Where there is no vision, the people perish.
As biblical scholars will attest, this is not an original thought. But it has always been true, and it’s true today.
As more people consider running for public office in Fayette County, many of them without vision, I thought I’d lay out a blueprint that might help us get people-oriented candidates with a vision, instead of right-wing extremists and zealots.
All elections ought to be about people.
As we survey the people of Fayette County, we find young people, old people, and people in between, although it must be said that all of them start young and end up old. The young cannot vote, so it’s up to those old enough to vote to look out for the young. People not yet old ought to be smart enough to anticipate their own old age, and not be hostile to matters that don’t yet affect people their own age: it will come.
As Fayette’s population grows, while its territory does not, people’s needs change. We need a county government that’s more efficient and stays responsive to the people.
We might want to look at the role of our county commission, and consider it has fired the previous two county managers after giving each an employment contract.
It does not seem to make sense any longer to have the county commission chairman micro-manage the county. The commissioners have said we do not have a county government structure calling for a professional manager, but with our increasing size we should consider making that fundamental change.
Questions have arisen about making our commissioners more responsive to the people by making them represent districts.
It might make sense to have the chairman elected countywide, while the other four commissioners would each represent 25 percent of the population. It would be easier for the commissioners to know the people they represent, and for us to have one commissioner we really know instead of four we barely know. There’s nothing racial about any of this; it’s just logical.
A lot of people do not realize how we elect commissioners and board of education members every two years. In 2004 we elected three of each, for a four-year term. Each one came from a limited geographical district but everyone could vote for all of them.
In 2006, we elect two of each, for a four-year term. This time any Fayette resident can run, and everybody can vote.
This weird system comes from our having had at one time only three members on each board, each from a district, and then adding on two more at-large when our county population grew.
We have problems about the legal guidance our county elected officials are receiving, and that’s why some are at each other’s throat and costing the taxpayers big money, needlessly.
Someone with vision would give serious consideration to our establishing a legal department, staffed by a few lawyers with some sort of civil service protection, who would provide consistent legal advice to all county officials and could perhaps even provide legal services for the school board.
Right now, the more our county officials fight each other, the more money their lawyers make, at taxpayer expense. Lawyers on straight salary do not invite or prolong lawsuits, but lawyers paid by the hour love them. That system needs changing.
As the county grows, we get to know each other less well. When we vote for people in certain jobs, we hardly know what we are doing. We as voters do not have access to the detailed information which a fully checked-out resume would provide.
We should consider changing certain elective administrative jobs, like court clerk and tax commissioner, to jobs subject to appointment by the county commission upon the advice of the judges, for the court clerk, and county manager for the tax collector. These jobs should be subject to civil service protection, which means no firing without cause.
In streamlining our county government, we should consider having a county police force.
County residents who live in cities are paying for their own police protection through their city taxes, and they fear their county taxes are also paying for the police protection given to people who live outside cities.
The county apparently claims its accounting procedures help make sure this does not happen, but the cost apportionment would be a lot simpler with a county police force for police services within the unincorporated portions of the county, and a sheriff’s department serving the whole county equally.
This would help remove an existing source of conflict between officials, as drug money would now go to the police force, and we could scrap the county marshals.
Since the county could go outside its boundaries to find an appointed county police chief, we could also tap a greater pool of talent and avoid petty local politics, as we now do with school superintendents.
This idea is at least worth considering, and no disrespect is intended in any way toward the current sheriff. This is not about him, it’s about the people of Fayette County.
A good many things have been done right in recent years, like our getting a state court (over the petty opposition of many elected officials, who waited too long), our own hospital, and building a new courthouse and jail. It took vision to get that.
I am however personally appalled at how poorly this county has responded to the needs of its young people of college age, all of whom are condemned to go out of the county to complete their education. Georgia State and Georgia Tech are not that far away and would be great institutions to attend, but how do you get there?
It is perhaps still true that our Fayette population is still too small to attract a regular or technical college, but we need to respond to the needs of our young people. So why don’t we have plans to make it easier for our people to commute to Atlanta?
On May 7, 2002, the Georgia Regional Transportation Authority, GRTA, held a hearing in Fayette County so the transportation needs of our people could be discussed. There were two citizens in attendance: one was me, and the other a Citizen reporter.
I made a presentation on how GRTA could help arrange a shuttle service between Fayetteville and the airport, for the convenience of airport workers and those who could then board MARTA to go on to Atlanta. The Citizen reporter (John Thompson) reported not a word of what I said, and the GRTA folks went home with the notion nobody cared.
Since there is more to transportation than building more roads, we need to have discussions about that.
Another category of citizens apprehensive about transportation consists of our elderly. What happens to them when they can no longer drive safely?
There were reports recently that the county commission had turned down flat a proposal to build a senior community not too far from the hospital. What kind of vision would cause anyone to do that?
It is unfortunate that we should have people, usually in the media, who expect political candidates to have snap answers to all the world’s problems. We need candidates who have a broad vision of our community’s needs, who are prepared to consider all the aspects of any question thoughtfully, and who don’t rush their answers.
Consider taxes for instance. About 98 percent of the time, in Georgia, when people have been asked to vote to increase their sales tax through a SPLOST, they voted Yes. What does that tell the candidates about people hating to pay taxes?
It ought to tell them that people hate to pay for waste, but are prepared to pay when they can see themselves getting their money’s worth. A candidate without vision will harp about taxes without end. A candidate with vision will simply work toward making government more efficient, which will in itself help reduce taxes.
To be responsive to people’s needs, our elected officials ought to have their eyes open and to see these needs. Our local problems are not abortion, gay marriage or the Confederate flag, and the solution to everything is not building more jails and throwing more people in them.
The media should stop promoting the idea that elections are all about garnering huge amounts of campaign money and using it to fool the most people into voting for a given candidate. On election night, it’s the people who ought to feel they have won, never the candidates. The candidates are given an opportunity to serve, not gloat.
With all that the candidates have to endure, it’s a wonder anyone sane steps up to do the people’s work. Let’s encourage people with vision to tackle the problems of government, in an age where we are all increasingly interdependent.
Where there is vision, the people flourish.
Claude Y. Paquin
Fayette County
cypaquin (at) msn.com