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Viewpoints Our Views Shifting taxes Members of the Houston County Commission have given tentative approval to the Service Delivery Strategy with the three incorporated municipalities in the county. The action comes after the state directed all counties and cities via House Bill 489 to participate in a joint planning effort to reduce costs of services to taxpayers. Approval by all participating governments is required. Some real issues have been addressed. Others have been given token sprucing up. Some have been somewhat ignored. Call the services agreement any thing. but what it really becomes is a plan on which government entity will raise taxes to continue these services. Many of the services discussed are requirements for urban communities. The option of curtailing them is not desirable. How they will be paid for is the issue. We had a classic example of that in Houston County several years ago. Under the guise of consolidating recreation, Houston County got out of the recreation business and turned over some property and the cost of operations to the cities of Warner Robins and Perry. The county avoided a tax increase and gained some temporary savings by getting out of the recreation busi ness. On the other hand, the cities got stuck with the cost of recreation, which is never cheap. The ultimate result? Recreation continues, a cost to Warner Robins and Perry taxpayers, and fees for par ticipation have climbed. Shifting the tax burden from one government to another accomplishes little except making a .few officials .ook “good” for holding the line. Until our three cities and the county get really serious about joining services and operating them the most efficient way, costs will simply be shifted from one pocketbook to another. Meanwhile, the issue of double tax ation, so eloquently brought to the table by Warner Robins Mayor Donald Walker recently, remains unresolved. City residents in almost every county in Georgia pay twice for some services. When this issue is addressed and resolved, residents of Georgia will see real change in how government services are distributed and financed. But only then. Homeward bound Hooray! I’m planning to return home to Perry soon! After Pauline Lewis Home Journal Staff almost two years of recu peration from the results of a fall on a wet kitchen floor, I am complet- «— —a— ■iim.mi!«u.ie=s ing my medical appointments this spring. In a way, the recuperative period has been a blessing. It has given me the opportunity to get in touch with many friends and relatives. I have filled three large scrapbooks with well-wishes from them. Sunday School groups in our church have been especially faithful in keeping me on their prayer calendars, for which I am thankful! This newspaper, social and civic clubs, See LEWIS, Page 5A Houston Heme Journal P.O. Drawer M • 807 Carroll St. • Perry. Ga. 31069 email homeJmOhom.net (912) 987-1823 (voice) • (912) 988-1181 (fax) Bob Tribble President JJ Johnson Editor and General Manager Ellen T. Green .Advertising Director Phil Clark Sports Joan Dorsett Lifestyles Torey Jolley News and Classified Alline Kent Sports Pauline Lewis Lifestyles Rob Mead News and Circulation Charlotte Perkins News and Composition Paula Zimmerman Bookkeeping A H |Ss JBB Welcome home to the old reliable HHJ name Welcome home! Welcome back to the historic newspaper of Perry, the Houston Home Journal. Yes, after an absence of five years, while being marketed under the name Houston Ttmes-Joumai the old reliable, the Houston Home Journal is back. I’m proud. I’m delighted. I hope you are too. The newspa per you grew up with is back in the same name again. Of course, it’s not the same paper. Every product evolves. This one certainly has. So have members of the staff. We live in Houston County. Many of us own homes here, all of us buy food and gas here, shop for Christmas presents Thf Peanut GauepY & £ E o HOW MUCH MORE BOMBING § ANP KILLING PO WE HAVE f TO PO BEFORE LOSING OUR “ PEACEKEEPING STATUS? S Way back when ... in the Home Journal When our editor announced to the staff a couple of weeks ago that the name of this paper would be changed back to The Houston Home Journal, the reaction was unanimously happy. I thought Joan Dorsett was going to bounce off the ceil ing. There's a lot to be said for having a paper with a proud name and a long history. To check out some of that history, 1 went up to our "attic" a couple of days ago and got the bound volumes from 1959 and 1974. Here are just a few of the tidbits I found: Forty years ago this week Perry Super Foods was sell ing ground beef for 49 cents a pound and iceberg lettuce two heads for 25 cents. Belle's had slips on sale for $1.89, and The Vanity Shop had a Mother’s Day special on dark straw hats half price. Marie's Beauty Salon was offering a creme cold wave (with cut, shampoo and styling) for $7.95. , On the social scene Mrs. F.M. Houser entertained the Writers Club of Macon in her home in Perry, and Sam Nunn Jr. was home for the weekend with three other members of the Georgia Tech golf team. (They were all scheduled to play in a tournament in Fort Valley) The Perry Kiwanis Club was promoting a greased pig chase. They told the Home Journal that they would tranquilize the Our Policies Unsigned editorials appearing in larger type on • this page under the label Our Views reflect the posi tion of the Houston Home Journal. Signed columns and letters on tills page (and elsewhere in this news paper) reflect the opinions of the writere and not nec essarily those of this newspaper. Signed letters to the editor are welcomed. Please limit letters to 300 words and include addresses and a telephone number for verification purposes. Letters are not published without verification. Letters should be sent to P.O. Drawer M. Perry. Ga., 31069 or brought to the newspaper office at 807 Carroll St.. Perry. Our liability for an error will not exceed the cost Page 4A Wed., May S, 1999 JJ Johnson Home Journal Editor here, and participate in com munity activities. We have a commitment to the community just as you do. We also have a commitment to pro vide for you the best possible weekly newspaper about your community. That’s why the Home Journal has existed for more than 129 years. Charlotte Perkins Home Journal Staff pig actually a wild boar before shaving it and greasing it. Jones Jewelers announced