The Citizen Newsletter

The Conservative Voice of Henry County

Issue # 347

May 21, 2012

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COMMUNITY HIGHLIGHT

In This Issue:
Page Feature

2 2 3 3 5 5 6 7 7 7 8 10 10

GOP Nullifies 13th Dist. Convention Henry County Farmers Market Asa Brown Calls BS Paul Broun Bus Tour NAIFA Special Needs Tournament Race to Nowhere Henry Gets $115.5 M Budget Henry Master Gardeners Tour Henry Cuts 190 Teachers Vote NO on T-SPLOST Danny Dukes Cherokee BoE Chair Chambliss Supports T-SPLOST Moving Forward on Education

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Georgia GOP Throws Out 13th District Convention

By Joanie Scott at Proof of Right
HTTP://PROOFOFRIGHT.WORDPRESS.COM/2012/05/

chairman read a list of total voting strength for each county, which included alternates seated by the credentials committee. The Appeals Committee concluded unanimously that proper procedures were not followed in establishing the 13th District Convention and significant rules violations call into question the validity of the election of 13th District delegates and alternates to the Republican national Convention. The Appeals Committee recommended to the State Republican Convention that The 13th District Convention be declared null and void. That a new 13th District Convention for the sole purpose of electing delegates and alternates be held under the supervision of the Georgia Republican Party.

20/GEORGIA-GOP-THROWS-OUT-13TH-DISTRICTCONVENTION/

GEORGIA REPUBLICAN PARTY ON APPEALS

COMMITTEE

On April 16, certain delegates to the 13th Congressional District Republican Convention filed an Appeal of the conduct of that Convention held on April 14, 2012. The Appeal, along with 15 supporting exhibits, alleged 10 violations of State Party Rules, the State Call and Robert s Rules of Order in the selection of delegates and voting procedures at the Convention. Acting under Republican Rule 20 and State Party Rules 8.4(B) and 6.3, the Committee on Appeals undertook an investigation of the Appeal. A review of the credentials committee found a number of significant irregularities involved in the seating of alternates. A review of the Respondent-supplied video of the convention revealed that two duly elected delegates and three alternates were removed from the convention floor at the direction of the convention chairman in violation of specific provisions of Robert s Rules of Order. One delegate seated for Henry County had moved from Henry County to Newton County and registered to vote in Newton County 3 days before the Henry Convention and a month before the 13th District Convention. That individual was seated improperly as a delegate to the 13th District Convention. Fayette County, which was allocated 5 delegates had seven delegates seated. A proper credentials report was not presented to the convention for adoption. The convention

Henry County Farmers Market

Sponsored by Henry County 4-H

Heritage Park in the Arena, 97 Lake Dow Road, McDonough GA Buy fresh produce and meet local producers Fresh vegetables, Crafts, Baked goods, Icecream, Honey, Jellies, Fruit Thursdays from 2:00pm 6:00pm

May 31 thru September 27, 2012 For information call 770-288-8421

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Irresponsible Buffoons
After reading the County s version of the budget problem I have come to the conclusion that we the citizens have hired a bunch of buffoons to represent us on the BOC. Just why are we in this mess, because the BOC went on a spending spree years ago. They bought a fake battlefield we did not need, they bought a golf course we did not need, they bought a bunch of land to build a police training center that we did not need, and of course they bought some land for soccer park we did not need and it turned out to be a swamp. They refused to cut their pay to the new Sheriff s pay, as they are to do when he took office. They have wasted Thousands on studies to try and fix the problem and we still have the problem. And at the height of all this they go out and buy a dilapidated Airport we do not need and dump money to fix it up saying it will save us all, I call BULL on this. Oh by the way in the middle of all this they tell 57 employees buy don t need you anymore cause we want to buy this airport, it is more important than you and your families to us. That is what the Chairman was thinking as she cried on camera and on cue for letting you go. Now the BOC is trying to find $10 Million to get the budget balanced and they are cutting anything they can to do it. But they are up to their old tricks again. What they truly want to do is raise the Mil on property taxes so they can have more money to play and buy more crappy stuff we don t need. Oh they make it look like they are cutting their pay but look at $35,000 for a part time job come on folks that is highway robbery. And the Chair only cut by 5% again robbing us into the poor house. Now it has come out that they only have enough money to repave 10 Miles of roads this year because the DOT budget has bottomed out. This is one of the County s main responsibilities to the citizens and they have admitted they can t do it. It is very important that we vote new people into the BOC, the buffoons we have now have failed and have admitted it by appointing a citizen budget panel to help them, in other words the kitchen is too hot for them so it our responsibility to get them out!! The budget panel was hand picked by the Commissioners of people who will always say yes to them. Folks the County is in bad shape this we know and we know how and why we got this way the BOC did it to us. What can we do to fix the problem besides voting them out of office? Well I see two ways and they are drastic but the BOC did a great job of putting us in this situation.

