Concerns about football league
When we flip the light switch to the “on” position in our home and business, we expect the lights to come on. In addition, our heat/air, stove, clocks, television, computers — and now some automobiles — require the products and services of Georgia Power Company. We don’t like it when our lives are negatively impacted by outages or the effects they cause in our daily routine.
Georgia Power chairman, president and CEO Paul Bowers was in Rome Thursday addressing the Rome Rotary Club, and described his company as more of a utility services provider than a utility. Most customers in Rome and Floyd County like to refer to the company as the “power company” rather than the utility that provides the electrical and natural gas needs immediately on our demand.
Bowers commented that when working in the realm of customer expectations, company services don’t stop at the meter. Making, moving and selling its services require a plan that ensures reliability that the lights come on at home and the printing press starts at Rome News-Tribune and for all other business customers.
The dynamics of power creation involve several ways to manufacture and supply the energy we all take for granted. Hydro, coal, natural gas, solar and nuclear energy are all part of guaranteeing us that power is available when we need it to be. And when weather or other interruptions cause outages, we all can have confidence that Georgia Power employees are immediately moving to restore service. Customers really don’t have to worry because a recovery plan is always in place.
Rome and Floyd County have been well covered by Georgia Power for many years. The company is a great corporate friend and partner to the Rome-Floyd Chamber, local schools, many charities, and serves local businesses promptly and professionally. They also provide many jobs for our citizens.
Political and environmental issues relative to energy production are likely in the future for Plant Hammond. However, Rome and Floyd County are fortunate to have Plant Hammond and the regional headquarters downtown on Broad Street.
The Georgia Power sign and logo in downtown Rome is important to all of Floyd County. We appreciate the community partnership. From The Marietta Daily Journal
Amajority of state senators are handing Georgians a grenade to lob at our local school systems, blowing up how they are presently run. These elected officials believe voters should have the option of returning to the good ol’ days when superintendents were elected and school boards were appointed by a grand jury. Fortunately, the House Education Committee saw reason and voted down the idea on Thursday. But that doesn’t mean it won’t resurface in the future, and therefore worth a review. First, a little history. Georgians approved a constitutional amendment in 1992 backed by Gov. Zell Miller and enacted in 1996 requiring local school boards to be elected and superintendents to be hired by the school board. Prior to that, the default position in Georgia was an elected superintendent and grand jury appointed school board, or in the case of city school systems, a city council appointed school board, according to Angela Palm with the Georgia School Boards Association, a group that opposes the Senate’s idea.
There was also the option through local legislation to have an elected school board and board appointed superintendent. This made for inconsistency across the state as some systems chose the former, some the latter and some a hybrid where both the superintendent and board were elected, something state Rep. Ed Setzler, R-Acworth, tells the MDJ he would like to see resurrected.
The trouble with an elected superintendent and school board is it raises the question of who is The Decider, since both were put in office by the voters. Palm said such scenarios made for highly contentious school systems when the board and superintendent didn’t see eye to eye.
Another problem with an elected superintendent is it requires that person to devote much of their time to the campaign trail, kissing babies and holding fundraisers. That cuts into the valuable time of running the school system.
The state senator pushing this amendment, John Wilkinson, a Toccoa Republican, said if his proposal passes and a school system reverted to the elected superintendent way of governance, candidates for that office must live within the school system’s boundaries. This was also the requirement under the old system where candidates were required to live in the district for two years to qualify for office, Palm said, recalling horror stories in some rural school systems that ended up with only two qualified candidates who would take turns running for the position.
If the idea is to snag a highly qualified professional to run a school system, why would a school district limit itself to a small pool of candidates when it could scan the nation for the best?
One needn’t go that far back in history to see what happens when a school superintendent is elected, reminded retired educator Dr. Teresa Plenge, a former chair of the Cobb Board of Education. Just cast your eye over the mess that is the Georgia Department of Education with its elected state school superintendent and governor-appointed school board. Remember Georgia Superintendent Linda Schrenko, who pleaded guilty to fraud and money laundering and was sent to prison in 2006? She was followed by Kathy Cox, a woman Plenge described as nice enough but who was completely in over her head. When choices are made through a popularity contest rather than on job qualifications, education is further politicized.
The current system, with an elected school board held accountable by the voters that appoints a professional superintendent held accountable by that board, is the best way to govern a school district. It provides checks and balances for the public by having elected board members oversee the policies of the school system. If those policies run counter to the will of the people, the voters can — and do — eject them from office every four years.
The system allows the board to hire a professional to run the daily operations of the school system and ensure that professional is meeting his or her commitments.
