Fresh Loaf

Residents of Dunwoody itching to call yourself a city, your wish just got a little bit closer to being granted.

Gov. Sonny Perdue just signed SB 82 into law. The move would allow residents to vote on the issue as early as July 15. A vote for mayor and city council would take place in September.

UPDATE: State Rep. Jill Chambers, R-North DeKalb, who has questioned how the cityhood effort would affect ongoing projects and other residents in the county, adds her response to the governor signing SB 82 into law:

Now that the vote on Dunwoody incorporation is scheduled for July, I hope the citizens will take the time to discover the true costs and challenges that will face this potential new city.  Future litigation with DeKalb County over the HOST sales tax and the collection of property taxes within the Perimeter CID commercial district are legitimate concerns.  While I would have preferred that these issues be disclosed and debated in the legislature, I am glad I had the chance to stand up for my constituents and ask these questions out loud.

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A state House committee narrowly approved a bill that has become an eleventh-hour attempt by concerned legislators and citizens from across Georgia to maintain Jekyll Island’s charm and avoid a controversial 63-acre development they say will both damage the state park and make it less affordable.

The amendment, introduced by state Rep. Debbie Buckner, D-Junction City, was tacked on to SB 367 — a bill sponsored by Sens. Ross Tolleson, R-Perry, and Eric Johnson, R-Savannah — which repeals the Georgia Coastal Management Act’s June 2009 expiration date. The amendment is geared toward keeping the southern end of the island’s beach accessible to visitors.

State Rep. John Heard, R-Lawrenceville, asked if the committee was micromanaging the redevelopment process and usurping power granted to the Jekyll Island Authority, the governor-appointed board that is responsible for the development of the protected island. Buckner said the committee was reacting to the wishes of Georgians concerned with the way that very entity has been operating. Allegations of fuzzy math to determine Jekyll Island’s visitor statistics have been lobbed by residents, islandgoers and politicians alike.

“There have been numerous problems with [the authority's] openness and amenability,” Buckner responded. “It is the public that asked us to come forward with this bill. It is their property.”

The bill now moves to the House Rules Committee, where it may face scrutiny and risk being stripped of Buckner’s amendment. House leaders have already voiced support for seeing Jekyll Island be redeveloped and are wary of disrupting the process.

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Quote of the Day:

“We’ll even give you a seat [in the state House of Representatives]. We do have an extra one.”

– State Rep. Lynn Smith, R-Newnan, speaking to state Sen. Ross Tolleson, R-Perry, during this morning’s House Natural Resources and Environment Committee meeting. Smith said Tolleson was easy to work with on a bill and invited him back.

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Dick Pettys at InsiderAdvantage says a highly-placed source in the legal community told him a state representative may have been wearing a wire during the current legislative session. It’s part of a probe by federal authorities to uncover political misdeeds under the Gold Dome. Pettys’ source tells him the probe may involve both political parties and even stretch into the state Senate.

If the wire-wearer was state Rep. Ron Sailor, D-Lithonia, I don’t think the scoundrels should worry. Dude was never at the Capitol. Maybe now we know why that was the case.

And while we’re on the topic of Sailor, take a look at the U.S. attorney’s press release announcing the Lithonia legislator’s guilty plea:

Ronnie “Ron” Sailor, Jr., 33, of Norcross, Georgia, pleaded guilty today in federal district court to a felony criminal information charging him with laundering and attempting to launder what he believed to be drug proceeds, after taking possession and agreeing to launder a total of approximately $375,000 of cash from the purported sale of cocaine.

Take note: Norcross ain’t in DeKalb or Rockdale County, Sailor’s congressional district. I guess that little misstep is the least of his worries now.

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Oh, yowee.

State Rep. Ron Sailor, D-Invisible Land, is resigning. The legislator pleaded guilty Tuesday to laundering $375,000 of what he believed to be drug money for an undercover agent posing as a drug dealer named “Jay.” He will resign from the General Assembly.

Sailor grabbed headlines earlier this month when it was revealed he missed an astonishing 211 of 233 votes in the Gold Dome. That’s 91 percent.

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FUND TRANSIT State Rep. Dubose Porter, D-Dublin, stands alongside mass-transit supporters Monday and voiced the need for more cash for more options.

It’s become a mantra of passionate rail and bus supporters during the current legislative session: Do something, anything, to kick start the state’s static transit situation.

On Monday afternoon, the message was echoed. Members of Citizens for Progressive Transit, Georgia Public Interest Research Group, the Sierra Club, Mothers and Others for Clean Air and Georgia Brain Train Group, among others, rallied for legislators to pass a proposal that would generate cash to expand bus and rail services.

Advocates say their movement has momentum this year in the form of a state Senate resolution that was nipped and tucked last week by the House. State Rep. Dubose Porter appeared alongside the groups yesterday and said it’s time to start thinking about moving people by rail.

