Tale of two meddlings
I gave him a little bit of a hard time regarding the proposed three-laning of Prince Avenue last year, but Pete McCommons is still a damn fine writer, and he nails it with his column about Sen. Ralph Hudgens in this week's Flagpole.
McCommons voiced his displeasure with Hudgens back when the whole redistricing thing got going, then sat back for a few weeks and let his detractors take over Pub Notes - including an idiotic rebuttal from Hudgens' son. After giving them their due time, McCommons set about deconstructing Hudgens' most unusual legislative moves and uncovered a disturbing trend - that if it involves your local government, be it Athens-Clarke County or even Madison County, the senator thoroughly enjoys messing with your affairs ... wishes of the actual citizens be damned.
Hudgens has introduced a bill to put a referendum on the November ballot in neighboring Madison County to change their form of government. Why did he do it? Because the Chamber of Commerce wanted it. Then the Madison County Board of Commissioners went along and passed a resolution requesting a referendum, too.
Ralph says he’s just doing his job, introducing legislation requested by the county commission, and all it does is let citizens vote on their form of government. What could be fairer than that?
Some citizens in Madison County say there are several problems. There was absolutely no public discussion or input about whether or not Madison County citizens wanted a change in their form of government or what form that change should take if they did. When the referendum appears on the ballot, it will simply ask if they want to change to a county-manager form of government.
These soreheads point out, moreover, that there has been absolutely no research done to explain how much more money this new form of government would cost. These citizens see this change as a power grab by developers who want to control the commission as they parcel out Madison County for rapid development.
Ralph, no doubt, would tell us that’s the way government works.
Now that the Madison County Commission has voted to rescind its request for a referendum, the logical assumption is that State House will kill the bill (it was passed by the State Senate). But let's break this logic down and reach the maddening conclusion ...
To split Athens-Clarke County into two different voting districts, the Georgia General Assembly - led by Hudgens - ignored an 8-1 vote from the Athens-Clarke County Commission denouncing the split and a petition signed by citizens of this community voicing their disapproval of the move, all the while saying it's OK because the Athens Area Chamber of Commerce and Madison County Commission wanted it. But, it turns out, that isn't true as Madison County commissioners never requested the redistricting and the chamber only came out for the split after the legislation was proposed.
Furthermore, we already know the support of a local chamber of commerce isn't enough because of what happened Thursday night in Danielsville:
"You didn't educate the people. You didn't educate yourself (about the proposal)," scolded one speaker. Another accused commissioners of "kow-towing to the Chamber of Commerce, kow-towing to special interests."
"I believe that we as citizens of the county should be informed of what's going on before it comes to pass," said resident John Stuedemann.
Chip Chandler, a tree farmer and former county commissioner, said it looked as if a small group of people outside government is trying to run the county instead of elected officials.
"We don't need to have a sort of shadow government taking y'all's place," Chandler said.
So ... why is it that Madison County can exhibit almost the same exact forms of opposition to the state government messing with a local community that Athens-Clarke County employed, but Madison County gets its wish? As McCommons showed in his Wednesday column, consistency would stress that the legislature wouldn't care about the wishes of these people.
Instead, what we have is an even clearer indication the redistricing of Athens-Clarke County was nothing more than a bold and craven partisan power grab by the state Republicans, with Hudgens leading the charge. Likewise, we also see that our community's opinion and wishes hold no weight with our elected officials in Atlanta. Finally, we see that Hudgens apparently has no respect - and perhaps even disdain - for local rule, rather opting for nothing less of installing 'little kings' in each community in his district (or, in the case of Athens-Clarke County, out of his district) to do his bidding.
McCommons voiced his displeasure with Hudgens back when the whole redistricing thing got going, then sat back for a few weeks and let his detractors take over Pub Notes - including an idiotic rebuttal from Hudgens' son. After giving them their due time, McCommons set about deconstructing Hudgens' most unusual legislative moves and uncovered a disturbing trend - that if it involves your local government, be it Athens-Clarke County or even Madison County, the senator thoroughly enjoys messing with your affairs ... wishes of the actual citizens be damned.
