Column: A divorce is not needed
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Property taxes are going up in West Augusta but they are going down in Hephzibah, WHY?
excellent and thought provoking column… this subject needs to be discussed more often.
Thanks, Doug! Yes – more citizens need to make their voices heard. We can make a difference in our City and Country.
I am grateful that Kevin De l’ Aigles is causing good trouble. He is simply, but powerfully asking that we take pride in our city.
GREAT WAY TO PUT IT….
Yes – Augusta is worth taking pride in and doing what we can to improve our City!
Maybe the activists might consider an effort to nullify the consolidation of Richmond County and the city of Augusta.
The squeaky wheel oftentimes gets the grease!
Once again, correct me if I am wrong. After the 2020 census, a few of our local legislators attempted to separate Summerville’s voting block by cutting the district in half. The citizens of Summerville fought this battle head-on and fortunately, they succeeded. I can fully understand why this community wants to secede from A/RC’s dysfunctional government. My neighborhood is included in their current map, and I will gladly support this secession movement.
Summerville was NOT successful. Summerville is now a part of three Districts!!!
I live in Hephzibah and my tax increase made me say “ouch”! As the old saying goes nothing in life is guaranteed but taxes and death. I say taxes shouldn’t hurt more than death. But the truth of the matter is taxes are killing the middle class working/retired families. I’m sorry for venting.
I think that is what it is going to take Stewart. Twenty five years of experience has proven we are definitely headed in the wrong direction.
Abraham Lincoln famously stated that “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”
It seems the house is already divided. About half the voters support abortion, firearm confiscation, brainwashing children in schools, ESG controls, a welfare state, printing worthless money, open borders, open prisons, no bail, decriminalizing drugs, and no law, order, and accountability. The other half holds the opposite positions on these issues. Not much common ground to build on.
I’ve often said if I were a Augusta resident I’d either be showing up at every commission meeting, picketing outside every commission meeting or getting a bunch of like minded citizens to pool their money together and sue the city for their malfeasance and neglecting their fiduciary responsibilities.
The complete cascading downhill cycle is as follows.
It goes from National, to local, then to state, then back to national again.
Ask any one of the millions flooding across our border trying to evade the drugs, human slavery, & criminal gangs at their throats being cultivated & given free reign by their corrupt authoritarian governments, National & local also at their throats, failing to secure small local pockets of safety and assurance.
Pretending to believe it was the answer to the darkness closing in around them.
Beginning to sound familiar ?
We already have Americans by the hundreds of thousands fleeing from one state to another seeling that local pockets of refuge they had established were no match for the unrelenting powers of darkness closing in around them.
U-Haul can testifiy the numbers fleeing state to state.
The people coming across our border will soon find themselves alarmed in an old familiar way & looking for another national border to cross in search of refuge.
However on the next mass exodus we will right behind them.
The real question left to be answered is what nation’s border does everybody need to run for next ?
How interesting it is that the same crime of importing children across a border is what an international court issued an arrest warrant for Valdimir Putin for this week, is the textbook example of the crimes being committed against thousands of children being trafficked across our own border by this president:
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Vladimir Putin: Wanted by ICC for Crimes Against Children – CEPA
6 days ago … The International Criminal Court’s (ICC) decision to issue arrest warrants for Vladimir Putin and his children’s rights commissioner, Maria …
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Great article, Scott.
This opinion piece has offered some interesting points and attracted some equally interesting comments .
But , even the Commissioners that the columnist finds the least objectionable —- fail at formulating the COUNTY BUDGET and fail at following the GEORGIA CONSTITUTION’s PROHIBITION AGAINST GRATUITIES.
Even the so-called “good commissioners” appear to defer to county employees to craft the annual budget and the Commissioners accept it —- AS IF IT HAS BEEN DONE CORRECTLY.
I opine that the Commissioners do not know how a budget should be prepared , and are therefore not sufficiently trained to recognize the problematic budget and call the bureaucrats out on it .
The property owners then are required to overpay , thereby creating a surplus from which a
FIVE MILLION ($5,000,000.00) DOLLAR penalty can be paid to the IRS without being noticed .
Can anyone publish an A-RC budget & balance sheet ??? It is impossible for we citizens to correctly comment on city financial position if we never see and $ numbers. And big question = can we see if we are prepared to handle items in the near future: ie when covid $ is used up — when the IRS tax bill is paid — etc etc. I think city is required to publish in a newspaper like TAP a budget & bal sheet. Perhaps a group of citizens qualified in finances could form a committee to review such.
Can anyone publish an A-RC budget & balance sheet ??? It is impossible for we citizens to correctly comment on city financial position if we never see and $ numbers. And big question = can we see if we are prepared to handle items in the near future: ie when covid $ is used up — when the IRS tax bill is paid — etc etc. I think city is required to publish in a newspaper like TAP a budget & bal sheet. Perhaps a group of citizens qualified in finances could form a committee to review such.
Doug this is why I have put on next week’s agenda to discuss doing a forensic audit now for the fifth time in the past year and a half. I doubt I will get the support. The IRS tax bill is baffling. Tired of hearing how we don’t have the funds to resurface roads that are past due for repairs, deteriorating infrastructure….city owned properties that sit empty and yet we can’t seem to keep them maintained. I say sell them if we can’t do what needs to be done. It’s embarrassing the way they look and a poor reflection on the city. Spending money on a forensic audit or even an in-depth audit would be worth every penny.
AMEN Catherine! And those against it must be stealing the tax monies???
Yep!
The city must not have a facilities manager or a department/consultant responsible for that functional area. Otherwise, they would have been making scheduled inspections and would have alerted the county engineer to the seriously leaking pipe(s).
Of course, once heads are stuck in the sand and benign neglect takes over the standard response is “tear it down and build a new structure.” Coupled with the need to fund it with a new SPLOST with no thought given to having funds on hand to maintain it.
Great article Scott filled with common sense and insight. We own rental property in RC so we’d like for the county leaders to improve the lives of all citizens. I’m afraid the ARC consolidated government scheme Charles Walker pushed through has turned out to be an abject failure. My suggestion to the commission would be to hire a qualified County manager and let him or her do their job without trying to micromanage everything. Give them the power to hire and fire department heads and make him or her responsible for how the departments are run. If they fail, hire someone who can get the job done.