“We cannot pave our way out of gridlock,” Porter said. “This is someone from rural Georgia talking… The bill that is moving through [the General Assembly] is about allowing regions to determine their future.”

Neill Herring, a lobbyist for the Sierra Club, supports the need for more transit funding, but told InsiderAdvantage’s Dick Pettys that the current form of the Senate’s proposal reads like an “Atlanta bill.” That could be a problem. Porter said that can be changed if the House dedicates the remaining penny of the motor-fuel tax that’s traditionally gone to the state’s general fund to instead fall under the care of the state DOT. For rural regions which lack the density upon which transit thrives, the generated revenues could go toward road projects.

Also on Monday’s agenda: Release findings of a study they say shows using public transit saves money and gas and lessens our impact on the environment. Rob Thompson of Georgia PIRG presented a study that concluded metro Atlanta transit agencies reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 662,036 metric tons per year and save consumers $228 million in gasoline expenses. (Ariel Hart of That Other Paper has a report questioning some of the study’s findings.) View the agency-by-agency data after the jump.

(Photo by Thomas Wheatley)

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The sun finally shines on state House Speaker Glenn Richardson’s face. The plan passed the House 166-5. From InsiderAdvantage:

If approved by the Senate and then by the voters in November, the bill would eliminate the car tag tax in two steps – half next year and the remainder in 2010. It would eliminate the state’s quarter-mill property tax, and it would freeze property tax assessments at 2008 levels except for increases of up to 2 percent for residential property and 3 percent for commercial.

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Dick Pettys at InsiderAdvantage reports that state House Speaker Glenn Richardson’s tax reform plan will be getting a second vote today.

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The state Senate president pro tem — he who bloggeth — adds some numbers to the legislative session going on under the Gold Dome:

* In the two year session, 1,956 bills have been introduced (or an average of 8.3 per legislator). There have been 2,632 resolutions introduced (or 11 per member). Most resolutions are just commending people and don’t take any time. Some are constitutional amendments.

* Not counting today or Day 30, we have passed 437 bills leaving 1,500 still alive (at least for the next 2 days). We have passed 1,534 resolutions leaving 1,078 floating around.

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State Rep. Tom Dickson, R-Cohutta, was the lone Republican in the House to vote against Speaker Glenn Richardson’s GREAT Plan. A lot of folks expected retribution to come down — bills getting tossed, committee shuffling, etc. — but is cybersnobbery the way Richardson works these days?

Notice below Dickson’s online bio from 2005-2006:

And here’s a screenshot of his most recent bio taken about, oh, 10 minutes ago.

According to the Wayback Machine, the page was last updated on April 3. But it only lists results as late as Sept. 2007, and I couldn’t find Dickson’s 2006-2007 bio. Quelle scandale!

But seriously … Glenn, baby, come on. Hack the guy’s MySpace account. That’s where you can really have some fun.

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Maybe you’ve heard, but state House Speaker Glenn Richardson’s GREAT Plan — his long-running pet project that promised to eliminate property taxes in the state — was shot down yesterday afternoon in the chamber over which he presides, 10 votes shy of the two-thirds majority necessary to pass. Cities and counties hated Richardson’s idea — they feared it would strip them of funding — and have been lobbying against it with force.

The independent and audacious Mayor Shirley Franklin took to the Interwebways and applauded the city’s Democratic representatives who voted against the plan:

The Atlanta Democratic representatives who voted to protect the state’s communities were: Reps. Sheila Jones, LaNett Stanley-Turner, “Able Mable” Thomas, Kathy Ashe, Robbin Shipp, Margaret Kaiser, Georganna Sinkfield, Joe Heckstall, Tyrone Brooks, Roger Bruce, Bob Holmes, Sharon Beasley-Teague, Stacy Abrams and Pat Gardner.

“By defeating this plan, our representatives have indicated they understand and respect the value of allowing local communities to govern themselves,” said Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin. “City officials, like all Georgians, want tax reform. But that reform must allow for flexibility and local control; not reform that restricts cities from finding a funding mix that meets local needs without over-burdening residents and businesses.”

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The chamber approved it with an overwhelming 43-2 vote this morning and now sends the legislation to the House. The legislation is being watched around the state as it would return the substantial bulk of the funding mechanism’s purchasing power — the school tax cash — back into the mix.

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The House’s statewide sales-tax transportation bill doesn’t have the votes to pass, says the chamber’s Transportation Chairman Vance Smith. InsiderAdvantage’s got the report here. Smith, a Republican state representative from Pine Mountain, says he’s reworked a proposal that sounds eerily similar to the state Senate’s proposal that would allow one or more counties to band together and let voters decide on a sales-tax increase. Smith’s idea is based on districts in the state, however.