State Reps. Sam Teasley, R-Marietta, and Setzler, Cobb’s two lawmakers on the House Education Committee who voted down this destructive legislation, deserve thanks. And the Cobb senators who voted for it — Hunter Hill, R-Smyrna; Bruce Thompson, R-White; Lindsey Tippins, R-west Cobb; and Michael Rhett, D-Marietta — should reconsider their position the next time this bad legislation is raised.
Coach John Reid and the Rome City School Systems decision to begin participation and play in the Northwest Georgia Youth Football League will have many negative impacts to the Rome and Floyd County community. As members of the Unified Football Committee and the Boys & Girls Club board of directors, we feel that the Floyd County community needs to know the whole story and what the collateral damage will be to youth football as we have known it for over 50 years.
Coach Reid believes that taking what amounts to about 40 percent of the players from the Unified Football League, which are the city school athletes, and putting them on travel all star teams will benefit everyone. These participants will be placed on teams starting at age seven that will have to travel to some games that are 70 miles in distance from Rome. He claims that more children will get to play now than have been in the past. Really? What happened to the city mite teams when Rome began play in the middle school league they are in now. Because they were forced to add a sixth grade team, there were no longer enough players for the city schools to have any mite teams. Previously, there was an average of around 90 city school players participating in the mite program. According to Coach Reid, there were 41 players on this year’s sixth grade team, so ... what happened to the other 50? How does he expect parents, other family members and fans to be able to travel to other cities for half of their games? Also, who is paying for all this?
Rumors of this move to this new football league by Coach Reid has been circulating for months. The Unified Football Committee met with the chairperson of the City School Board, Faith Collins, many weeks ago to express their concerns. She indicated that she was aware that something was in the process, but she had no idea of exactly what it was or of the impact that it would have on the local community and the Boys & Girls Club budget. We expected her to discuss this with her board and present to them our concerns. To our knowledge, it was never brought up at any board meetings and just briefly mentioned at a caucus. Other board members that have been spoken with also have had limited knowledge of what was happening and had been told that it was not Coach Reid who was pushing for this change, but other youth coaches. For the record, this has been all Coach Reid’s plan from the beginning. He has organized all the meetings, facilitated all the meetings and most — if not all — meetings have been at Rome High School.
Every head high school football coach in Floyd County has expressed their concerns about how this new league will impact the quality of play of all area youth football players. This concern became so important that a meeting was called by the City and County mangers, Sammy Rich and Jamie McCord. This meeting was held in the conference room at City Hall several weeks ago. Also in attendance were members of the Unified Football Committee, which includes Boys & Girls Club directors, recreation department management, Coach Reid and School Superintendant Lou Byars. Coach Reid informed the group from the beginning that he was hired to fix a bad football team. He then indicated that he didn’t care about Coosa, Pepperell or the other high school teams in Floyd county. His concern was only Rome High, regardless of what his actions had on anyone else. This kind of response and attitude is not acceptable from anyone regarding the youth and other school systems in this county. The Unified Football program is about everyone in Rome and Floyd county. All citizens should be very concerned that a coach can move into our community, win a state championship in his second season and think he can completely ruin a successful youth football program that has been in operation for over 50 years. We wonder if he will have moved on to a bigger and better program in the next couple of years like he has done several times previously, leaving our community youth football in total turmoil.
Obviously the city school board members are in agreement with Coach Reid, and feel that Rome Wolves football is more important than what happens to the rest of Floyd County.
IRick McKee, The Augusta Chronicle The impact to the Boys & Girls Club budget and youth programs will be tremendous. The memories and good times that you or one of your children or grandchildren experienced as a football player or cheerleader participating at the Boys & Girls Club or Behind the Levee fields may soon change. Russ Gates Thad Watters Unified Football Committee and Boys & Girls Club Board Members was hoping Donald Trump was going to be an agent for positive change in our government. My hopes are quickly diminishing and he has only been in power for less than three months.
He claims that the media is fake. Ummmm. He said he would provide better health care for all at a lower price. By examining the House Bill, that was a false statement. He claimed Obama was not born in this country and he also had Trump Tower “wire-tapped.” False and false. He said he would put a lot of money into infrastructure and yet his budget eliminates the Community Development Block Grant Program that Rome uses for such purposes, not to mention a host of other federally subsidized infrastructure programs. Again, another false statement by Trump.
He said he would drain the swamp, which we all thought meant that he would throw out all of the money grubbing special interest groups. But, he filled his cabinet with representatives of all those money grubbing interest groups. Once again, another false statement. He said that immigrants bring crime and drugs across the border, but his budget cuts the Coast Guard, the federal agency that confiscates the most illegal drugs.
Again another false statement.
No doubt taxes will be cut — for the wealthiest of Americans, that is. That was a statement we can trust was not fake.
I’m hoping I’m wrong, but I’m starting to think that this president is not only a fake, he is globally recognized as a man that cannot be trusted. God Bless America. We’re going to need it. William Steiner Rome