with thoughts of the bad. I don’t want to let the good pass by without really enjoy ing the special moments. We sat in a childbirth class Sunday at St. Mary’s with Heather Shaw, a nurse from Madison County, cracking up the class. She was really good. Her class was very comprehensive and entertain ing. And she addressed the scary stuff in a matter of fact way that puts you at ease. She held up that belt that will go around my wife's waist to moni tor the baby's heartbeat. I remem ber that sound coming through the monitor four years ago. We will hear it again soon, the thump tha thump of an arrival. We look forward to meeting our son, Noah Edward, and seeing our daughter hold her brother for the first time. That’s one photo that might never leave the refrigerator door. Zach Mitcham is editor of The Madison County Journal. Lake ruling could swamp North Georgia That gurgling sound you hear is the sound of metro Atlanta’s economic prospects going down the drain. That prospect is more likely now with the ruling from fed eral Judge Paul Magnuson that the Army Corps of Engineers never had the legal authority to allow Atlanta to withdraw water from Lake Lanier. This was not a surprise to those who’ve been paying attention. Georgia has been squabbling with Alabama and Llorida for years over the Lanier issue and it was inevi table that at some point the courts were going to step in and turn off the faucet. Our elected leadership has had years to do some thing about this possibility. Environmentalists have been urging the governor and Legislature to get serious about requiring water conservation and stopping their developer friends from building subdi visions and shopping malls wherever they pleased. The leadership didn’t heed that advice, convinced that they would always be able to rely on the Lanier reservoir to provide water for those devel opments growing like a cancer around the metro area. Judge Magnuson was aware of this cozy relation ship between politicians and developers, noting in his deci sion, “Too often, state, local and even national govern ment actors do not consider The Capitol Report tcrawford@ capitol impact.net. By Tom Crawford the long-term consequences of their decisions. Local gov ernments allow unchecked growth because it increases tax revenue, but these same governments do not suffi ciently plan for the resources such unchecked growth will require.” “The big money development boomers have been paying big bucks for the fantasy that they would never have to face this reality,” House Minority Leader DuBose Porter said. “The federal court has said, in effect, time to close the story book - Humpty Dumpty has had a great fall.” Gov. Sonny Perdue, as he sometimes does in these situ ations, got angry at the judge rather than acknowledge his own shortcomings. “I am deeply disappointed by Judge Magnuson’s deci sion,” Perdue said. “I will use this opportunity not only to appeal the judge’s deci sion but, most importantly, to urge Congress to address the realities of modem reservoir usage.” Somebody needs to tell Perdue that his good friend George W. Bush is no lon ger president and his political party is no longer the majority party in Congress. The state’s ability to draw water from Lanier hinges on its success in persuading Congress to pass legislation within three years authorizing those withdrawals. Unfortunately for Georgia, nine of its 15 congressional members are Republicans at a time when Democrats have the majority. Two of its Democratic House members, Jim Marshall and John Barrow, might as well be Republicans because they’re more likely to vote with the GOP than with their own caucus. The Republicans in the state’s congressional delega tion are in an especially weak position when it comes to ask ing for help from the majority Democrats. Rep. Paul Broun is a loud mouth who makes crazy statements comparing Barack Obama to Hitler. Reps. Tom Price, Lynn Westmoreland and Jack Kingston don’t accomplish much legislatively because they devote their energies to mocking and taunting the Democratic leadership. That may give them a lot of personal satisfaction, but it also means they won’t get any sympathy when they ask Democrats to help them on the water issue. Sen. Saxby Chambliss would rather spend his time securing farm subsidy payments and pork-barrel defense contracts for his lobbyist buddies than work on something as boring as water policy. Rep. Nathan Deal is one of the more rational voices on his side of the aisle, but he’s leav ing Congress to run for gover nor. Sen. Johnny Isakson will at least listen to reason, but his party is now down to 40 seats in the Senate and that number seems to keep shrinking. Georgia’s prospects for get ting congressional permission to use Lanier can be boiled down to this: We’re sunk. Perdue is either unwilling or incapable of doing any thing - outside of complaining in press releases - that will address the issue that becomes more urgent by the day. We should ah hope that who ever is elected governor next year will sit down with the legislative leadership and start making those hard decisions on conserving water and lim iting development that might enable the state to continue using Lanier. The hour is getting very late, however, and they are running out of time. Tom Crawford is the editor of Capitol Impact’s Georgia Report, an Internet news ser vice at www. sareport.com that covers government and politics in Georgia. He can be reached at tcrawford@ capito- limpact.net. A great organization Every summer I make a point to go through the house and reorganize. I clean out every drawer, cabinet and closet. This summer I only had one week at home to complete the project, so I glanced through a few books concerning organi zational skills to try and find some ideas to help speed up the process and get the job done. When life gets busy, it is easy for things to get out of order. In addition to working outside of the home, most moms like myself hold the family job titles of accountant, chauffeur, gardener, interior decorator, social director, counselor, per sonal shopper, maid, building manager and home organizer. In order to reorganize a whole house, you need a good By Sherri Stephens month to really go through ah of the stuff that you and your family have accumulated, out grown or no longer need. When looking at the big pic ture, you can easily become discouraged and feel over whelmed. However, if you take baby steps, little by little you will eventually get every thing cleaned out, sorted and done. Lor example, start with the junk drawer — everyone has one. Empty everything out and organize it as you put only the things that you really use back into the drawer. This should only take around 10 minutes. By doing this every day, you can clean out 10 drawers in 10 days. Another great tip is to use a kitchen timer and give yourself 30 minutes a day to work on a closet or an area that needs attention. As you scoot through your house, multi-task. On your way to your child’s bedroom, pick a couple of toys up off the floor and take them with you. As you leave the bathroom and head for the kitchen, drop a few dirty towels in the laundry room as you pass it by. Every time you finish a task, you have made progress. As you look back and see what you have accomplished, it will motivate you to keep moving forward. I have found that the key to helping keep order in the home is getting the whole fam ily involved. Everyone needs to have daily chores and live by a few simple rules, which can be established at a family meeting. I recently called a quarter ly meeting to discuss what is and isn’t working within our organization. Getting the family in on the project is a good reminder that as a team you are ah working for a great organization, and that alone is a wonderful benefit! Sherri Stephens is a colum nistfor MainStreet Newspapers Inc.