People Ask, Legislators Answer

Six elected state officials who represent Dunwoody and its neighbors participated in a legislative question and answer forum with constituents Sunday morning at the Dunwoody United Methodist Church.  

The officials – two senators and four members of the House of Representatives – answered questions dealing with topics ranging from education and Sunday liquor sales to how to solve the water war and whether or not they supported ethics legislation.

Some of the highlights of the forum include:

• When asked whether or not they supported additional ethics commission work, District 56 Senator John Albers said, “I think there is no question that everybody wants more transparent, smarter, more ethical government.”

• Regarding the ongoing water war with Alabama and Florida that is still tangled up in the court system, Tochie Blad asked what was going to be done in the legislative session to solve the dilemma. Would Georgians have to wait for the federal government to step in, she asked. District 40 Senator Fran Millar said, “We don’t deal with things evidently in politics until it becomes a crisis…Quite frankly, the public’s about had enough pretty soon between water and transportation and other things with my party in charge of the state the last six years. If we don’t get our act together, we won’t be in charge for as long as some people think they’ll be."

• One constituent expressed his concern with Georgia’s education system and asked each official what they would do to move Georgia’s public school system into the top 10 percent nationwide. Millar said, “I’d make every school a charter school. The reason I say that is because they are public schools but it’s a way to make the parents be accountable and be parents.”  
• On the same issue, district 80 House of Representatives member Mike Jacobs said, “Our school board (DeKalb County) is too big. We’ve got nine members. Gwinnett gets by with five and it’s an amazingly well-managed school system with some of the same demographic challenges as the DeKalb County system. We can be that good, but we need a better managed school board. Smaller school boards do perform better…The DeKalb County School Board will be shrunk down to seven members by the end of this legislative session, one way or another. It must happen.”
• Jacobs joked that he shouldn’t discuss Sunday liquor sales in a church, but that he'd continue anyway since he's Jewish. “The impediment to Sunday liquor sales has been Governor Perdue. He’s on his way out, and incoming Gov. Deal has indicated he will sign a local option Sunday sales bill. That means local jurisdictions could vote to decide whether or not to allow Sunday sales in their jurisdiction. The reality of that in Fulton and DeKalb Counties is within a couple of years we’ll have Sunday sales.”

• On tax reform, 11-year veteran of the Georgia House of Representatives Wendell Willard said, “We (Georgia) have the lowest per capita taxation in the nation other than Alaska.”