that Perry High School gradua tion invitations had arrived and seniors should drop by to pick theirs up. The Home Journal was offering free classified ads for teens seeking summer jobs. Twenty five years ago this week, in a letter to the editor , Fred Zerko complained that Perry' policemen were under paid, and noted that their start ing salary was SSOO per month. Piggly Wiggly was selling four bottles of Heinz Ketchup for $ 1. Winn Dixie had ground beef for 78 cents, and Moody Motor Company was selling brand new Ford Pintos for $2,568. Jan Sinclair had just joined the staff of the Cinderella Beauty Shop. Emily Montgomery noted in her “Personals" column that Mrs. Joe Gayle and Miss Martha Cooper had attended a lun cheon in Athens. James McKinley who had already served for four years on of space occupied by the error. We cannot be responsible for the return of pictures or submitted materials unless a stamped, return address envelope is included. Our Goal The Houston Home Journal is published proudly for the citizens of Houston and adjoining counties tty Houston Publications Inc.. Perry. Ga. Our goal is to produce quality, profitable, community-oriented newspapers that you, our readers, are proud of. We will reach this goal through hard work, teamwork, loyalty and a strong dedication toward printing the truth. Member of Georgia Press Association and National Newspaper Association. HL. Ww** Houston Home Journal I am very honored to be only the 12th editor of this newspa per. That’s right, just 11 per sons have held this job before me. Two of them held the post for a shorter period of time. My four-plus year tenure in this job seems very short compared to that of 44 years which one of my predecessors served. Still, I suspect our commit ments are similar we want to report trftthfully and reliably the information about our com munity. That’s the goal today, just as it was 129 years ago when this paper began. You’ll notice a few other things changed about your newspaper today. For one thing, the news type has been increased in size. Many of our the City Council, was running unopposed for Mayor. Curtis Fountain and Gordon Scarborough were running for post three on the city council. Now, back to the present time: Speaking of former Mayor McKinley here’s something interesting in the category of “what goes around, comes around." Maybe you read last week on our front page that along with renovating the old middle school to serve as a new “early learning" center, the Board of Education is considering open ing a road from Main Street to the site of the school. That’s hardly a new idea. Mayor McKinley urged the Board of Education to open a road in that location way back in the late 70s, and also sug gested fencing in the school. He had it all worked out for them, with a plan for prison labor to do the work. He even had a plat drawn up, and all the Board needed to do was acquire the right-of-way, but they didn't act on the sugges tion. Wonder how much the cost has increased since that time. The plan came up four or five years ago when school officials considered yet another remod eling of the middle school. That was before voters approved a bond issue which made the new middle school and other changes possible. long-time readers asked if it could be increased. We listened and acted to do that. This is the largest, broadest typeface I've ever used in 25 years of news papering. I suspect it is also the most readable. We've also increased the size of the type for both our classi fied ad section and the public notice section. Again, we're responding to requests. We’ve worked hard on our photographic reproduction, something which has grieved me greatly. I think you can find a measurable difference in the past two weeks. Stay tuned, it will get even better. All of these things we are See JOHNSON, Page 5A Bob Tribble Home Journal President A tragic day for everyone Thirteen white doves flut tered into the gray sky over the heads of 70,000 mourners who had gathered in Littleton, Colo., in honor of the 12 stu dents and one teacher gunned down at Columbine High School. Families, friends and strangers clung to each other as they clutched flowers and Bibles, weeping and wondering why it happened. What a tragic day! What a tragic day, not for just those affected in Littleton, but for mourners across this country. What a tragic day for America. What a tragic day that this type thing could occur again most anytime or anywhere. About as tragic is the fact that our best minds in this country really don't know exactly what provokes people to become mad men and killers, or how to stop it. They really don’t know who to blame; society, parents, gun manufacturers, cults. The two gunmen had just completed a program for trou bled youth this past February after being caught breaking into a van. A report from their supervising officer recom mended early release from the program saying one gunman was a “bright young man who has a great deal of potential,” and the other was “likely to succeed in life." For sure this officer must feel bad about that assess ment, but how could he have known? One does not have to run a poll to know something is seri ously wrong in our country when an incident such as this happens. For sure, we know something is wrong, but we don’t really know what to do to see that it doesn’t happen again. Citizens across our land have varying opinions on what happened that tragic day. Some feel more safety mea sures should be added at our schools, even if they become more like prisons. Some are saying we must hold every gun owner legally responsible when such incidents occur, for allow ing weapons to fall into the hands of our youth. Some say the manufacture of assault weapons, handguns. See TRIBBLE, Page SA "Congress shall make no law respecting an estab lishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof: or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or of the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." Your right to read this news paper is protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. The Houston Home Journal CUSPS 000471) is published weekly for $21.40 per year (including sales tax) by Houston Publications Inc., 007 Carroll St.. Perry. Ga.. 31069. Periodicals Class Postage paid-at Perry. Ga. POSTMASTER : Send address changes to the Houston Home Journal. P.O. Drawer M. Perry. Ga. 31069. ISSN: 1075-1874.