NEW FRONTIERS
(Bad News/Good News)

The bad news is, just when you think you've seen the frontier of an inept, inadequate and inefficient local county government, we find there is more to conquer.

The good news is, we only have a little over seven months before we can do something about it. That would be the August 3rd, county-wide elections when the voters will, in the privacy of the voting booth, select the folks who will look after our governmental affairs for the next four years.

Scary, ain’t it? That light we see at the end of the tunnel is the opportunity to reform the way our local county government does our business. It is the opportunity to elect folks who respect the will and authority of the people and to not re-elect those officials who try to force their will on the people, after the people have spoken.

For those folks that have expressed concerned for my continued efforts to keep myself informed and to participate, after the recent feeble attempt at character assassination by those folks who support increasing the tax burden on the poor, let me say that I am alive and well. Unemployed, but alive and well.

In the past I have quoted Edward Dowling who observed that the two greatest obstacles to democracy in this Country are, first, the widespread delusion among the poor that we have a democracy, and second, the chronic terror among the rich, lest we get it.

Now about this new frontier. It has recently came to light that after years of neglect by the Board of Education in repairing our schools in Hardin County, there has been money in the bank for years to make some of these much needed repairs.

The repairs haven’t been made because of a 1997 tax-sharing side agreement between the City of Savannah and Hardin County Government, that artificially restricted the use of any funds to a self-imposed ‘Phase I’ of the Board of Educations’ 40 year ‘master’ plan.

Back in 2002 there was over $2,000,000 dollars in the bank that could have been used, but for this side agreement, but without even discussing it with the City of Savannah, our County Commission and Mayor decided to repay an extra million dollars principal on the bond debt and not use the funds to make any repairs. Does that make sense?

Does it make any sense that if we have collected more money from the voter approved one-cent sales tax than was required to make the payments on our bonds, that we would not put that money to use for the purpose for which it was collected, to construct and repair our schools?

The Chairman of the Board of Education admitted at the last City Commission meeting that after only eight years, the Board of Education was already at least two years behind in their 40 year master plan. They have not even started the preliminary engineering work for the new North Elementary facility, because they say they don’t have the money.

The proof is in the pudding. All it has taken to proceed to put the long needed new roofs on two of our schools, was a simple request from the Board of Education to the City of Savannah and Hardin County government to amend this tax sharing side agreement to change a definition of the self imposed ‘Phase I’. Well, Duh!!

The questions are, what took so long and why is it going to take, according to the B.O.E.’s best plans, at least another 34 years, if they stay on their self-imposed schedule,to correct this major deficit in our school system?

Respectfully submitted for your consideration.

Uncle Ted