Plan one is get the new BOC in place and file bankruptcy and admit we can t pay our bills because of the old BOC was irresponsible with our tax money. We would not need to worry about our bond rating because we would not need to borrow money because the new BOC would make it clear if we can t afford it we don t get it until we have the money. In other words we would have a true conservative BOC and not a BOC that just says they are and spend like a drunken sailor. Plan two is to split the County in two and make a new County, this would reduce the land mass that each would have to care for and it would split resources so as to make each County more responsible and conservative. The voters would have more impact on elections than they do now. True conservatives are out voted now by the liberal money wasting buffoons we have in office now. Asa Brown

Broun Bus Tour to Kick Off 2012 Campaign

U.S. Congressman Paul Broun, M.D. next week will tour all twenty-five counties of the newly drawn 10thCongressional District as he kicks off his campaign for reelection to Congress. Broun will travel the district by bus on Monday, May 21st through Friday, May 25th. All members of the public and press are encouraged to meet with Congressman Broun at any of the following rallies and meetings:

Monday, May 21
8:30 am The Body Shop of Athens/Jittery Joe s Coffee, 2950 Atlanta Highway, Athens 10:15 am Harris Shoals Park, Harris Shoals Drive, Watkinsville 12:00 pm Spotlight Theatre, 1050 Parkside Main, Greensboro

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2:15 pm Taliaferro County Farm Bureau, 109 Alexander Street, NW, Crawfordville 3:30 pm Knox Theater, 311 Norwood Street, Warrenton 5:00 pm Ogeechee River Wild Hog BBQ in Downtown Mitchell Enjoy wild hog and hot dogs with the entire family!

11:30 am Gwinnett County GOP Headquarters, 46 South Clayton Street, Lawrenceville 12:45 pm Kellie s Home Cooking, 4555 Atlanta Highway, # D, Loganville 3:30 pm Historic Walton County Courthouse, Corner of N. Broad & W. Spring streets, Downtown Monroe

Tuesday, May 22 Friday, May 25

8:30 am Huddle House, 306 U.S. Highway 1 Bypass, Louisville 10:45 am Johnson County Farm Bureau, 6570 East College Street, Wrightsville 12:00 pm Fox's Pizza Den, 147 East Church Street, Sandersville 1:30 pm Lot Across from Sparta Baptist Church, 9090 E. Broad Street, Sparta 2:45 pm Putnam County Square, Downtown Eatonton 4:00 pm Georgia's Old Capitol Museum, 201 E. Greene Street, Milledgeville 8:00 am Oglethorpe County Board of Commissioners, 341 W. Main Street, Lexington 10:00 am Bell s Food Market, 110 N. Peachtree Street, Lincolnton 12:00 pm The Square, Downtown Washington 2:45 pm Thomson Depot, 149 Main Street, Thomson 5:30 pm Columbia County Justice Center (Front Lawn), 640 Ronald Reagan Drive, Evans

Wednesday, May 23
12:00 pm Henry Town Center, 1772 Jonesboro Road, McDonough 1:30 pm United Bank, 150 Covington Street, Jackson 3:00 pm The Square, Downtown Monticello 4:30 pm Newton County GOP Headquarters (next to Square Perk Caf), 1107 Church Street, Covington

