COLUMN: From the other side of the tracks
There has been much in the newspaper of late from certain folks in the business community as to what we should and should not do when it comes to spending county money.
Let me begin by saying, I believe our local states and federal governments have gone completely wild with our tax dollars. I completely agree with Barrow Journal publisher Mike Buffington that this needs to be an area that we reign in dramatically.
But if there were cries coming from those in the business community to reign in government spending in the past, their words and their actions do not match. When the county was buying property like it was afraid that we were going to run out of property, not one word came from the business community. We didn’t hear from them then that we needed to stop or even slow down the spending.
Being employed by a company in the private sector, I saw the downturn in the economy in early 2000. I hoped that this would be a temporary downturn. After 2002, it seemed the economy begin to slowly improve. Then in 2008, when the economy took a dramatic downturn, even then the cry from the business community was 18 to 24 months to be the worse case scenario.
With certain investments that I made, I pushed forward hoping that this 18 to 24 months would prove to be true. Unfortunately it has not.
I agree that we still have perilous times ahead economically. Like many others, I made investments which now we have to do the very best we can to guide through these times.
I do not believe, however, that the right move would be to stop everything. With the land purchases that our county has made, there are certain aspects that still need to be developed for us the taxpayers who are on the hook for that property to even begin to hope to see that investment have an opportunity to give some return to our county economically.
No matter what we do, we cannot stop the sewer project at Hwy. 316 and Hwy. 53. We have a golden opportunity to place a jewel at the center of that project. I am speaking of course about Lanier Tech working in conjunction with our local school board to make that a place where businesses want to locate. As for Lanier Tech, they would not be able to move forward until someone would donate land to them, so they can have federal dollars to bring to our county. The county has made that offer.
Our local school board would also benefit from that donation. Hopefully the taxpayers would be able to see the ESPLOST money that they approved years ago to be able to be put to use as it was intended to build an affordable community facility. It has seemed to me that in the past certain projects within our county have not been able to move forward because it always seems someone was afraid they would not be able to receive their slice of the pie. This, in my opinion, has not only hurt our county, but when respected names within our business community cry out to slow or stop the spending, it always makes you ask the question, what are they really afraid of?
I am very thankful for the right-minded business folks within our community. I have seen time and time again their sacrifice and hard work payoff for our county. That is one of the reasons I am so optimistic about the future, not only for our county survival, but also on the state and federal levels that the responsible folks will do the right thing and put the right people in place to move forward for the betterment of all the tax payers, not just a few.
As a member of the local school board, I have been a part of making some tough decisions. I also know there are many tough decisions yet to come. I believe that we have made a right decision in choosing someone like Dr. Creel to help guide us through these coming times. We have also made choices on our local level and have put people in position whom I believe have only the betterment of our community at heart.
As we begin to emerge from these hard times, I hope that we can take from it a lesson not to turn back to the wild spending that has been so prevalent at every level. Instead, let’s move forward with slow and steady plotting so that our children and grandchildren will be able to enjoy this great community that we have all worked together to build.
Larry Ballard is a member of the Barrow County Board of Education.
But if there were cries coming from those in the business community to reign in government spending in the past, their words and their actions do not match. When the county was buying property like it was afraid that we were going to run out of property, not one word came from the business community. We didn’t hear from them then that we needed to stop or even slow down the spending.
Being employed by a company in the private sector, I saw the downturn in the economy in early 2000. I hoped that this would be a temporary downturn. After 2002, it seemed the economy begin to slowly improve. Then in 2008, when the economy took a dramatic downturn, even then the cry from the business community was 18 to 24 months to be the worse case scenario.
With certain investments that I made, I pushed forward hoping that this 18 to 24 months would prove to be true. Unfortunately it has not.
I agree that we still have perilous times ahead economically. Like many others, I made investments which now we have to do the very best we can to guide through these times.
I do not believe, however, that the right move would be to stop everything. With the land purchases that our county has made, there are certain aspects that still need to be developed for us the taxpayers who are on the hook for that property to even begin to hope to see that investment have an opportunity to give some return to our county economically.
No matter what we do, we cannot stop the sewer project at Hwy. 316 and Hwy. 53. We have a golden opportunity to place a jewel at the center of that project. I am speaking of course about Lanier Tech working in conjunction with our local school board to make that a place where businesses want to locate. As for Lanier Tech, they would not be able to move forward until someone would donate land to them, so they can have federal dollars to bring to our county. The county has made that offer.
Our local school board would also benefit from that donation. Hopefully the taxpayers would be able to see the ESPLOST money that they approved years ago to be able to be put to use as it was intended to build an affordable community facility. It has seemed to me that in the past certain projects within our county have not been able to move forward because it always seems someone was afraid they would not be able to receive their slice of the pie. This, in my opinion, has not only hurt our county, but when respected names within our business community cry out to slow or stop the spending, it always makes you ask the question, what are they really afraid of?
I am very thankful for the right-minded business folks within our community. I have seen time and time again their sacrifice and hard work payoff for our county. That is one of the reasons I am so optimistic about the future, not only for our county survival, but also on the state and federal levels that the responsible folks will do the right thing and put the right people in place to move forward for the betterment of all the tax payers, not just a few.
As a member of the local school board, I have been a part of making some tough decisions. I also know there are many tough decisions yet to come. I believe that we have made a right decision in choosing someone like Dr. Creel to help guide us through these coming times. We have also made choices on our local level and have put people in position whom I believe have only the betterment of our community at heart.
As we begin to emerge from these hard times, I hope that we can take from it a lesson not to turn back to the wild spending that has been so prevalent at every level. Instead, let’s move forward with slow and steady plotting so that our children and grandchildren will be able to enjoy this great community that we have all worked together to build.
Larry Ballard is a member of the Barrow County Board of Education.
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"As we begin to emerge from these hard times..."
What makes you think we are emerging from hard times. The masses have been told that we have had a recession. NOT! We have had a credit collapse and in a DEPRESSION.
Hard times are NOT OVER! There has been no recovery and the Double Dip coming is just the second half of the first crash that started in 2008. Same as 1929, 1873 and the other 5 recorded credit collapses/depressions which include the Dutch Tulip and John Law events, and other famous examples of credit bubbles bursting.
Since you are on the school board, perhaps you can assist in seeing that financial history is taught in our schools.