2007 Campaign Archive

2007 Candidate Elect Archive

2008 January-March

2008 April-June

2008 July-December

Speaking of ethics, I read in the Gainesville Times that "A motion to have the county’s attorneys disclose any potential conflicts of interest was voted down at the Hall County Board of Commissioners meeting" last Thursday was voted down.  Now why in the world would our commission not want to have full disclosure, openness and transparency in ALL of our government?  Why would they vote against something that would open dialog to the public.  Honorable Commissioners, what are you hiding?  

We are aware that the majority of the three that voted against it are in business together and the lawyer who is the bond attorney is also in business and according to the Times, was dismissed from the Gainesville-Hall Development Authority.  The curious question is what motivated the swing vote that went with the partners.  Things that make you go Hmmmm.   

I think it is good to see how it is going in other parts of our world.  Click here to see Daniel Hannen speaking to the Prime Minister of England at the European Parliament.  While it is not the popular thing to do, we need to look at all levels to see how we can make government smaller and more efficient. 

So what it all boils down to is the national debt grew by $2.5 trillion during the Bush's eight years; our current President has proposed a budget that will grow the debt by another $4.4 trillion over the next 4 years.  If we elect another president in 2012, he will inherit a total debt of $10.2 trillion unless we can get some changes made in congress in the mid term election.  

However, this latest chart shows me everything that I need to see about our future:

According to some reports, every baby born in the U.S. comes with $22,000 of our nation's debt.  It is time to stop spending our babies' futures!  

I smell trouble.  There are a lot of ways to figure the rates, but the most simple way is to look at your fixed costs, your capital improvements, and your (fixed and variable) operating expenses and divide it by the number of users to reach an average; you then scale the average based on the variable use.  

So, if your capital costs (in our case it would be the debt burden) are over $4 million per year (based on the 2010 estimate in the previous sewer study), your capital improvements are another $3 million to expand the sewer system to no where, and our operating expenses are $1.3m for 2010 we come up with a total of $8.3m to be divided amongst 1500 customers.  So the average rate would be $461 per month!  

Our commissioners probably thought that the capital costs would be offset by tap and connection fees for new users of the sewer system.  The fees as passed by the commission on January 8th called for a tap fee of $745 and connection fee of $8,087 per new customer.  Sterling on the Lake and Reunion have a lower rate as set by the contact when the plant was sold to Hall County starting at $5k in '09 increasing by $1k each year.  With an estimated growth of almost 400 (assuming they are all Sterling or Reunion residents) new users each year, the tap fees would have generated an additional $2.4m in 2010 reducing the average cost of sewer to $163 per month (still way to high!!!!).  

It looks like the Board of Commissioners bet on 7 and rolled craps.  Now is the time for the commissioners to change their language from "SPLOST could be used to pay off debt", to "SPLOST WILL be used to pay off debt".  That is the only way to make sewer affordable in South Hall County.  

The issue I have is with the silence, not the call for resignation.  The other members of the council were not interested in trying to justify the frivolous waste of taxpayers dollars.  As the councilman pointed out, our building permits have dropped from 185 in 2007 to 82 in 2008.  So far we have had 24 permits pulled this year, but 16 of them came from one place (click here for intensified development).  I had a boss at Bellsouth that always told me that "one data point does not a trend make".  So if we eliminate the outlier, we are on pace to have 48 permits pulled this year, which is a 42% decrease from last year.  

I guess the other 3 feel that because the contractor is a nice guy (and he is a very nice guy) we should keep him on payroll even though there is not enough work for the full time employee we have now.  This is obviously some sort of aegis program for nice people or a patronage policy for the "ruling" group.  James Madison said; "the essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse."  

Now let's hope that the Commission can restore some confidence by using the money to pay off the debt.  I couldn't help but to notice that when asked about the debt, Hall County has said that it could be used to pay down debt, but they never actually said that they would use it to pay down the debt.  Let's hope they act responsibly and come through for the citizens of South Hall County.  But what am I worried about, from what I hear, it isn't really debt anyway.  

Sadly, I drive by a sign on Blackjack sitting in front of a vacant parcel of land since September 2006 that says; "Your tax dollars at work!"  However, no work has been done.  I realize that if we get SPLOST passed, that our elected officials will determine not only if they will develop the park, but when.  The unfortunate thing about the vote, is that the people can not vote on the priority.  I am guessing our park will sit empty until year 6, if they decide to eventually put our money to work.  