Thursday, May 24
8:00 am Ye Olde Colonial Restaurant, 108 E. Washington Street, Madison 10:00 am Winder Community Center Pavilion, 113 E. Athens Street, Winder

CLICK HERE to support the campaign:

HTTPS://WWW. PAYPAL.COM/CGI-BIN/WEBSCR?CMD=_SXCLICK&HOSTED_BUTTON_ID=FAWN7D2NX4QHW

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NAIFA Special Needs Golf Tournament

Attached are some pictures taken Thursday, May 10, 2012 at the NAIFA - Southern Crescent 17th Annual Golf Tournament for the benefit of People First of Henry County, our special needs community. Some of our special needs people came out to help with the Tournament putting together goody bags for the golfers, helping pick the door prize winners and helping with the presentation of the trophies. A great time was had by all and the outing was a huge success. Thank you to all the golfers who supported this Tournament as well as the sponsors and volunteers.

Race to Nowhere
After attending a seminar last week at the University of Michigan, educators were shown the film The Race to Nowhere. The film was a narrative that included testimonials from individual teenage students across the United States and the extensive homework demands that are placed upon them every day. While we all know that homework is good for every student in appropriate amounts, there is also great concern when we see that it can be in excess. Three to four hours of homework every night is destroying the ability for our teenagers to become wellrounded citizens as they move forward in their high school years. Teenagers should be able to partake in extra-curricular activities, playing a high school sport, or enjoy a family dinner, without the stress of having to stay up until 1:00 or 2:00 a.m. in the morning in order to complete voluminous homework assignments. Recent case studies have shown that anxiety and depression have increased in teenage students lives by 25%, due to rigorous educational demands; while self-medicating with the use of focus enhancing drugs, such as Adderall and Ritalin, has increased by 32%. Students cite that the drugs are used to help them keep up with the enormous workload that is placed upon them, in the competitive academic environment that exists in their high school.

Front row: Pam Copeland, Paige Copeland, Connie Dodgen, Tasha Wall, Melissa Dodgen, Eleanor Toppins Back row: Larry Rape and Thacher Emory

Golfer Representative Steve Davis, Tanya Thrasher & Kathy Toreno.

Melissa Dodgen with Eleanor Toppins

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Please take a moment to review the following link HTTP://CTS.VRESP.COM/C/?REELLINKFILMS/937A F4DB9C/9BF2780BD7/F9B31F489F and if you are in agreement, sign the petition to ask educators to revisit the current curriculum status and incorporate a change for realistic homework parameters for our students. Make a difference in the life of a child and take the time to review this very important petition. Lorraine L. Pascasio Educational Consultant

Our county suffers from being a bedroom community. We do not have the ability to attract manufacturing or professional types of jobs. Henry is subjected to the mindset we are only good for warehouses. ~~~

Geoffrey Cauble said:

Henry County Commissioner's approve a 115.5 million dollar budget creating a 10 million dollar deficit (expected revenues for the period are 105.5 million). The announcement references cuts across every department but fails to mention that the approved budget is an increase of 3.1 million over last years budget. In face of falling revenues, Henry County Commissioners continue vote to increase spending. ~~~

Commissioners Propose $115.5 Million Budget

The Henry County budget for FY2012-13 has raised many eyebrows. Below are some comments:

Blind Mice

The Hack Line

HTTP://CHARLESMOBLEY.WORDPRESS.COM/2012/05

Larry Stanley said

We started at $112 M in the current budget and expect a $10 million delta in revenues for 2012-13. They increased the budget by $3M. Instead of responsibly raising the millage only to maintain the current lifestyle, they added to it. You and I cannot do that with our own budgets. Raising taxes to include pay raises - buying votes in my book - does not bode well for stewards of the public treasury. Hiking taxes t spend more money does not make the original deficit go away. It is only hidden under higher taxes. ~~~

/18/BLIND-MICE/

The Henry County, GA budget shortfall is not just a product of the times, it s a failure of the commissioners to position the county as the place for business to grow and flourish. The earth did not open up and create a $10 million hole overnight. Waiting to the last months to address the problem is not the solution. Proactive financial management is needed, not wait and let s see what our digest is before we act.