Check out here for more details.

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The state Senate Natural Resources and Environment Committee is scheduled to vote tomorrow on two of its famed “urgings,” wherein the General Assembly would vote as a whole to recommend the federal government take action on a certain issue.

The two tomorrow: A thoughtful request to the Environmental Protection Agency not to strengthen federal air-quality standards and a plea to the U.S. Congress that it amend the Endangered Species Act to exclude regions experiencing a drought.

Both urgings respectfully ask our federal overlords to do some bad, bad things.

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Remember those Jekyll Island bills I wrote about just the other day? Well, they’re dead, killed in a committee yesterday afternoon. In a packed hearing held in the catacombs of the state Capitol — in a room that is literally no larger or accommodating than an airport chapel — members of the state Senate Economic Development Committee voted to scrap the bills of state Sen. Jeff Chapman, R-Brunswick, which would have limited development and ensured availability of affordable units to visitors. The legislators who voted against the committee’s chucking of the bills were Democrats.

The meeting started off awkwardly enough when Sen. Chip Pearson, R-Dawsonville, coldly asked several anti-Linger Longer ladies to move from the first two rows in the tiny committee room to allow members of the Jekyll Island Authority, the governor-appointed board that oversees the state-protected barrier island, to sit down. “Is this the only room?” asked one of the ladies wearing “Save Jekyll Island” buttons. “This is all we got,” Pearson replied. “If you want to wait until next week, we can do that.” Not the best way to get things rolling.

Rep. Debbie Buckner, D-Junction City, has several bills speeding their way through the state House that are related to Jekyll Island. We’ll be following those.

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Received an e-mail from state Sen. David Shafer, R-Duluth, about his comments on the Senate floor regarding Chattanooga’s “ha-ha-why-don’t-you-try-conserving-before-you-gank-our-agua” shipment of bottled water. Big Chief say:

There is an ancient Indian proverb. Give a man a cup of water and you quench his thirst for an afternoon. Share in the waters of a great river and you quench his thirst for generations to come.

Today the City of Chattanooga delivered a pickup truck full of bottled water to the State Capitol. On behalf of the State Senate, I graciously accept this water as a down payment on the billions of gallons of Georgia water that feed the Tennessee River from the creeks and streams of Northwest Georgia.

I remain confident that border dispute between our two great states can be resolved in a neighborly fashion.

We’re all for cherry-picking ancient words of wisdom uttered by civilizations the White Man devastated, so here are some of our favorites, culled from a trustworthy and never-wrong source.

• “A good man does not take what belongs to someone else.” (Pueblo)
• “The frog does not drink up the pond in which he lives.” (Sioux)
• “We will be known forever by the tracks we leave.” (Dakota)
• “When a man moves away from nature his heart becomes hard.” (Lakota)
• “Only when the last tree has withered, the last fish has been caught, and the last river has been poisoned, will you realize you cannot eat money.” (Cree)

And my personal favorite:

• “White men have too many chiefs.” (Nez Perce)

Love ya!

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WHO BENEFITS? Critics say plans to build condos, hotels and a retail center may cut off this public beach from Jekyll’s day visitors.

Woe is Jekyll Island, the pristine beach getaway that has fallen into disrepair. Visitors across the state have voiced concerns about plans by a developer – and the actions of the governor-appointed Jekyll Island Authority that oversees the barrier island – to revitalize the state park.

Linger Longer Communities, a development company owned by two GOP cash cows – and fundraisers for presidential hopeful John McCain and potential veep Gov. Sonny Perdue – wants to build a “town center,” hotels and posh condos near a prized public beach.

What’s even more worrisome: Bills proposed by state Sen. Jeff Chapman, R-Brunswick, to protect the island from development have been stonewalled by members of his own party in a legislative committee. Sen. Chapman agrees that the island is in need of revamping, but says the process needs to be responsible and the result affordable for all Georgians.

“If they manage to stop or kill good legislation, then they’ll have a free hand to do anything they want,” Chapman says.

Chapman went on the offensive yesterday and slammed the authority for underreporting its revenues and visitor numbers. The authority’s critics have repeatedly claimed that the data it uses to show a sharp decline in visitors is misleading, noting that the statistics intentionally omitted season pass holders.

For more information, visit the Initiative to Protect Jekyll Island.

(Photo by Greg Lowery)

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Kind of.

Mayor Ron Littlefield of Chattanooga is sending down one of his aides — wearing a coonskin cap, of course — with a truckload of bottled water to the Georgia Capitol Wednesday. He’s also declared Feb. 28, 2008 as “Give Our Georgia Friends a Drink Day.”

Click here for more info.