This is the second paragraph of the document that severed ties with our former county.  The important thing to reflect on is that the "rights" are individual rights, the power of the government comes from the people, the power is intended to preserve the individual rights, and when the form of government becomes "destructive" is is our right as a people to abolish it.  I am not advocating revolution, but I want to point out that the actions of our government is the beginning of a "long train of abuses" that in my opinion will lead to an absolute autocratic government or despotism.   The destruction has been the assault on my 401K, the seizure of my wealth to give to others, and the gradual loss of free market enterprises like banking and health care.  

While I am sorry that people may have shown up for the meeting only to find out that we couldn't have one, it reinforces the point that we should have meetings at night when everyone can attend.  My employer has been very flexible in allowing me to participate in Government, but there are times when the needs of the business take a priority.  If the meetings were in the evening, then we would have been able to make a quorum.  

I have been trying to figure out the sewer agreement that I read about online.  It looks one of those deals that the public never gets to hear about.  You can see the agenda for the meeting by clicking here and the minutes by clicking here.  

It disturbs me when our government lacks the transparency needed to keep the public trust.  Considering the sensitive nature of the sewer issues in South Hall, the Commissioners should have placed this agreement as an agenda item in order to alert the public as to what was going on.  As it stands, there is an additional $60k added on top of the already unbelievable debt we have on our sewer system.  To get some perspective, that is about 1 months revenue for the sewer system.  

If you've read my bio, you know that my tours down in South Louisiana doing restoration work after Hurricane Katrina provided a great influence on my life.  While driving to different job sites, I got to see first hand how different relief organizations worked.  In my opinion, the faith based organizations like the Salvation Army performed far better than the government organizations or government sponsored groups like the Red Cross.  That is why I am very disappointed with the Presidents budget recommendation to limit the the tax benefits of charitable contributions for families that earn more than $250k per year. 

As it is, during this recession, charitable organizations are struggling.  Now the government wants to take away incentives for people who can afford to give.  According to Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag, "Contained in the recovery act, there's $100 million to support nonprofits and charities as we get through this period of economic difficulty."  Basically this means that the government wants to take away our choice as to whom we contribute to and give it to organizations of the governments choosing.  Can anyone say ACORN?!? 

This is another situation where the Democratic Party believes that the governments knows how to do it better than the people do.  

Today's Wall Street Journal ran an opinion today showing that those making more than $250k per year can not pay for the plans presented to Congress.  Click here for the article.  I am holding out that the President will honor his campaign promise of no new taxes for those who make less than $250k, but I do not see how he can meet his promise to cut the deficit by half while adding all of these new programs by only taxing the wealthiest group in America.  Let's hope the we start seeing more substance and less style. 

While the President tried to put a positive spin on American ingenuity and drive, the issue has never been with the people, it has always been with the roll of government.  Milton Friedman once said, "If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there'd be a shortage of sand”.  I will say that if you put the government in charge of medical, in 5 years there will be a deficiency in medical services.    

Before I offer an opinion, I want to acknowledge my fan out there in cyber space.  It seems that my fan's greatest interest is is mischaracterizing what I say.  But because I believe in integrity, I feel obligated to let people know that there are those who don't approve of my job performance and evidently one of them can be found here.  While most people would run away from criticism, I embrace it.  

It looks like my fan is going to vote for the SPLOST because my fan sees it as a jobs bill.  Since you are looking to see what SPLOST has done for the county in the past, I can help you out, click here and here.  

Why am I supporting SPLOST?  To some extent, because I have to; if SPLOST does not pass, I will be one of 1500 customers on a sewer system with $46m in debt!  But on a serious note, I have heard people argue that SPLOST increases your future taxes because you have operational and maintenance (O&M) costs associated with the new projects that are put in.  To some extent, this is true.  If you look at something like the community center, the tax payers will pay the electric bills and labor costs to operate the centers in the future.  But this is offset by the fact that we can retire assets that have high O&M costs.  For example, Flowery Branch plans to purchase new police cars with our share of the SPLOST money.  If not for SPLOST, we would have to keep our high mileage cars which have high maintenance costs.  It is also offset by the capital infrastructure projects like roads that bring development which offsets tax increases.  It pays for police and fire protection which keep our insurance rates down.  It provides recreational opportunities that bring in tourism dollars.  And the best part, about 40% of the SPLOST revenue comes from other areas!  

While there are projects that I don't approve of, you have to take the good with the bad or none of it at all.  As it stands the good outweighs the bad, so I will be at the polls on March 17.  See you there.  

Now here we are; the president is scaring America by saying that if we don't pass it we will lose up to 5 million more jobs, but this bill is less of a stimulus bill and more of a social agenda spending plan.  As I sit here and listen to the President speak to the Democratic Caucus in Williamsburg, he has drawn the line and began to insinuate that the Republican arguments are tired and what got us into this crisis.  The President said that it doesn't matter is you drive a hybrid or SUV, when you are headed to a cliff you turn the car. 