Hudgens has introduced a bill to put a referendum on the November ballot in neighboring Madison County to change their form of government. Why did he do it? Because the Chamber of Commerce wanted it. Then the Madison County Board of Commissioners went along and passed a resolution requesting a referendum, too.
Ralph says he’s just doing his job, introducing legislation requested by the county commission, and all it does is let citizens vote on their form of government. What could be fairer than that?
Some citizens in Madison County say there are several problems. There was absolutely no public discussion or input about whether or not Madison County citizens wanted a change in their form of government or what form that change should take if they did. When the referendum appears on the ballot, it will simply ask if they want to change to a county-manager form of government.
These soreheads point out, moreover, that there has been absolutely no research done to explain how much more money this new form of government would cost. These citizens see this change as a power grab by developers who want to control the commission as they parcel out Madison County for rapid development.
Ralph, no doubt, would tell us that’s the way government works.
Now that the Madison County Commission has voted to rescind its request for a referendum, the logical assumption is that State House will kill the bill (it was passed by the State Senate). But let's break this logic down and reach the maddening conclusion ...
To split Athens-Clarke County into two different voting districts, the Georgia General Assembly - led by Hudgens - ignored an 8-1 vote from the Athens-Clarke County Commission denouncing the split and a petition signed by citizens of this community voicing their disapproval of the move, all the while saying it's OK because the Athens Area Chamber of Commerce and Madison County Commission wanted it. But, it turns out, that isn't true as Madison County commissioners never requested the redistricting and the chamber only came out for the split after the legislation was proposed.
Furthermore, we already know the support of a local chamber of commerce isn't enough because of what happened Thursday night in Danielsville:
"You didn't educate the people. You didn't educate yourself (about the proposal)," scolded one speaker. Another accused commissioners of "kow-towing to the Chamber of Commerce, kow-towing to special interests."
"I believe that we as citizens of the county should be informed of what's going on before it comes to pass," said resident John Stuedemann.
Chip Chandler, a tree farmer and former county commissioner, said it looked as if a small group of people outside government is trying to run the county instead of elected officials.
"We don't need to have a sort of shadow government taking y'all's place," Chandler said.
So ... why is it that Madison County can exhibit almost the same exact forms of opposition to the state government messing with a local community that Athens-Clarke County employed, but Madison County gets its wish? As McCommons showed in his Wednesday column, consistency would stress that the legislature wouldn't care about the wishes of these people.
Instead, what we have is an even clearer indication the redistricing of Athens-Clarke County was nothing more than a bold and craven partisan power grab by the state Republicans, with Hudgens leading the charge. Likewise, we also see that our community's opinion and wishes hold no weight with our elected officials in Atlanta. Finally, we see that Hudgens apparently has no respect - and perhaps even disdain - for local rule, rather opting for nothing less of installing 'little kings' in each community in his district (or, in the case of Athens-Clarke County, out of his district) to do his bidding.
posted by Jmac at 7:12 AM
2 Comments:
well, said!
The only legal difference that I can see is that the Madison commission had to actually vote (I think that's required by law?) to have the bill introduced - which they did. Then, after the citizens rose up in opposition, they voted to rescind their earlier vote.
Since ACC was never actually asked, and never voted, then the resolution that they passed was all they could legally do and that was never seen as being much more than a spit-ball shot at the teacher. I'm glad the ACC commission took the only action that they had available to them but, it had no binding effect like the actions of the Madison commission did.
Still, I applaud the citizens of Madison county for telling their elected officials that their Chamber of Commerce is NOT an elected body and only represents business (which means real estate developers) interest. Sounds like Madison county folks are in about the same place Athens folks have been in for the last 8-12 years - trying to get their elected officials to stop giving away their county to a handful of rich (and frequently out-of-town) special interests.
This land is your land, this land is my land...
The caveat is that, according to McCommons' reporting and some of the public comment at the most recent Madison County Commission meeting, the chamber of commerce initially requested the referendum and the commission buckled and asked Hudgens to do so. From what I can gather, it was a strong-arming effect by their chamber of commerce and, according to some folks, Hudgens was one of the ones urging the switch.
Still, the initial point remains ... as well as the fact that Hudgens apparently heeds more to each community's chamber of commerce rather than its elected officials.
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