Christi Conner Tate said

People understand that something needs to give. I look around and wonder how it is
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that Forsyth County delivers all it does with the lowest tax rate in the State. In Henry County, it is difficult to see what taxpayers get for their money. ~~~

Henry to reduce teaching force

Henry Daily Herald

Charles Mobley said

Spending what is not there will create a $10 million dollar gap. The county manager and commissioners fail to shrink government excesses and create a multimillion dollar hole.

Henry County Schools teaching body is expected to be lighter by as many as 190 educators for the next school year. School officials are trimming the school district s teaching force in order to realize a cost savings of more than $11 million in salaries and benefits. However, the workforce reduction is being done without pink slips, according to Valerie Suessmith, Henry s assistant superintendent of human resource services. Suessmith said several positions will be eliminated from contracts that have not been renewed by teachers, while a few eliminated positions will be the result of renewal contracts that were not offered to teachers. Hildreth said the district s staffing levels in the future will be commensurate with student enrollment numbers and state guidelines. The school district, in recent years, has been granted state waivers on class-size maximums to mitigate revenue shortfalls. It also has seen slight declines in student enrollment since 2010, following a decade of exponential growth. Enrollment peaked at more than 40,000 students. Suessmith projects that the district s staffing will include 1,761 certified classroom teachers for next school year. To learn more, visit WWW.HENRY.K12.GA.US.

Henry County Master Gardeners' Garden Tour 9-3:00 p.m. rain or shine on Saturday, June 2nd. We have five exceptional gardens on display, all located in Henry County. Ticket prices are $10 (for the five gardens) and may be purchased at all Moye s Pharmacies; Eagles Landing Pharmacies in Stockbridge and Locust Grove; the Henry County Extension Office; Wilson Bros. Nursery; G Designs, 3359 Jodeco Road, Jonesboro; Steers Restaurant, in McDonough; and Duncan's Landscaping, 9280 Turner Road, Jonesboro.

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This July 31st Georgia voters will head to the polls to vote on a proposed regional transportation sales tax. Politicians from both major political parties are salivating at the idea of yet another funding source for their Soviet-style centralized planning schemes. And it seems that the upcoming transportation tax has one benefit -exposing the big government, pro-tax RINOs in our midst. Please come out and quiz transportation tax apologist and Cherokee County Commissioner L.B. (Buzz) Ahrens, Jr. this Tuesday about why he supports "the largest tax increase in Georgia history" [1]. What: T-SPLOST Debate When: Tuesday, May 22nd @ 6PM Where: 1130 Bluffs Parkway, Canton, GA 30114 Map and Directions: http://g.co/maps/nwabb Debating Mr. Ahrens will be Steve Brown, Fayette County Commissioner, who opposes the transportation tax. Here are some questions you may want to ask Mr. Ahrens: 1. The TSPLOST projects list has some ultra-expensive projects that are only partially funded. Does the region plan to build a quarter of these projects and leave them unfinished and

useless? Or, if the region plans to complete these projects, how will they be paid for without coming back to taxpayers for even larger future tax increases? 2. Some of these projects will require large future operating and maintenance costs with no identified long term future funding source to pay for these expenses. How can these expenses be paid without additional large future tax increases? 3. The pro-TSPLOST people keep trying to scare people into voting for the TSPLOST by saying that there is no "Plan B," bu the TIA legislation provides that if any region votes against the tax, the region can then put together a better projects list and bring it back to the voters in 2 years. Isn't that a Plan B? Please make every effort to get the pro-tax folks on record. Try to video record the exchange and post it on-line if at all possible. ~~~ The GRTA study recommended bus service that would use HOV lanes to take them closer to the city s core instead of light rail or other types of transit, according to news accounts and GRTA study documents. (The bus service never launched. It morphed into a project to build special "reversible lanes" that switch their direction of travel depending on the time of day. Drivers will pay a toll to use them to get around traffic jams.) We pay a NEW TAX to build "reversible lanes" and then we pay a toll to use them. NO WIN

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Dukes said having the highest performing school district in Georgia can be achieved without raising taxes. Dukes said he finds the county graduation rate, 73rd among 182 systems evaluated, alarming. Meanwhile the Cherokee Board of Education has repeatedly raised property taxes with little to show for it. Additionally, the board has also engaged in a very public fight with families and community leaders. Dukes said he pledges to work with families and community leaders to solve problems by refocusing energies on education and finding common ground.