Well I have a cliff for you.... If you continue to spend money, you will devalue the dollar even further.  That will cause inflation.  When the economy is shrinking and we have inflation, it results in an economic situation called "Stagflation".  If you want an example of what Stagflation can do, I present to you the 1970's.  In the 70's a new measure was popularized, the misery index which is the sum of inflation and unemployment.  The Carter Administration had the highest recorded misery rate, 16.27, since it was invented back in 1948.  President Carter's 21.98 peak in June of 1980 is almost twice as high as George W. Bush's 11.30 peak.  All I can say is if I am going over the cliff, I would rather be in the SUV.   

The meeting continued with other staff reports, the passage of an ordinance allowing bars and restraints to server beer and liquor until 2 am (I voted against it), and we voted to move forward with some infrastructure improvements.  

Probably the most unusual part of the meeting was the vote to approve a gentleman's agreement that took place over a water tap fee. Unfortunately, the refund of the fee marks the closing of a Flowery Branch icon as the Mountain Man BBQ restaurant will be closing; we will miss you.  

Now that the credit has been given, the state is tossing it back to the cities and counties.   According to the Governor's spokesman, Bert Brantley, the HTRG has not reduced property taxes (Article can be found here).  Evidently, Mr. Brantley missed the class on Taxation and has never served as an elected official.  When we set the budget, we set the tax rate.  After the rate is set, the tax credit is applied.  

If Flowery Branch does not receive the credit back from the Governor and General Assembly, then the budget will be off.  By law, O.C.G.A. 36-81-3(b)(1), the cities are required to maintain a balanced budget.  In the case of Flowery Branch, the HTRG credit only amounts to less than 1% of our tax revenue.  I guess we can turn off the street lights for half of the year, that should get our budget back in balance.   

According to the president's address we will will have 3,000 miles of power lines (but I doubt they will go to coal fired power plants) and it will revamp 10,000 schools.   All of this for what will probably end up being 1 trillion dollars.  

Between 1981 and 1988 when President Reagan cut the highest margin income tax from 70% to 28%, "the tax burden on the top 10 percent of taxpayers increased from 48.0 percent in 1981 to 57.2 percent in 1988. Meanwhile, the share of income taxes paid by the bottom 50 percent of taxpayers dropped from 7.5 percent in 1981 to 5.7 percent in 1988 (JEC Report April 1996)."  When you look at the federal revenue as a percent of GDP (Gross Domestic Product), the tax cuts came out to ~1% increase in revenue.  When you consider that the GDP grew by about 23% and 16m jobs were created, I would argue that the tax cut didn't cost anything and created jobs.  

The government needs to get out of the way and lower taxes.  

The last sentence in my speech (and the sentence following what was quoted by the blogger) said, "The responsible thing to do is to go back to the intent of House Bill 489, which is to use coordination and comprehensive planning to avoid the issues that have brought us all to this meeting tonight."  My entire speech can be found by clicking here. 

I would say that there is a fatal flaw in the blogger's theory that spending money on infrastructure will "put folks to work".  This flaw is also echoed by the new presidential administration.  If you examine the economics of FDR's new deal, you will find that with all of the programs, unemployment stayed roughly the same. You can extrapolate from this study by J. Bradford De Long that the New Deal was very ineffective in stimulating the economy because there was very little job creation for the dollars spent. 

Government should be responsible for the infrastructure, but bridges to nowhere and sewer lines crossing in the night are poor examples on how to stimulate the economy. 

It is the last day of the Bush presidency.  I wonder how history will treat him.  Bush appointed 2 very conservative Supreme Court justices: Chief Justice John Roberts and Judge Samuel Alito Jr.  Bush took down a dictator and started a democracy in the middle east, Iraq.  He kept the county safe from terrorists. 

While he inherited a recession when he came into office, he is leaving in a worse economic situation.  Unfortunately, the federal budget is in worse shape now as well. 

It will be interesting to see what is written.  

It is not that I am against a business making money.  What I do not want is for people to leave bars in Hall County (serve until 12:45), Oakwood (serve until 12:00) or Braselton (serve until 1am) and head over to Flowery Branch so they can have another drink or two until we close it down at 2am.  

My mom used to tell me that nothing good happens after midnight.  As it is, our alcohol ordinances are weird because while you can only drink beer until 11:45pm, you can drink liquor until 1.  I think we need to straighten this up, but until 2?  I don't think so.  

I would have never thought that things could change so rapidly in just a few years.  The reservation fees were set up in an economic prosperity when there was a ton of demand for our sewer.  Now we are in a economic ailment where we need investment in our community.  

By removing some of the risk associated with investing in Flowery Branch, we hope to remove a barrier that would prevent planned development.  

