I read Mr. Scott Bradshaw’s column on the state’s new process for builders licenses with great interest. However, always proceed with caution when someone in the building industry tells you the new licensing program for his industry is the best thing since sliced bread.

Industry groups that regulate themselves can insulate their profession from public scrutiny. In addition, I am not sure the new layer of government bureaucracy protects the public as much as Mr. Bradshaw lets on.

In the first meeting in April alone, the Georgia Board of General and Residential Contractors overturned the denials of 20 applications for licensure and permitted “probationary licensure” for four others; so much for the tough requirements.

Mr. Bradshaw, a real estate developer and chairman of the Governmental Affairs Committee of the Homebuilders Association of Midwest Georgia, also put in his special-interest plug for Sen. Ronnie Chance and Rep. Matt Ramsey in his column.

Mr. Bradshaw used to hold a similar position in governmental affairs for the Fayette Chamber of Commerce, a developer-laden organization, which gives him a great deal of special interest advocacy experience. (Politicians like Mayor Harold Logsdon and Rep. Ramsey received substantial financial support from development and Chamber interests.)

Mr. Bradshaw and his preferred legislators (Sen. Chance and Rep. Ramsey) demonstrate the divide in values and philosophies between the general public and special interests.

But the crisis regarding values and philosophies is not merely about money. Instead, the crisis is about pandering to special interests and a failing to be responsible, accountable, honest, transparent, and protecting the average man, woman and child in Fayette County and Georgia.

We are now at the point, after the harmful school voucher bill and charter school bill scandals broke, where the attempts to cover up or conceal the evidence of wrongdoing goes into high gear.

Mr. Bradshaw’s flimsy excuses about Senate Bill 458 being “election year window dressing” on behalf of Sen. Chance and his comment on Rep. Ramsey “seeing that the head of the serpent was completely severed” might work on a highly uneducated public, but not in Fayette County.

First of all, “window dressing” would be more along the line of House Speaker Richardson’s much publicized delusional tax cut rhetoric. In contrast, SB 458 was advancing out of the spotlight with great speed. And yes, Sen. Chance did vote for the bill (quietly).

As for Mr. Bradshaw’s special interest dragon slayer, Rep. Ramsey, he was toting the party line on the bill until Fayette County school officials and a multitude of angry parents violently protested. Rep. Ramsey tried desperately to salvage the deal for the Republican leadership by wordsmithing the bill and that eventually failed too.

Indeed, this is a new era in Fayette County politics where political consultants are hired in local elections to misdirect the message and garner the support of the special interests. The addition of consultants in local elections has taken issue-oriented discussions out of politics.

In their election campaigns, both Mayor Logsdon and Rep. Ramsey hired the same political consultant who told them to say nothing specific, ramble in political platitudes and be warm and fuzzy. But the result is a public exhausted from fighting hegemonic special interests and their seated political allies.

Our elected officials tolerate ineffective bureaucracy and shun transformational changes which would assist the general public. They are committed to the same programs, spending, pork barrel earmarks and gerrymandering that they furiously objected to when the Democrats were in power.

Constantly re-electing politicians (in either political party) married to special interests means sacrificing our children’s future in order to protect a broken system hell-bent on self-perpetuation. We, in effect, have a bank where everyone has to make deposits, but only a chosen few can make a withdrawal.

You can accept the failures in government or you can work to transform them. Study the issues, make your voice heard and make informed choices in the election booth.

Steve Brown

stevebrownptc@ureach.com

Peachtree City, Ga.

[The former mayor of Peachtree City, Brown ran unsuccessfully against Ramsey in a special election last year to fill the unexpired term of the late Rep. Dan Lakly.]

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