Hope you voted in the Run-Off Election

The primary elections are over and run-off elections are imminent. I hope you were one of the about 20% who voted in the primary, and I encourage you to find someone you can support in the run-off election. The go to the polls and VOTE! A twenty per cent turnout isn’t something to brag about.

I’ve heard more than just about any other election in my memory, and still we only get 20% of the registered voters to vote. Wow! By the time you read this we may have settled who will be our state leaders, our congressional representative, and our county commissioners. Let complaining be proportional to your vote. By the way, I noticed that Judge Fuller threw out the recall petition against Chairman Bannister. No election there.

Economic development in the Dacula area seems to be strengthening in some segments of the economy while getting progressively weaker in others. Foreclosures of residential properties continue, but some new housing stocks are being built. Commercial foreclosures loom, but entrepreneurs continue to begin and strengthen new business in our area. In this economic downturn, I wish them well.

By the time you read this, the suit by Gwinnett County against her Cities may well be complete. We go to judicial trial beginning August 2, 2010. As you may be aware, the intergovernmental agreements among Gwinnett County and Gwinnett Cities expired about 3 years ago. Rather than negotiating in good faith and creating the agreements required under Georgia’s Service Delivery Strategy Act, the Board of Commissioners sued each City and is attempting to rely on laws passed prior to the SDS Act to maintain funding sources for providing services within Gwinnett County.

If you have been following this judicial opera, you will remember that Judge Barrett ruled early on that without the required agreement, the SDS Act provided the default funding mechanisms for delivering services. Gwinnett County attempted to counter the ruling by appealing to the Georgia Supreme Court which refused to hear the appeal.

At the heart of the case is the manner and nature of funding local governmental services covered by the SDS Act. The SDS Act is a piece of tax reform legislation designed to help eliminate double taxation and to provide tax equity among unincorporated and incorporated taxpayers within the same county. Gwinnett County and all the Cities are spending your money to see if the law is really the law, and if the law is really the law who must abide by it.

Such is the joy of living in a constitutional republic. Remember all this when it’s time to vote again. Maybe you’ll be one of the 20 per cent who will.