Several people have asked what it will take to get the sewer issue fixed.  Well to quote Matthew Oliphant from Useability Works; "There is no silver bullet and frankly you probably don’t need one. It is far more important to be able to find the right kind of gun, be able to load the gun … and perhaps most importantly, be able to figure out where the werewolf is."   I will leave it to you to ponder over that one.  

It is hard to say if this is a win for the people.  There is no doubt in my mind that the public outpouring had an impact on the amendment and the vote; but the fact is, if we do not fix the issues, we will be looking at these rates again next year.  If you would like to read what I said to the Commissioners, please click here.  When you consider that we had some protection from the sales contract anyway, this wasn't a huge win, but the encouraging report is the split vote with the swing vote saying some very encouraging things to the Times.  

We still have a lot of hard work ahead of us.  

We did, however, set the qualifying period for this year's election.  As it turns out, the 3 that are always on the 3 side of the vote will all have there terms expire at the end of this year; they are all  up for election if they choose to run.  It is my sincere desire that all 3 of them choose to run again.  I would really like for the voters to have the opportunity to tell them in the ballot box what the people think of the job they are doing.

Back on sewer, the agenda for the commissioners meeting is out and like I suspected, there is a resolution on the rates.  If you are going to speak, ensure you do so on item e under other business, because I do not think you can give comments on item h which is a resolution.  

See you tomorrow.....  

Basically, I think that they are going to set the rates in another resolution.  It would make it a lot easier to change in the future.  To me it looks like they have painted themselves in a corner.  It is political suicide to approve the rates, but the money has been committed and they need to meet the lender's requirements.  If I were a betting man (we have already discussed betting in Georgia), anyone who votes for these rates will have an albatross hanging around their necks in the next election.   

I could get on my soap box about transparency, but instead I think I will let a couple of courts who know a lot more speak to what the problems are: 1- "What the law seeks to eliminate are closed meetings which engender in the people a distrust of its officials who are clothed with the power to act in their name. It declares that the people, who possess ultimate sovereignty under our form of government, are entitled to observe the actions of those described bodies when exercising the power delegated to them to act on behalf of the people in the name of the State. (McLarty v. Board of Regents, 231 Ga. 22 (1973))"; 2- "To invoke attorney-client exception, the governmental entity must show a realistic and tangible threat of legal action, beyond mere suspicion or fear of being sued. (Claxton Enterprise v. Evans County Board of Commissioners , 249 Ga.App. 870 (2001))"

While there are issues with the contract and GEFA requirements that are conflicting, as far as I am aware, no one else has even threatened litigation based on the rates.  I believe Braselton may sue based on H.B. 489, but that has nothing to do with rates.  The biggest sign of smoke is when a governing body enters into executive session and it is not on the agenda.  While the law says, "Failure to include on the agenda an item which becomes necessary to address during the course of a meeting shall not preclude considering and acting upon such item (O.C.G.A. § 50-14-1 2(e)(1))", the law specifically says, the "attorney-client privilege recognized by state law to the extent that a meeting otherwise required to be open to the public under this chapter may be closed in order to consult and meet with legal counsel pertaining to pending or potential litigation... (O.C.G.A. § 50-14-2 1)".  I find it hard to believe that the meeting was used to consult with legal council more than it was used to discuss the political ramifications of the sewer rates.  Unfortunately, the only way we would know is if we challenged the meeting in court.  

When I made the decision to serve my community, I was told that things like this would happen.  As I have contemplated making a change and run for another office, things have certainly hit a new level.  All I can say is, if you find any grammar issues or misspelled words, please let me know because that is all I will change on archived blogs.  You can save the paper you are printing, I believe in transparency and I stand by my thoughts.  Also, if any of this ends up on radio ads, please make sure you properly reference my web site.  I can always use more visitors.   

It is time to archive again.  I do this to make the page load faster and more user friendly.  Because I believe in standing by my word, you can read past blogs by clicking a link above.  

Several of you may be viewing this site for the first time to try and learn more about sewer in South Hall county.  Most of the information is located in my archived blog which can be viewed by clicking here.  

In brief, we are asking for you to show up at the County Commissioner's meeting a week from today, Thursday January 8 at 5pm at the Georgia Mountain center in Gainesville.  The Commissioner's will be considering changing Chapter 13.10 of The Official Code of Hall County, Georgia. This new chapter changes the way we pay sewer from a flat $42 rate to $9.87 per ccf (100 cubic feet).  

If you look at your last City of Gainesville water bill you can use the table below to see what your new rate could be (This does not include the City of Gainesville Rate change effective January 2009):

I am looking forward to meeting many of you on the 8th.  Stay tuned for changes.