(Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of The Augusta Press.)
This entire column will not be about Summerville secession; however, we have to address the elephant in the room.
Speaking of elephants
I’m told that once Summerville breaks away, they will also build a zoo for their residents. You can thank Ms. Sylvia for getting the city all riled up about this separation talk, and it’s my fault for getting the people going on Facebook about it.
Anthony Stephens on Facebook said, and I quote — well, I had to change a little bit of it:
“Summerville is too large to be an insane asylum and too small to be a municipality. With that in mind, I understand, as I live adjacent to Richmond Academy. The sheriff sucks at law enforcement and the mayor has been a piece of $h17 since he was elected. When light green people [he means White people] ran Richmond County, it was totally corrupt. Now that dark green people [Black people] run Richmond County, it’s totally incompetent, so I don’t see any difference. You had a bunch of smart asses on the county commission 50 years ago, and now you have a lot of dumbasses [his words not mine – I don’t think all of them are dumbA&&es, but I can point out a couple] so what is the difference?” End quote.
So I would take it that he is against it.
Jessica Venable stated on Facebook “Y’all need to quit hatching racist plans around the Thanksgiving table. Get a grip yall 😂”
Speaking of confused.
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Let me make sure I clear the air for Stephanie Reed with just one of her comments under the post. “I will say this one more time LOUDER for the people that can’t understand it, THIS new City will include many more neighborhoods and not just Summerville!!!” She seems to be the unofficial spokesperson for the new city, and they haven’t got the new city yet.
One question I do have for everyone over there or the ones that are considering it: What happens with the elected officials who live in that area?
The latest proposal, or let me say, the latest word on the street in reference to this is how they can somehow connect that area to Columbia County. There would be some levels of encumbrance with this because I think Augusta University sits in Summerville. So, we can end that discussion now. Also, anyone who knows David Peltier knows he has said this idea will be a NoGo. So, that also means it definitely won’t happen either.
The underlying conversation with it all has been the discussion about “White flight,” which really intrigues me because it was other White people saying the White people were trying to leave. Then telling them they couldn’t and how this wouldn’t work. Then you had the supporters of secession saying how they are definitely going to do it now – since you said we couldn’t. It’s like the stories you hear where you had one brother fighting for the North and one brother fighting for the South.
We will stand by to see how this plays out. I will say this: there are some heavy hitters fighting for the new city. It’s happened before! I remember when Sandy Springs was talking about separating, and I will never forget the most infamous comment I heard: “We want to leave Atlanta because, it’s getting a little dark.”
Please take a moment and drop your thoughts below on the topic. I’m sure Carlos will have plenty to say.
Let’s take a moment and spotlight the last team from our area that’s in the football playoffs.
There was a story connected to the Augusta Press about Thomson’s win against South Atlanta. It was great; however if you haven’t had a chance to, you should watch that kid Curry who plays for Thomson. YOU ARE MISSING A TREAT. I saw him run back two kicks for touchdowns in the fourth quarter.
Go find him because I am sure that is a name you will be hearing on Saturdays.
With the year coming to an end, TAP ran a piece about the number of cases that Superior Court Judges have in their files.
As of the end of October, 3,612 people have cases pending. This means delayed justice for victims and outcomes for the accused. In some cases many crimes and perpetrators are overlapping, which is causing overcrowding in our jails and citizens bearing the burden of paying for people to sit incarcerated.
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Let’s be clear. I do not believe in a rush to judgement. I do, however, feel we need to work diligently to get a lot of this resolved. As a community we need to support our judicial arm and even in cases where you may dislike the ones in charge, give them an opportunity to do their jobs.
Augusta will soon have a few more judgeships, and this will help with taking care of some of the backlog. Even with that, we are still looking at a few years before we are at a place of back to normal. We could always ask the criminals to stop committing crimes until we catch up.
Spoken too soon. We just had our 39th homicide of the year. We will address this more later.
I was recently asked about the elections and my thoughts about what will happen. The main thing we need to do is make sure we remember that there is an election going on: the runoff for U.S. Senate and school board District 2 race as well.
We have already seen record breaking numbers in early voting, so that means this election can go any way. Historically, runoffs and special elections don’t have high turnouts. So, this may be the first time in the history of Augusta this school board will have a turnout that high.
With that being said, don’t forget to vote early and don’t forget to vote! Your life depends on it. According to Herschel, it seems like all kinds of things could be “popping” up.
But maybe I’m getting ahead of myself on that, too.
If you didn’t get that “popping” up line, you are as confused as he is.
Michael Meyers is a columnist for The Augusta Press. Reach him at Michael.meyers@theaugustapress.com
