I retired last week for the fourth time. I think it was the fourth, but who’s counting?
Anyway, as it turns out, last week’s retirement didn’t last as long as the first three. The Augusta Press management designated me as Columnist Emerita which is a great honor and means I can write when I want to, and if I don’t want to I don’t have to.
However, last week, my first week in that new role didn’t seem like retirement.
Monday, I killed a billion fire ants, sprayed a thousand poison ivy plants and weeded four flower beds.
Tuesday, I took our dog Joy to the veterinarian for a laser treatment on her knee. Joy was the reason for my retirement in 2010. She is a big, sweet dog who’d been dumped on our road, starving to death. When I took her to the veterinarian, he said she had all sorts of parasites, including heartworms that had to be treated, but that meant she’d have to be penned up for three months. I couldn’t bear to leave her cooped up all day while I went to work in Augusta, so I retired.
It was as good an excuse as any.
Wednesday, I went to the doctor, and Ernie drove from pillar to post in Augusta getting prescriptions in preparation for his cataract surgery.
Thursday, we got up really early, so we could be there by 8:30. I was driving under Ernie’s “watchful” eye and missed the turn into the surgery center and had to turn around and go back in all of that morning traffic on Bel Air Road. I was a nervous wreck worrying we’d be late. Ernie was uptight and unhappy. And I was not a barrel of laughs myself, believe it or not. As it turned out, we had plenty of time. I read a whole book while we were there. They took Ernie back for the operation around 10:30. At noon, someone came out and said I should drive around back to pick him up.
The recovery room nurse who was helping Ernie recover was Russell Smeak. He was very friendly and talkative. He said he read my columns and predicted that I’d eventually get better at it. He was joking, I think. He asked how long we’d been married, and Ernie said, “Long enough to fight all the way here.”
Thursday afternoon, I took the dogs for a walk and heard one of our neighbor’s cows bellowing over and over. I called our neighbor and told her about the cow and asked whether she knew what was wrong with it, and she said the cow’s newborn calf had died, and she was mourning it. It was so sad.
Friday, we had to go back for a post operative checkup, and the doctor said everything was looking good. Then we had to go pick up more eye drops. I had an appointment that afternoon I couldn’t miss, but I had to drive Ernie home and then turn around and drive back to Augusta. The traffic on I-20 was heavy with lots of big trucks and a few fools weaving in and out like they were on the way to a fire. It was stressful. The whole week had been so stressful I began thinking, “If this is retirement, maybe I’ve made a mistake.” Then I remembered I wasn’t totally retired. I was still Columnist Emerita.
The More Things Change
When I first came to Augusta, Charles DeVaney was mayor of the city of Augusta, and he was on the warpath about a nightclub on Damascus Road where drug activity, assaults and shootings were rampant. And I think the city finally shut it down. That was more than 30 years ago. But now there’s another one on Damascus Road where, according to a Richmond County Sheriff’s Office report and Investigator Jose Ortiz, it’s déjà vu all over again with shootings, assaults and drug activity at the Level 9 Sports Bar and Grill.
The sheriff had asked commissioners to consider probation, suspension or revocation of the owner’s alcohol, dance and business licenses. Ortiz said he was concerned about the aggravated assaults and murders.
Commissioner Bobby Williams asked the owner, Voncelli Allen, for his take on the situation.
Allen said he’d been in business nine years, and that he’s always had officers on the outside and inside of the building, but somebody slipped in the back door with a gun and started shooting in the latest incident, and three people were shot.
“The problem is guns in the area, and people aren’t afraid to shoot,” Allen said.
(The problem is not the guns, Mr. Allen. It’s the people who aren’t afraid to shoot because they’re idiots.)
Allen said he was going to have a metal detector installed but wasn’t specific about when. That seemed to mollify commissioners, who voted for six-months’ probation.
Some Things Never Change
Something else that DeVaney railed about were the long trains that stalled traffic then and still do. He even issued a historic ordinance to relieve the city of them.
Under the ordinance, trains would be allowed to travel through the city at a maximum speed of 15 miles per hour, and train traffic would be prohibited between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m.
Violators would face up to a $500 fine and/or up to six months in jail.
The Southern Railways Systems manager said if Augusta could interfere with interstate commerce, so could every other city in the country.
I don’t know what happened to the historic ordinance, but the trains still stall traffic.
And Some Things Never Will
Trucks are still running into the Olive Road Bridge underpass and getting stuck, despite large signs, flashing lights and other warning devices. It would be funny if someone hadn’t been killed there. People still laugh about it anyway though.
The latest crash was March 3 when the driver of a U-Haul truck got stuck under the bridge.
They Didn’t Like It Then. And They Still Don’t.
