E-mail topic: What do people think about lots of candidates for elected office NOT answering questions from the newspaper??

Position holders (current officials ) seem particularly likely NOT to respond.

Reader Suggested Topic: Lets dicuss the school board!

People seem to have many different opinions about this subject.

Reader Suggested Topic: GCHS School Resource Officer

The City of Pulaski is considering eliminating the SRO from Giles County High School after Kyle Helton assumes duties as sheriff. What do you think?

E-mail topic: Do you feel protected and safe with city and/or county law enforcement protection?

Email topic: Tornado warnings

I would like to suggest a topic on why Pulaski/Giles County doesn't have tornado sirens. Alot of people who might not have a TV/radio, etc, would greatly benefit from this, as well as all others. I think this would be a lifesaver and very valuable.

Why is the Ambulance Service Director the only depatrment head appointed not elected?

Maybe someone needs to be elected that knows how to run the place. Or maybe we should just give the ambulance service to its employees, allowing them to run it like any other ordinary business. (See my comments regarding the Taj Mahal school office building for the details of this sort of privatization.)

Email topic: County budget requests for fuel

Quoting Penny Thoughts: I am just wondering what everyone thinks about the additional $ that everyone in county government is requesting for Gasoline? I know there are a LOT of county vehicles that are allowed to be driven to employees homes each day and night, but the county pays for that personal gasoline usage. It's like county employees who have county vehicles don't need a personal vehicle because the county provides one for them, complete with gasoline.

Opportunity knocks!

The "Giles Two Cents Worth" blog is still up. (For how long, nobody but Penny Thoughts knows.) NOW is the time to copy your best remarks from Penny's site to this one. Once the old site goes down, it will likely be gone for good. So the time to act, is now...

Anyone who wants an appropriate topic posted, before doing the copy and paste job of migrating their comments, need only e-mail me with a request for a topic. But hurry!

Taxes, taxes, taxes...

Is any Tennessee county taxed higher than Giles, given the paltry amount of services delivered? And is there anything we can do about it, short of holding a "necktie party" for the current officeholders in the County Commission and School Board? Answers, please.

The Financial Management Act...

It was deep sixed by the Commissioners. Will the voters give it a chance in the August election? And then (hah hah) will federal judges actually allow the voter's decision to be final, or will they veto the results, as usual?

Hey Candidates! Want unlimited space to post your platform/promises/whatever?

Then post them here! No restrictions on length, content, anything. Just 100% free speech, at no cost to you...

That "Taj Mahal" school central office building...

...should we build it? Will it really only cost $1,400,000? And do we need "centrally managed" schools, in the first place? Why don't we just give the school system to the teachers, and let them run it themselves? We could do this by incorporating each school as a private business, and then giving the stock shares, pro-rated based on salary, to the teachers, principal, and staff of each school. Then the parents could send their kids to whatever school they liked the best, subsidized, if need be, by funds from the county.

Homeschooling moms, all by their lonesome, and without degrees in education, generally do a fine job of picking a curriculum, and teaching it effectively. Could we expect any less from Giles County's pool of highly qualified teachers, if cut free from Tee Jackson and crew, and allowed to simply do their job as they see best?

And look at how much more money the teachers could be pocketing! With an average class size of thirty kids, and a (hypothetical) tuition of $5,000 per year, the gross pulled in by each classroom would be $150,000! Granted, some of that would go to pay for the principal, teaching aides, and utilities, but this would still leave most of the money, certainly at least a hundred grand, for the individual teacher. And, as the teacher of a private school, they'd be able to enforce actual discipline, unfettered by stupid court rulings that apply only to government run schools. I predict that, under my proposed reform, the teachers, kids, and parents would all be better off, and that test scores would soar.

On the other hand, without all that money going to bureaucratic overhead, Tee Jackson and his merry band of administrators would have to find something useful to do with their time. So, there is that one downside...

Reader request topic: Firing of Richland Coach & Teacher

This topic ruffled a whole turkey full of feathers. Should Miss McMasters be investigated by the school board?

Post your "greatest hits" from the original blog here.

There are several hours left to cut and paste, from one blog to another, your favorite comments. So, get busy!

E-mail topic: Should the County Ambulance Service be giving 'free rides' as they currently are to County employees ??

That Service writes-off hundreds of thousands of $$ each year due to their unsatisfactory recovery processes against patients and their insurance companies -reported regularly in the local newspaper. Maybe it is time to sell this service to a private contractor who can run it without cost to local Property Tax payers?

E-mail topic: Looking back over the last four years in Giles County government...

...what positive effects do voters and taxpayers see coming from the County Executive or any of the 21 members of the County Commissioners Court?

E-mail topic: What do people think about the previous blog being closed down due to adverse reaction from some woman running for an elected position ?

Will this action cause voters to change their vote away from this person ? Did they in effect 'shoot themselves in the foot ' by being so volatile ? Does Giles Co need thin-skinned elected officials making decisions for us ?

Let's talk about zoning!

I can't be the only one that is interested in this subject, right?

Who needs another free speech blog?

We, the people of Giles County, do. Now that Penny Thoughts has been harrassed by a disgruntled politician, and is closing up shop, I thought I'd try and fill in the vacuum caused by his departure. And my first thought was, well, I already have a website I'm not using for much of anything, so I'll simply buy some blogging software, and host it right there. Then, I got to realizing that it might take me several weeks just to pick out and learn to use the "right" software, while "Blogspot" offerered an instant solution to my problem...

So, the "Giles Free Speech Zone" follows in the footsteps of Penny Thoughts in more ways than one. But, perhaps, once I run into the limitations that Penny Thoughts often complained about, I'll go the more elaborate "buy software and host it myself" way. In the meantime, what I have here should work at least as well as what Penny Thoughts used. (It's the same software and hosting, after all.)

I do expect to run things a little bit differently than Penny, however. I got really sick and tired of all the "anonymous" comments on GTCW, and I plan to simply delete anyone who posts anonymously on this blog. Well, that's what I'll do after a week or two of "phasing in." And afterwards, people will still be free to post anonymously--- they'll simply have to post under a ficticious handle. Does anyone remember the glory days of citizen's band radio? Well, this blog will work kind of like that.

I'm also open to suggestions about topics and blog management. I really do want to make this an even better blog than the original that I'm copying, so reader input is strongly encouraged!