Dukes to challenge Read for school board chair

The Cherokee Ledger-News Local businessman Danny Dukes has announced his campaign for Cherokee County School Board Chairman. He will face current BOE Vice Chair Janet Read. He said his platform includes eliminating all teacher furloughs by reducing a bloated central office, taking steps to cut the county dropout rate in half, and never voting for a tax increase. During the last few weeks, I have discovered a groundswell of support for a true conservative as Cherokee County School Board chair, Dukes said. Parents, teachers, community leaders and citizens share my sincere passion for the children of our county. We all deserve a school board with positive, collaborative energy and an effective leader who works for solutions based on conservative principles.

When elected school board chair, I can guarantee the working relationship between this school board and others will be repaired immediately, he said, referring to the controversy in the county surrounding charter schools and state funding. He is owner of Danny F. Dukes and Associates, a financial consulting firm and is a licensed certified public accountant. A Georgia native and a resident of Cherokee for 10 years, he is a member of the Rotary Club of Cherokee County and the Cherokee County Republican Party. He graduated from Mercer University and then received his master s degree in business administration in accounting from Georgia College State University. Dukes and his wife, Jeanie, have a son, Alex, who was a member of the first graduating class of Creekview High School, and is now a senior at Shorter University.

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Senator Chambliss Supports TSPLOST

The solution, Chambliss says, is in terms of tax reform, but with much more revenue. He thinks the transportation sales tax referendum-- which will be on Georgia ballots in July-- is one way to do that. Hence his nickname, Suxby Shameless. So called conservatives pitching for growing government and creating new taxes... Last summer, Chambliss grabbed headlines as part of Congress' so-called Gang of Six, tasked with reaching a compromise on the national debt ceiling crisis.

unconstitutional. This left tens of thousands of students in limbo. In addition, it was a major setback for Georgia in its quest to improve the quality of education in our state by affording parents and students more choices for a better education. In order to overrule the Georgia Supreme Court, voters must actually amend Georgia s constitution. To amend Georgia s constitution, a super-majority of both the House and Senate (2/3rds) must vote for the proposed amendment. At times, it appeared that special interests focused on preventing state chartered schools might block the amendment. But, in the end, House Resolution 1162 did pass with the help of influential Georgia Democrats in the Georgia Senate. Republicans overwhelmingly favored the resolution in both Houses. Now, Georgia voters will have the final say in November. Georgia legislators did not stop there in trying to improve education in Georgia. In addition, the Legislature passed House Bill 175, which establishes a clearinghouse of online learning courses. It will be managed by the Georgia Virtual School (GAVS) at the Department of Education. It permits all Georgia counties to benefit from the courses developed by some of the larger and better resourced school systems around the state. Over 100,000 students could benefit from this change in just a few years. In taking this another step forward, Senate Bill 289 directs the State Board of Education to increase high school digital learning resources by the Fall of 2014 so that the courses are ready for current sixth graders when they get to high school. The bottom line is that the Georgia legislature took big steps to make sure that education in Georgia continues moving into the computerized/digitized 21st century.

Moving Forward on Education

J. Randolph Evans Column No. 1121 Certainly, no discussion of the 2012 General Assembly could happen without mentioning the significant impact of the Georgia Tea Party efforts. Indeed, on multiple occasions, the Tea Party s ability to mobilize citizens and volunteers helped steer the evolution of legislation, and make sure that other legislation stayed on track. Against this backdrop, here are some of the things that the 2012 Georgia General Assembly got done. First, the General Assembly, in a bipartisan vote, took the first step in giving Georgians the opportunity to overrule the Georgia Supreme Court on the issue of charter schools. The Georgia Supreme Court had ruled that a statute permitting the state charter of schools was

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