leftonlanier
Jones School Students Tour Lake Lanier Before Closure
With the help of a local business, Memorial Park Funeral Home, the Jones School community had a happy ending.
Current and former students, teachers and staff of Jones Elementary School took a cruise on Lake Lanier as a “bon voyage” trip Monday afternoon, courtesy of Memorial Park Funeral Home.
The group boarded the funeral home’s bus at the school and rode to Aqualand Marina in Flowery Branch. They donned leis and marveled at the funeral home’s houseboat, complete with sitting area, kitchen, three bedrooms, two bathrooms and a sunny top deck.
Read that story and ponder our future. Something has just been lost, the intangible wealth that only a community can build.
Hall County Government moving?
The Times is reporting a huge leak in government today. Secret meetings have been held to discuss a proposed move of some Hall County Government offices. Most of the offices are in downtown Gainesville. The downtown benefits from the county employees spending money for lunch, breakfast, and gas. Maybe. If the offices do move, small businesses might get hurt.
And … all the discussions were in Executive sessions. So who leaked the news? Or it that why did they leak the news?
Any way, it’s out in public. Maybe it should have been from the beginning. The county is trying to buy the old Liberty Mutual building with 38 acres.
If they don’t buy it, who the Hell will in this real estate market? But it cheap or let it rot.
Filed under: Governing, Politics Tagged: gainesville city government, hall county government, Jobs 
Jones Elementary School in Gainesville Closes
We get one less neighborhood school.
Sonny Perdue got a cool $100,000 tax credit. He got a cheap $21 million dollar loan for his ‘farm businesses’ in Houston County with hardly any collateral. He gets a$9 million dollars horse barn in his Houston county. And, a $100 million dollar highway next to his ‘property’ in Houston County. Plus, that infamous Go Fish bass fishing legacy and a $22 million fish hatchery, in Houston County. Plus a cool $10 million for a College Football Hall of Fame. He gave tax credits to Hollywood Film Producers. He took two trips to China on your dime in 2008. Oddly timed to the 2008 Olympics. And a trip to Cuba because ““Georgia is strategically located to Cuba.” We must be able to see it from Perdue’s office, somewhat like Sarah Palin learned her international politics while watching Russia from Alaska.
The business tax went negative under Perdue. Refunds to corporations!
The average corporate refund last month[October 2009] was $13,800, up from $9,925 in October 2008. Not only did the average refund increase, however, but the department issued 700 more corporate refunds than a year ago.
Georgia also has Economic Development offices staffed in 10 countries.
Let’s name them.
Brazil
Canada
Chile
China
Europe (Munich)
Japan
Korea
Mexico
Israel
United Kingdom
Ireland
But nothing for the Chicken Capital of the World and Jones Elementary School. Our thanks to the Hall County Legislative Delegation, all Republicans, who took an oath to vote the Party Line*.
*The GOP can order its members to vote a “caucus position.” If 2/3 of the GOP caucus supports a bill or resolution, the leadership can ‘order’ the rest of the GOP to vote 100% party line.
Campaign Disclosures
Impeach our Attorney General!
Jones Elementary School to Close in Hall County?
Teachers.net is blogging that the school is be closed is Jones Elementary School. That would make sense. The school is in disrepair and mostly serves a hispanic population. Yes, racism still exist.
However, rumor has it that two other schools are also being considered: Oakwood Elementary and McEver Elementary. Don’t put much stock in the closing of Oakwood. Though it would make sense economically, it would be a political firestorm. McEver does make some sense. Like Jones it is in a state of disrepair and it also serves a very high hispanic population. What makes McEver even more attractive is that unlike Jones it doesn’t have a history of being one of the original community schools.
Community schools were all the range in the 1950’s. When Gainesville was a thriving mill village town, each Mill had its own community school. New Holland, Gainesville Mill, Chicopee, Riverbend and even Flowery Branch were once K-12 schools built to serve only that community. Chicopee later became Jones Elementary. That paradigm has shifted, but most older Hall County residents still remember this tradition. McEver doesn’t have this tradition to hold on to, so it may be the first on the chopping block.
McEver Road Rezoned and Will be Renamed Peachtree Industrial
It’s not a prediction. It’s a fact.