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Stand Up DeKalb, a community advocacy group that most recently fought the controversial Sembler project at Briarcliff and North Druid Hills roads, is calling out its members to voice their opinion about the tax allocation district legislation that is quickly weaving its way through the General Assembly. Both the state House and Senate are working on bills that’ll address the issue. Critics of TADs say the financing method robs schools of funding. After the jump, Stand Up DeKalb’s release.

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Of the few politicians who write blogs, state Senate President Pro-Tem Eric Johnson does a great job — and I really mean that. Often times the posts legislators write are rambling or appear half-hearted. Sometimes they overuse exclamation points. Johnson writes these bizarrely captivating bullet-point posts about his day and the political process, what it means, and how it works. And believe it or not, they’re actually entertaining. This one yesterday really made me scratch my head, though. I have to wonder if our most recent Add It Up was his muse.

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I may have been a bit harsh Wednesday when I wrote about the General Assembly passing a resolution that called for a commission to investigate whether Georgia was robbed, thanks to the surveying foul-up of a UGA mathematician in 1818, of a claim to the Tennessee River. (Save me your “should’ve used a techie” jokes — this blog is not affiliated with any institute of higher education.)

In fact, yesterday on the Senate floor, after I handed my Creative Loafing card to state Sen. David Shafer, R-Duluth, one of the authors of the border-dispute bills, he said, “Yeah, one of your bloggers was having some fun with my resolution.” He called the post a “nasty-gram,” which I love.

“That was probably him,” said Greg Bluestein, a damn fine chap from the Associated Press who was standing nearby, referring to yours truly.

“Yep, that was me!” I said. “How are ya?”

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The state House Transportation Committee today approved a resolution 20-5 that would raise sales taxes by a penny statewide for transportation projects — and would amount to what legislators say is the largest tax increase in Georgia history. Legislators are now expected to negotiate with the Senate — whose local-option sales tax strategy passed earlier today — and hash up a resolution both chambers find suitable. If it makes it out of the Gold Dome, voters will have the final say in November.

But if last night’s committee was any indication, lawmakers will most likely chisel away at the plan before a full vote in the House.

The meeting — which ran three hours past schedule — was filled with questions and concerns from legislators, many who were nervous in an election year to tag a tax increase on to the same ballot where their own name would appear. (more…)

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The state House of Representatives followed the Senate’s lead this morning and voted 136-26 to pursue what some say is Georgia’s legal claim to water from the Tennessee River. The drought caused the desperation move, which all dates back to an 1818 surveying error that some legislators say botched the accurate location of where the border between Georgia and Tennessee should lie. The General Assembly also plans to exhume the body of the long-dead surveyor, shoot it into space, and then destroy the corpse with a missile. Kidding!

Damn those surveyors, always reading the latest issue of Hiawassee Gazette to see what covered-wagon racers’ wives were wearing at the Dahlonega 500. If you’re participating in a Civil War re-enactment this weekend, keep your eye on your bayonet. Legislators will be looking for weapons as they sally forth on their quest to reclaim what is rightfully ours! After all, stealin’ sho’ is easier than being responsible.

(Photo courtesy Stock Exchange)

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Proving that there is no fighting in the war room, the state Senate huddled up together and unanimously passed a resolution that would effectively make Georgia look like a bunch of fools and piss Tennessee off at the same time.

The resolution, introduced by Sen. David Shafer, R-Duluth, calls for a committee to study whether a 190-year-old surveying error mislabeled the border between the two states, and if so, what legal claims Georgia has to annex it. Why do we suddenly care? Legislators say the error robbed us of access to billions of gallons of rich water flowing through the Tennessee River.

State Rep. Harry Geisinger, R-Roswell, introduced a companion resolution in the House, which has yet to hear a vote. Word around the Capitol and in my gut says that’ll pass just as easily.

So there you have it. Solving the water crisis the General Assembly way: Committee your way into someone else’s land and stick a straw in their river.

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Number of registered lobbyists in Georgia, as of 2007: 1,492

Amount lobbyists spent on Valentine’s Day for legislators and their spouses last year: $16,000

Amount lobbyists spent in 2007 on meals, tickets, entertainment and other perks for legislators: $1.4 million

Amount spent during 2008 legislative session, as of press time: $311,620.58

Number of groups represented by lobbyists under the Gold Dome in 2007: 5,203

Ratio of lobbyists to legislators: 6:1

Georgia’s grade, out of 100, for lobbyist finance disclosure reports: 63

Georgia’s national rank in terms of disclosure reports: 18

Number of legislators who became lobbyists after leaving office, as of 2005: 41

Number of years a legislator has to “cool off” before going from public office to professional lobbyist: 1

Annual salary of Georgia legislator, excluding per diems and expense account: $17,341

Average monthly retainer paid to a business lobbyist by one company: $2,000-$6,000

Sources: The Center for Public Integrity, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Georgia Trend, State Ethics Commission

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