Fresh Loaf

Obama anger is alive and well in Harris County, Ga., home of Callaway Gardens and…uhm…let’s get on with the story.

In response to the recent federal bail-out of General Motors and Chrysler, the Harris County Commission tomorrow will vote on a proclamation that calls for a boycott of the automakers’ products and urges other Georgia counties to follow suit.

Penned by Commissioner Charles Wyatt, the proclamation says the bail-out “will result in a heavy burden upon future generations of citizens of the United States” and “is not in the best interest of the United States or the State of Georgia.”

It goes on to say the county will not purchase any GM or Chrysler vehicles and urges the other 158 Georgia counties to “join us in sending a message to Atlanta, Georgia, and Washington, DC, of strong voices of unity against this recent action by the Federal Government.” It then “prays” the Association County Commissioners of Georgia (that’s not a typo, the organization only has one “of” in its name) “will stand with us.”

State Sen. Emanuel Jones, D-Decatur, and representatives from GM and ACCG, and Harris County workers employed by the automakers will attend tomorrow night’s meeting to urge the commissioners not to pass the proclamation. Cars are near and dear to Jones’ heart — he’s an auto dealer himself.

Judging that there are about five working journalists in Georgia at the moment, the event’s not likely to receive much attention. But it’s worth noting, simply because we love it when our down-South brethren introduce legislation like this.

UPDATE – Commissioner Wyatt says why he introduced the proclamation after the jump.

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Town Brookhaven: The Rendering

In a little under three hours, state Rep. Mike Jacobs, D R-North DeKalb, will lead a town hall meeting to discuss the pros and cons of giving the mighty Sembler Co. a free ride on county taxes so its massive Town Brookhaven complex doesn’t go bust.

The irony, of course, is that many people in and around Brookhaven didn’t want the ginormous project — with 600,000 square feet of retail space and more than 1,500 residential units — in the first place. Now that development has started, those same homeowners are faced with the prospect of bailing out the project or be left with a huge patch of empty mud.

But let’s stay focused on the future, shall we? Tonight’s 7 p.m. meeting is in the Fellowship Hall of Chamblee United Methodist Church at 4147 Chamblee Dunwoody Road. According to Jacobs:

We will discuss the mechanics of the tax abatement and ways that you can make sure you have a voice in whether it goes forward. In addition, Sembler will make a 15-minute presentation to give you their perspective on the proposal.

Having a voice in the decision might not be so easy. Jacobs points out that the appointed DeKalb Development Authority has sole discretion in granting a tax abatement — rather than the elected county commission or the county school board, which directly represent the entities that would lose the tax income.

The type of arrangement Sembler is proposing even has a squirrely name, “phantom bond deal” — Sembler would deed the project over to the development authority for 20 years, which would lease it back to the company. Because the project would be owned by a county authority, it would no longer be subject to property taxes, although Sembler would still be responsible for paying off the construction loans.

Jacobs says two aspects of the proposal worry him. If Sembler gets a bailout, that would open the door for other embattled developers to lobby for the same deal. And, secondly: “If the projections don’t work out, we’ve just blown a gaping hole in the county tax digest.”

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How’s that for a headline, eh?

Tomorrow night at the Capitol, thousands of people will gather as part of the Atlanta Tea Party, one of more than 500 scheduled on Tax Day. There, outside one of the most beautiful and useless buildings in the state, the crowd will complain about something that’s been going on for years — gross misuse of taxpayer dollars and business-as-usual politics. Emceeing this affair will be Sean Hannity, Fox News’ angriest white man.

Turns out Hannity and some of the various dignitaries who’ve signed on for the event might not get the warmest of welcomes. A tipster tells us that some members of the state Libertarian Party — have they gone rogue?!? — have printed more than 600 signs that scold the talk show host and politicians for turning their heads during Bush-era bank bailouts and excessive spending. (Even if you disagree with their policies, Libertarians have an incredible sense of humor. The Allen Buckley radio ads during the U.S. Senate race gave that grueling contest a much-needed jolt of excitement.)

(UPDATE: Just spoke with Daniel Adams, chairman of the Libertarian Party of Georgia. He wanted to stress that these signs were made by individual party members and not endorsed or approved by the party. Adams says the state party is co-sponsoring Atlanta’s April 15 protest to show support for the grassroots movement that’s organized these events. He says the website listed on the signs is a mirrored site belonging to the national party, not that of the state’s.)

The aforementioned tipster was kind enough to pass along PDFs of the signs, which I’ve posted after the jump. You can download them all here. Print ‘em out and join the crowd! It’ll be fun!
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"What'll it be today, guv'nor?" (Photo by Joeff Davis)

• All that rain isn’t for naught. Tornado watch issued for the metro Atlanta area.
• I don’t think you can get more corrupt than Guv. Rod Blagojevich, but hey, they can keep trying!
• So first the Obama camp had talked to Blago about President-elect Obama’s seat, but then no, they really didn’t … Well, turns out Obama himself may have had hand in bringing down the Guv.
• Congress nears a bailout for the automakers … and here’s a message from the automakers to you.
• … And Saturn owners are feeling a little lonely all of a sudden.
• Scary: ‘Hitler was the perfect boss’: Former maid breaks her silence on the ‘charming’ dictator
• The slow crawl of justice … Plaintiffs in the Exxon Valdez spill case just now begin to receive payments.
• Hide the children … well, it won’t matter … Google expands Street view … $10 bucks sez you can find yourself somewhere.

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Not going to city hall, he's going down the street to CNN's Headline News (Image courtesy Clark Howard)

A heaping helping of news headlines from me exclusively to you; cuz that’s just how I aggregate…

• Clark Howard isn’t running for mayor, he’s got far more important things to do, like, hosting his own show on CNN’s Headline News.
• Another spoonful of schadenfreude courtesy Atlanta Magazine’s Steve Fennessey. I bet CL’s bad news is just making nice with their web traffic (no hard feelings, Steve, ours too).
• Speaking of which, are we to be in good company(?): Tribune Co. is considering filing for bankruptcy protection.
• Remember when gas was just a buck fifty a gallon? Yea actually, I just paid $1.39 last night…
• Should hospitals follow patients through Twitter? Sure, until they discover patients can block them … (and you should follow us instead).
• Well that was quick: Pakistan arrests suspected Mumbai terror plotter.
• Democrats want to give automakers a bailout, but with strings attached: they want a seven-person board to oversee the companies’ restructuring. They call it, the “auto board.”
  
• President-elect Barack Obama was on Meet the Press yesterday and reiterated the need to save the auto industry, but said it should be “conditioned on an auto industry emerging at the end of the process that actually works.” The cynic in me asks, “what about oversight to the financial industry?”
• Barry Cooper is your new BFF.
• And from one morning newsdome to another morning briefing, say hello to the Mother Nature Network.

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