Watch the reports this afternoon folks. By the end of the day it is likely that a Gainesville resident will be the DOT board member to replace Mike Evans. Mike was from Forsyth County, and the person to replace him has to live in the 9th Congressional District (the district represted by Nathan Deal). That is a lot of counties all over North Georgia. We should be glad we are getting a local person to represent our interests.
UPDATE: Guess the local guy lost by a landslide. I suppose the legislative delegation wanted someone who was a legislator and not a former technocrat from inside the agency. The new board member is from Dalton and was a former State Senator. Good luck to him. He has big shoes to fill.
CONGRATULATIONS to Mike and the Commissioner on their engagement. I guess when you find the right person it does not take long to figure it out.
Way to go “Citizens!!!” I could not make the meeting, but I’m glad some of you attended to tell the Gainesville City School Board what it means when you are millions of dollars in debt, you don’t know how you got there, and you want to make someone else pay for it.
Lets look at the details. The elected officials “thought” they had almost $1M in surplus based upon the projections of someone who resigned over9 months ago. Now they announce that they are in the red to the tune of $7M and it will take 2 years to get that debt paid off! That is an $8M difference! And they can’t explain it? Maybe instead of an “audit” they need a GBI or FBI investigation? The money went to someone that the school board or the superintendent approved and signed the checks for. How can they be suprised? Did they not balance their checkbook each month? A good start would be for everyone in charge of budget and finance to resign or be fired (The Superindendent? Janet Allison?), THEN do a criminal investigation. No tax increase is warranted, the salary saved from all the firings will help, and tightening their belts will do the rest.
Remember a few weeks ago? Remember the early Democrat tax increase warning signs I talked about here? How disingenuous to announce a tax increase was required because of future budget projections NOT becuase they were already in debt. So does that mean they didn’t know about being $8M in debt just a few weeks ago? Or did they know and they where trying to distract the taxpayers with talk about future expenses? Most likely the latter. Democrats love to raise taxes and will use any flimsy excuse to do so. In this case the excuse is, “Where did the money go? We need more please!”
Read The Times story here–>Residents blast tax increase plan. Thanks to Jeff Gill who has been all over this story. He has been very balanced and conservative in his reporting, and he took the extra step of doing the math for us to show that the school board wants each taxpayer in Gainesville to donate an extra $200 per year or so to make up for their mistakes.
This is what happens when you let Democrats run your government people. It is great to “blast” them, but you have to un-elect the school board or you will always get a tax increase.
Is there anything that government thinks it does not need to regulate? Just because you get your friends to vote you into office does not make you smarter than everyone else. Flowery Branch entertains us again with their decision to regulate how fast billboards change. WTH? Why is government getting involved in this? Just another unnecessary government regulation. Another “gotcha” for unsuspecting businesses. Thse electronic billboards cost upwards of $1,000,000. If Flowery Branch wants to regulate what is on them, then BUY THE SIGN. If you can’t afford to buy the sign then don’t worry about it.
Safety? Bureaucrats always invoke “safety” when they want to do something. It sounds better than “because I want to.” (Or worse yet, ”because my friends can’t compete so I will use my position to help my buddies out.”) Unfortunately these areguments are no more persuasive. Have there been any accidents because of signs changing on I-985? Anywhere? Councilman Craig Lutz says he is concerned. The State of Georgia already has a 10 second minimum (because they want to).
Craig wants the timing to be 53 seconds (as opposed to 50 seconds or 54 seconds?). Ok Craig, here is the perfect solution: get $1,000,000, go through all the headaches to get a permit (it is already a nightmare in Hall County), negotiate the lease for the land, negotiate a contract to erect the sign, put your sign up and set it to 53 seconds. Simple solution. Then you compete with the guys (who already have $1,000,000 and the lease and the sign) who have their signs set at 10 seconds.
Why 10 seconds? Is that a good idea? Is 53 seconds better? Who knows! The right answer is that if you are the government the default position should be that it is NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS.
In the meantime legitimate businesses are losing money because Flowery Branch is trying decide how to get involved in something they should not be involved in! Flowery Branch: Leave those signs alone!
Read The Times story here –>Speed limits for ads on highway?