This past week, Mayor Garnett Johnson gaveled the commission meeting adjourned and the meetings have now officially ended for the year.
That is, unless a special session is called to try to come to an unfair garbage increase, a new unqualified city hire at an extremely high rate of pay, settle yet another lawsuit against the city or deed another piece of city property over to the Landbank to sell for a sweetheart deal.
Yes, as the chambers emptied and Commissioners Sean Frantom and Bobby Williams walked slowly out, if you listened with imagination, you could hear Roy Rogers, singing “Happy trails to you until we meet again.”
Unless Bobby Williams changes his mind, he may be retired from the political arena all together, that is, if he’s not appointed to some government committee. At any rate it will give him plenty of time to feed the cat and travel. I wish the best to him with whatever he decides to do in the future, but I hope he takes up a new hobby, perhaps, crocheting without needles.
Now, as for Sean Frantom, just my personal opinion, but it’s far from over for Frantom. If anyone thinks Frantom will stay uninvolved, they are only fooling themselves. Regardless, I sure I will be writing more about Williams and Frantom in the future.
Let’s cover the topic of the ill-fated and more than likely unneeded garbage rate increase.
The issue is really a matter of mismanagement at the top, again, in my opinion. When you have all the eggs in one basket and the basket is being carried by one person, if the basket is dropped and the eggs break, who’s at fault? Correct, the person carrying the basket.
Now the garbage services, the Landfill operation and the Stormwater program are all managed by the Director of Engineering, Hameed Malik. Therefore, all the eggs are in his basket. With the salary he receives, around the $200,000 mark, plus benefits, it would seem the basket would be carried with a firm grip and just a bit more care.
At one time, the commission instructed there be a single carrier bid for services being sought. That seemed to not have happened and the “why” isn’t crystal clear. However, I can understand the thought process behind having more than one dedicated carrier. With a single carrier, we taxpayers would be at the mercy of the single carrier.
When a claim that the rate increase is necessary to avoid will a deficit is followed by the statement that “It’s not a real deficit,” then what is it? When the asking rate of $10 a month increase goes all the way down to only $3 a month increase, that should raise more questions.
Even Commissioner Bobby Williams knew something just didn’t pass the smell test other than the garbage being discussed. Williams even indicated that some people were negotiating privately for a part of the deal.
Williams even stated, “I’m going to ask for an investigation into negotiations for this particular trash contract.” WOW Really? What took you so long?” You could have gotten the answers if only you had joined in for a forensic audit.
Since Malik lives in Columbia County in a gated community, the question that should be asked of him is: “Why haven’t you discussed a plan such as the one used by the Columbia County government?”
The subject of recycling keeps coming up.
With recycling questions, the answers depends on what day of the week you ask the question; like the weather, it is forever changing.
The real truth is that there has not been a recycling program in and for Augusta for nearly three years. That’s right, it has been a farce all along. When the same truck picks up and dumps both the blue and green cans in the same truck does anyone actually think the trash is separated in the truck? Does anyone think the trucks are dumped in a mysterious Bat Cave and separated and then reloaded separately with one truck going to the Gotham Garbage and the other headed to Axis Chemical Company?
The idea was floated to locate large containers at different locations around town so that citizens could drop their recyclables into them. Sounds like a workable idea except for a few things. There would still be cross contamination, there would still be trash that is not recyclable dumped and thousands of dollars with have to be spent to teach citizens how to use the containers properly.
At the Warren Road Community Center there are recyclable containers. They have been there for a long, long time. On occasion they become an absolute nightmare. People dump tires, mattresses, bed frames and household appliances in and around the containers. So, in essence, the containers are just a pie in the sky thought.
Some say that the Augusta-Richmond County Consolidation city charter was written and put together in a matter of just a few hours. Yet, it is taking this set of Augusta commissioners weeks and months to actually come up with how to go about changing and putting together a new city charter. Only thing agreed upon is to engage the Carl Vinson Institue to actually write one.
Commissioner Jordan Johnson seems to balk at the price to be paid to the Institute for their services. He also can’t make up his mind as to who should be allowed to be on a committee to review and gather ideas for change. Of course, the change committee would certainly have to favor his political party for him to come on board, but then he states it should not be political process.
Folks, no matter how you phrase it, the writing of a new charter will most certainly be political. It’s politics.
Johnson even asked to whether past elected officials should be allowed to be appointed to the committee. It got down to the nitty gritty when Johnson stated some people were concerned about past Commissioner Ben Hasan being appointed. WOW, the rubber did indeed meet the road.
If all will think back at the makeup of the committee that was put together to redistrict the voting districts in Augusta, you may just get the idea why current and past elected officials should not serve on a committee as these things become a rigged deck with a pre-determined outcome and result.
The redistricting of Augusta districts was going to have an affect on district three, which is part of district 10. Commissioner Catherine McKnight was and is the district three commissioner.
At the time I was serving as district 10 commissioner, McKnight and I were both were told there was no way we would serve on that committee, and we didn’t. A great portion of district three was changed to District five, and Bobby Williams inherited the increase.
Now, just how well has that worked out? Some like it while others do not. The unintended consequence is likely that Williams received a larger constituency that included conservative voters whose first order of business was to replace Williams with Don Clark.
There are several past elected officials that would view changes for the betterment of all and not a chosen few. The citizens will certainly have to have a say in changes. Of course, there will be those with special interests, there’s just no real way to avoid that. The solution will be to have a strong presence of the truly people dedicated to making Augusta better.
Don’t be surprised that after the first of the year and the commission is in full swing that a few more director jobs will be in jeopardy. A couple of them should have never been hired in the first place. More of this after the first of the year. It will continue to be interesting.
Folks, as always, you just can’t make this stuff up.
