I know, I know. Who even cares? But I have a few emails asking me who (whom?) I’m voting for, and I’ve waited through the first rush of early voters, so maybe I won’t contaminate the voting pool too much.
Someone reminded me that I used to recommend specific local candidates with perfectly logical (well, to me anyway) reasons why.
I responded, “But I was wrong so often!” I cringe when I remember some of my picks (no, no names here).
“Well, at least tell me about the ballot questions,” the caller persisted.
OK, I can do that. Two are no-brainers, and the third scratches my anti-bureaucracy itch.
The two on limiting what local governments can tax based on increases in property value I say “YES” emphatically.
It makes local politicians slightly more honest: With an exemption approved in a referendum by local voters, they have to specifically admit that they want to spend more money than the new constitutional amendment allows.
And thus they have to come clean with local voters: First by asking voters for an exemption to the limit, and after they get the go-ahead (assuming they do) by separately raising the millage rate cleanly and unhidden by little rollbacks. Then they own that responsibilty openly and without question.
The third question is a big flat “NO”: Create a new justice system just for tax disputes in a Tax Court? Oh, the bloated budget and the army of new bureaucrats just to pore over your tax returns and tax disputes. We don’t need no stinkin’ tax court. Leave it to the perfectly adequate superior court judges without one extra dollar of your tax money to pay for a brand-new bureaucracy.
OK, I can’t help myself. Fayetteville has a majority Democrat council which is busy facilitating the building of as many apartments and liquor stores as they can find empty lots for.
Fayetteville owns 38 acres behind their city hall and park and they are seeking a “regional development of impact” permit from the state to build an additional 700 apartments and 48 townhomes on a plot less than a half-mile from the existing apartment glut already near City Hall. Yes, I said, the city is seeking it, not some developer. Wonder if there’s any hint of whether their plan will be approved by the council later on?
Consider the additional school classrooms that will be required from taxpayers who don’t live in Fayetteville, the additional traffic burdens on an already squeezed downtown.
Then look just a few miles west at the newly annexed Fayetteville data center on Ga. Highway 54 West that will suck all the electrical wattage that Georgia Power can bring in on 150-foot tall high-voltage lines running through neighborhood yards and an untold number of gallons of Fayetteville city water for cooling the massive brick in the heart of one-time wooded fields in Fayette County’s very center.
Oh, but the millions of tax dollars it will dole out to the county commission and the Fayetteville city government — just as it doled out a land sales commission of $75 million to the autonomous Fayette County Development Authority so it never has to come hat in hand to the local governments for decades to come.
Data centers are tax-generating behemoths to every local government that allows them in, which is why local governments welcome in the giant buildings that employ maybe 1 person per acre.
So, who am I going to vote for?
Not Democrats. Said enough?
[Cal Beverly has written opinion columns and news stories as the editor and publisher of The Citizen since February 1993.]
Valid perspective. I will probably still only vote for Democrats though I am glad I don’t live in Fayetteville. I don’t trust Democrats; I don’t trust those who campaign as Republicans.