Forget the economy, liberate Union County residents pronto!
February 11, 2009 at 12:35 pm by Thomas Wheatley in News
In case you haven’t been following the news, Georgia cities and counties are mighty pissed at Gov. Sonny Perdue because he cut a homeowner property-tax credit from the state budgets for the next, uhm, forever. Perdue says these Roy Barnes-created grants cost the state $428 million each year and haven’t lowered property taxes as they were originally intended.
Yesterday, Perdue told a group of county commissioners as such. Insider Advantage’s Dick Pettys was in attendance and captured the reactions of some county commissioner-folk.
Lamar Paris, sole commissioner of Union County, said, “We’re just all going to have to go through and just cut the guts out of our county government …”
Wow, that’s a good quote. Very telling, kind of ominous, sounds like … WAIT! Holy shit. Lamar Paris is the sole commissioner of Union County? Brothers and sisters to the north, we will save you from this dictator!
According to Union County’s website, the Union County Sole Commissioner — aka Grand Overlord of the Hilltops — is:
…the governing authority of the county. The Commissioner sets and approves the budget for all departments and elected officials. He sets the mill rate each year, which provides funds for the operation of the county departments. Union County is one of only 9 counties in the State that operates under Sole Commissioner type of government.
The Commissioner is a sworn elected official and governed by the laws of the County of Union, the State of Georgia, and any and all applicable Federal laws. The Commissioner serves a 4-year term, which coincides with the presidential election.
The Commissioner’s office is directly responsible for the following departments:
Building Inspection
Building Permits
Environmental Enforcement
E-911 Dispatch Center
E-911 Mapping
Fire Dept
Recreation Dept.
Road Dept
Transfer & Recycle Station
It turns out Georgia is the only state in the country to have such an office. (More on this diabolical government position here.)
According to Wikipedia, seven other Georgia counties — not eight, like the propaganda arm of the Union County website says — are enslaved by sole commissioners. I’ll liberate Union County. Who’s gonna save the residents of Bartow, Bleckley, Chattooga, Pickens, Pulaski, Towns and Walker?
(Map courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)
February 14th, 2009 at 8:59 am
Excellent article — few consider that the structure of government can be a problem.
Single-commissioner system is one-stop shopping for special interest groups, especially developers. Sure, many of the lone commissioners have done a good job, but it will be too late when one of them (or their successor) succumbs to the big money.
Even in DeKalb County’s CEO position (whose power was recently lessened) is still susceptible to influence when all employees still report to the CEO, rather than to the commission as in all other counties.
Sunshine is the only disinfectant. And sunshine occurs when one of the multiple elected officials goes public because he isn’t getting the illegal funding/favors that another elected official is getting.
Better yet, why should private money be in public elections?
Is it one person, one vote
OR one dollar, one vote?