Moving Forward

[MManning]

Georgia Heritage Fund Denied By Georgia Voters

The Amendment to fund the Georgia Heritage Fund was turned down by Georgia Voters. With 92% of precincts reporting, the vote is 53.2% against, and 46.8% approving. For trout anglers and all of us concerned with clean water, this defeat is a serious setback. But a 53% win margin is not a mandate for building condos on the riverbank, draining wetlands and clear cutting national forests. We will not have the proposed Heritage Funds to acquire and protect the rapidly diminishing resources required to protect our watersheds. Therefore we must all redouble our efforts and our support of those organizations already at work for our interests. These include the Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper, The Trust For Public Land, The Georgia Conservancy, and Trout Unlimited.

The position of the Chattahoochee Chapter Trout Unlimited was presented at the October 27th meeting. Text reports for that and other CCTU meetings have just been posted in the Trout Unlimited section of NGTO.

[mikieminnow]

Very good point. These groups provide a large voice to many individuals. These groups will be heard by local governments loud and clear!

[Rod]

MM and MM,
you are right on it!
Am rivers, the force behind the initial discussion of the HF, has no local interest in GA. They don't, to my knowledge, have a office here--those groups you mentioned do.
Am Rivers merely sited the 'hooch as endangered and then pulled some strings and our tax increasing leg. thought it would get some votes and some points from the public.

Keep in mind, non-profits do not have employees who work for free. Money changes hands, and when the gov. is the middle man, the direction and waste of the funds increases. Stay out of my pocket--don't tell me i need to pay more taxes to save streams. TU and the alike have done just fine with contributions other than gov.

and Richard...
insulting intelligence is below the level of those I wish to discuss mutual interests with. Wandering why GA is always way down on the ED. list--misappropriation of funds and misguided intentions. Thank you for pointing out how gov. involvement lowers standards and wastes money.

Rod
Not reared in GA public public schools

[mikieminnow]

Rod,
Thanks for the info. Before I voted for the amendment, I didn't even need to know where the impetus for the amendment came from, it just was presented in a poor manner and worded way too loosely to be supported.

RE education in GA. I was educated in public school in GA. What is missing now is parental involvement in education. School is not the forum for gaining morals and values, contrary to the popular opinion of many of today's parents. Most of the opinions I appreciate were probably formed far from the educational environment I was raised in. (My educational environment was a H*** of a long way from where the environment is now).

Back to moving forward. I just moved away from Suburban Atlanta to an area where the residents are more interested in preserving natural areas than in building another shopping mall. My county commissioner voted, contrary to public opinion, to approve a county purchase of some 2000 beautiful acres for the purpose of a "Research Park". The desired tenant of this "Research Park"? A computer chip manufacturer! How will I personally deal with this type of situation in the future? Become involved locally! I will work hard to have this commissioner voted out of office and if need be, run for office.

Anyway, had to vent that. If anyone else lives in the Newton/Walton/Jasper/Morgan county area wants to discuss this further, feel free to post here or contact me personally.

[Richard]

Rod,

Sorry my post came across so bad- see my reply to mikieminnow on the original site. Thats what is so bad about this thing- when you're not face to face with someone, you tend to talk a bit more rashly than you might otherwise. I did not intend to insult anyone's intelligence, just to make a point about the loss of knowledge about the environment in the younger generations.The knowledge of our fathers and grandfathers is slowly being lost.

I was raised in Georgia public schools and I got my original interest in the environment from a great third grade teacher that eventually lead to a degree in entomology and biology at UGA. Public schools did just fine, thank you.

I am a member of TU, FFF, and the Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper and yes, these groups have done a lot, but in the end they will never compete with the $$$ from developers, corporations, etc. It will have to be a joint effort with the gov. to ever be able to preserve large natural areas, such as Smithgall Woods. Unfortunately, not many folks these days are going to sell land at less that market value from the goodness of their hearts.

mikieminnow,

Moved away from suburban Atlanta? I bet you won't be able to say that in a few years! I see you have already experienced what many of us have in dealing with county commissioners- they don't care about the average citizen, just their political power and those who give big.

You are right about parental involvement being the main problem in the schools- many can't or won't become involved in their local school and then are angry and want to blame anyone other than themselves when thing don't go right. This ties in to my original post also. Maybe I should have worded it non-involvement breeds ignorance.