The City Council has reached their decision and will rezone McEver Road. Soon McEver will be renamed Peachtree Industrial. It will look like Buford, smell like Buford, and bring the ’success’ of Gwinnett to sleepy little South Hall.
Council Member Craig Lutz is already pressing Hall County to make “it look more like a corridor” and less like residential. The residents be damned. The current status be damned. Lutz reported and decided.
It’s a crazy decision. We’re Hall County not Gwinnett. The road signs say McEver Road not Peachtree Industrial. It’s a two lane blacktop road that winds past homes and subdivisions, not a sterile four lane industrial corridor.
But Lutz says the city of Flowery Branch can’t annex ‘the other side of the road.” Hall County will have to ‘get that side looking more like a corridor’ to be ready for manufacturing.
More like a corridor. Thanks for making that clear. Privately. To a select few. Like the Chattanooga corporation that owns the land.
Commercial Developments on McEver Road in Flowery Branch
Bobby Banks said it best. “We got thrown under the bus.”
Everyone knew that Flowery Branch would go ahead with the annexation on McEver no matter what. And that happened. It happened with the pot calling the kettle black. It happened with promises to listen but no promises to act or react.
Reaction from Hall County Homeowners is yet to be seen. None of them can say, “We’ll see you in the elections.” County residents can’t have a say in the city elections.
One nervous Council Member, Craig Lutz, tried to appease the seething crowd. Only because Lutz wants to be elected to represent the very group he rejected last night. Last night he made a motion to delay. That delay can be and should be seen as a scrap thrown by the feudal Master to the dogs under the dining table.
As the Council sat around the table, ‘sipping on Coca-Colas,’ they made the gap ever wider between government and the people who created community and a people’s government.
People see no need for another commercial zoning along that part of McEver. Pretty little commercial developments squat empty from Buford to Oakwood and beyond. And some very ugly intersections like Friendship and McEver mirror our current commercial landscape. The weeds and dirt are divided by two intersecting roads coming from nowhere and going nowhere.
Our goals in life should not be the accumulation of capital. It should be the creation of the intangible wealth of neighbors, friends, and family.
When will the politically ambitious learn the real goals of life and the true functions of government?
Brett Barwick and Flowery Branch Industrial Expansion
The Gainesville Times has this very favorable piece about Flowery Branch and Brett Barwick. It’s very favorable because it doesn’t reflect the sales pitch being made by Brett on behalf of industrial expansion east of I-985.
A standing room only crowd of more than 80 people signed a petition Tuesday night to oppose the annexation and industrialization of Gaines Ferry Road. That’s a fact not in the Gainesville Times and a fact not being shared by Brett Barwick.
Mr. Barwick became the only supporter of Lutz and the Flowery Branch council’s effort to dehumanize our neighborhoods. Saying, “I’m not here to sell anyone on the idea, but you all should take want is being offered to you.”
In fact, nothing was offered to us. We were told. “Take this and be happy.”
In fact, we didn’t take it and we’re going to oppose it tonight in the city meeting. Those people who think government should be for the people who are here, who were here first, and have done the most to make Hall County a good place to live are getting the shaft. We should all be at the Flowery Branch meeting, 5517 Main Street, Flowery Branch at 6 pm tonight.
Anti-Lutz group forming in Flowery Branch
A general meeting will be held this evening to discuss the failures of Flowery Branch and concerns about Council member Lutz.
This blog has almost been taken over with issues in South Hall, streets washing away, sewers that don’t work, and illegal council actions. The council has become a cabal, annexing land and people. Land development can be a way to raise revenues without having to build infrastructure like schools, new roads, and fire stations.
That city management method works in the short term. City homeowners like seeing their town grow. Businesses, new ones, like the low resistance price to new competition. And property taxes can be kept low.
Until the infrastructure ages. Until businesses age. Until demand for sidewalks, police, sewer, water, fire protection, and education exceeds the tax base. Or, until development crashes like it has in Buford, for example.
People are really fed up with government. And politicians. And over development.
We hope the complaining stops and turns into action. We don’t need Gwinnett like growth and development in South Hall. Flowery Branch does not need to become Buford.
If you get an invite to the ‘Flowery Branch Tea Party,’ please come.