Before the city and county consolidated into one government in 1996, folks outside of the city limits were opposed. And they haven’t changed their minds. The city was bankrupt, and the county bailed it out to the tune of $40 million. It might have been more, but nobody wanted to tell the truth about it except Richmond County Comptroller Butch McKie who got in hot water for his trouble. Worse yet, little to none of the consolidation selling points, such as eliminating duplication of services happened. Nobody lost his job. For example, the Augusta police chief was transferred to the sheriff’s office with a title, a big paycheck and nothing to do.
The mayor had little power until Hardie Davis came along and seized the power of the pocketbook and spent every dime he could get his hands on for eight years. Now, thanks to legislation passed in the General Assembly this year, Augusta voters will have a chance to vote yes or no on giving the mayor a vote in the May 24, 2024, general primary.
Any attempt to change the charter has been opposed by Black elected officials and leaders since the very beginning. And I believe that’s another thing that won’t change.
Into Perpetuity
Something that will never change is the government using every avenue possible to get deeper and deeper into your pocket. History bears this out. When property assessments go up, so do property taxes. Last year was a good example. And then there are all those SPLOSTS that never go away and a new one always on the horizon. It started off with SPLOST 1 in the late 80s, and now it’s up to SPLOST 8, with the Coliseum Authority gearing up to sell people to vote for the half-penny JBA-SPLOST.
SPLOSTS, or correctly speaking, SPLOST issues, usually pass, sooner or later, because people with property and assets don’t want to be the only ones paying for the government’s increasing appetite for more and more and more money to grow government, and give employee big raises and bonuses and golden parachutes because it makes them feel like Santa Claus.
So, we have property taxes, Special Purpose Local Option Sales Taxes, or SPLOSTS for short; E-SPLOSTS for education; and T-SPLOSTS for transportation. Now if some of those commissioners who say “SPLOSH” instead of “SPLOST” would sign up for speech and grammar lessons maybe we might feel better about parting with our pennies.
And then there’s the hated Rain Tax, euphemistically referred to the Stormwater Fee. If the government does anything for you, you pay a fee. There’s your garbage fee, your business license fees; beer, wine and liquor license fees; building and inspection fees, and so and so forth.
Yes, the only thing that’s certain is death and taxes.
Is This Change for the Better?
For almost eight years, from the day he was sworn into office until he left in disgrace, then-Commissioner Sammie Sias worked to get rid of Gold Cross EMS and have the fire department run the ambulance service. He and former Fire Chief Chris James, Hardie Davis, Dennis Williams and Ben Hasan did everything they could to damage Gold Cross, including not giving the company a contract but a MOU with a paltry $650,000 subsidy. And they succeeded. When Gold Cross gave up the zone and Central EMS got it, a sub-committee of city department directors who also wanted to get rid of Gold Cross worked out a contract that gives Central a $2.65 million annual subsidy.
In addition, the city’s 911 center has taken over the dispatch function for Central, saving the company big bucks that taxpayers will ultimately pay. Central is also allowed to house its ambulances at Augusta fire stations for a paltry $350-a-month. And to add insult to injury, Central recruited and hired so many Gold Cross employees by offering them more money per hour and cash bonuses, Gold Cross couldn’t staff its ambulances and was forced to pull out of Augusta.
So, Augusta is paying Central $2 million more than they paid Gold Cross and doing the dispatching too.
A Good Sign of Change
An item on Tuesday’s Augusta Commission meeting agenda calls for changing the name of the road into Jamestown Community Center from Sammie Sias Way to Jamestown Lane.
Looking Back Through Rose Colored Glasses
It has been my pleasure and good fortune to have covered seven mayors, dozens of commissioners and about 10 administrators, permanent and interim, during my reporting career in Augusta. And with a few exceptions, I liked them all, and most of them liked me, too. At least I thought they did, although people were always saying things like, “Aren’t you afraid somebody’s going to shoot you?”
I guess they knew something I didn’t, but that thought never crossed my mind. People can be two-faced though. But all of my relations with elected officials were cordial. The committee meetings were held in small rooms with commissioners and staff around a conference table. Members of the media sat behind them, barely a foot away. The atmosphere was friendly. People talked to and teased each other. Now, committee meetings are held in commission chambers with elected officials sitting at a dais six feet above everybody, making them seem remote and uninvolved with the public.
The mayor’s and administrators’ doors were always open for the media to drop by and chat and ask questions about issues. It was good public relations. And if I wanted information on something, I just went to the office that had it and asked for it and got it. Many times, I was handed files to go through in the finance office, and they would copy what I asked for and give it to me. Nobody acted like they had a body hidden around there. But all of that changed in recent years. City employees, except for City Clerk Lena Bonner, act like they’re afraid to even talk to the media. Lena is one of the few who understands and abides by the Open Records law. If you want public information, you have to go through a rigamarole to get it.
Oh well, to old folks the past always looks better than it really was.
