Commission Votes To Not Allow Recess Of Charter Commission

The request was made by the Charter Committee to seek approval from the County Legislative Body to allow the Charter Committee to recess until April of next year and present their Charter at that time instead of this April. The purpose of the recess was to allow Charter Members to hold community meetings to discuss and seek ideas about the proposed Charter for the County, make additions, deletions and clarifications based on the input from the citizens.

The resistance to this recess was voiced strongest by perhaps the most anti-charter member in the room, commissioner Campbell who even opposed allowing the Chairman of the Committee, an elected official, to even address the Commissioners.
Commissioner Campbell, who erected a sign in the Courthouse expressing his great opposition to citizens having a say in their government. "Your County Has Existed For 200 Years on General Law", basically why change anything now when I'm so happy with no progress.
Commissioner Campbell also added, in his speech against the Charter, that, "People BORN in Giles County wonder why this Charter thing is even necessary.

I will respond to that comment Commissioner Campbell by stating that many of the people not born here and many born here have lived outside the county at times and have experienced life where there was opportunity to get a job based on what you knew not who you knew; enjoyed the benefits of having elected and appointed officials, certainly there are many outstanding public servants in the county but there are also some real stinkers, who did not treat them like servants; who know what makes a county progress and create jobs for the generation coming behind them instead of having to watch them leave for other areas; they've seen the difference between competency and lazy, willful incompetency and are not willing to settle for the incompetency anymore. People are dissatisfied with having to continually pay the ever increasing bills without having any say in how those bills are created. General law was fine 200 years ago but, in spite of your not noticing, the world has changed and much of what worked 200 years ago just don't cut it anymore.

Has The County Outgrown It's 9-1-1 Center?

Has The County Outgrown It's 9-1-1 Center? That was the headline below the fold in the front page of the Pulaski Citizen 22 March 2011.

According to the paper the 9-11 Board of Directors discussed a problem with the current system. According to the Ambulance Director the current system requires callers to give their information to 9-1-1 operators and then seconds later to EMS when the call is transferred. The "simplest solution to the problem is to hire four or five more dispatchers, except the 9-1-1 call center doesn't have room to accommodate any more personnel".
Surely the math wizards in local government can find a couple more million dollars to build a new facility and meet the payroll of the extended staff. I mean what's two million more dollars in a budget that is every bit as out of balance as the federal government and they can find more ways to keep spending.

Here's a novel idea, why not cross train the current 9-1-1 operators as most other counties have done? The second thought is since any calls transferred to EMS would necessarily be an emergency why take time to get details again. The basic information should be relayed to EMS, who are prepared for all emergencies, in route. Be assured no matter how many times information is given to people everyone who comes into direct contact will require it be repeated to them. I can not recall the number of times I attended an emergency call with no idea of the nature other than the most basic. Information, regardless of what has been shared previously has to be repeated to the medic on scene.
Have you ever been to the Emergency Room and counted how many times you give the same information to different people?

To me, this idea seems more in tune with a group of folks with less to do than to talk about. The necessity, based on the information available at this time is simply absurd and a waste of money with little or no benefits. There should be no consideration at this time to either increase the staff or the facilities of the 9-1-1 system.

Request to Exempt Citizens From State Inspections

During the January Legislative Meeting the Commissioners, based on some very, very faulty and misleading information presented by the County Executive and a couple of her most trusted cohorts, voted to give full authority to the state to inspect all new construction for its energy efficiency. It was clearly stated by the state that this was only the first part of implementing a full inspection fee program that would eventually add several thousand dollars to all new construction including small home improvements and additions.

After much investigating by some responsible commissioners and the assurance, from those who approve the grants, that the program would have no effect on grants or loans from the state the matter was to be re-voted on. Because of degeneration of the spine and the lack of active brain cells in some commissioners, who simply stated that the facts of the matter did not matter, they voted to take more personal freedom from the individual citizens and put it in the hands of bureaucrats in Nashville.

Commissioner Campbell justified his support for this intrusive action by saying, "this isn't zoning. Take government money you play by their rules". While this isn't zoning it's certainly a big step toward it. Twenty two other counties have opted out of this program because of its expensive intrusion into citizen's lives and there is no connection between this program and receiving state grants.
Commissioner Reedy offered this observation, "the inspection program is needed to get us to a more energy efficient level with government. The $5,000.00 initial cost will be recovered in energy savings in five years". While this may sound good where are the unbiased statistics to support such a claim. I know that in my own house to save $5,000.00 on energy in five years would require cutting my energy use by more than half. Here's the thing every time, every single time people have cut back their energy use the rates have increased so that the same level of income will be maintained at the utility providers, so how do you realistically save anything?
I do commend Commissioner Coleman for having the will to change her vote after becoming aware of the State's true position.

Legislative Meeting 21 March 2011

Several items of business was conducted in the March Legislative Meeting.
Among those items of business were the following:

1) Appointment of an Audit Committee with one member from each district consisting of Commissioners Cary, Pope, Adams, Beech, Holt, Houston and Coleman. Commissioner Holt is the chairman, Houston the Vice Chair, and Cary the Secretary. This committee will have responsibility to identify and implement any needed changes involving audits of various departments.

2) Appointments of Mr Edwin Lovell and Mr. Chan Harris was approved by a vote of 19 to 4.

3) Appointment of a delinquent tax attorney for the county. The fees for this position are scheduled to be taken from delinquent taxes collected.

4)All new business that was scheduled to be discussed and approved involving the wastewater treatment facility at the interstate was withdrawn by the County Executive. No reasons given but a reschedule of a budget meeting was called for and the announcement that another special meeting of commissioners would be scheduled for April. Perhaps had the County Executive and some commissioners been less concerned, during the last budget meeting, with rushing off to lunch they could have gotten the needed answers then instead of having Mr. McAnulty make an unnecessary trip from Nashville and redo both budget committee and commission meeting, but it's only money and time.

Two other more controversial decisions were made and they will be posted as separate topics.

Congratulations to Lindsey Perkins

Congratulations to Lindsey Perkins, a junior at Richland High School who was named a winner in the 2011 National Voice of Democracy Program and recipient of the $1,000 Department of Georgia R. D. "Bulldog" Smith, Jr. and the $1,000 Department of Ohio Chester J. Koch Memorial Scholarship Awards (for a total of $2,000.) Lindsey plans a
possible career in the fields of writing, music, or law and she was sponsored by VFW Post 4577 and Ladies Auxiliary in Pulaski, Tennessee.

Miss Perkins presented her winning speech, "Responsibility of My Generation", at the Giles County Legislative Meeting Monday and received a standing ovation.

Congratulations again Miss Perkins you represent your generation well and have made the County very proud.