Home > Gwinnett.talk > Archives > 2007 > September
September 2007
Beaudreau tries suspense on his political intentions
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mike Beaudreau says he’s going to “announce his intentions for the upcoming 2008 election season” on Tuesday.
The problem is, the 3rd district commissioner won’t tell us what he’s running for. That’s got us guessing. Could he have his eye on the Georgia legislature? Does he think he can take on Saxby Chambliss? Is he dreaming of Beaudreau-Romney 2008 stickers plastered on car bumpers across America?
Or is he being coy because if he told us he was running for re-election, we might not fight rush-hour traffic to attend his 7 p.m. announcement at the Gwinnett Justice and Administration Center?
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment | Categories: Gwinnett Insider
G-O-PARRTTAY!
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Gwinnett GOP is holding a “Pre-victory Party 2008” in Lawrenceville’s Collins Hill Park next Sunday.
Famous Dave’s Bar-B-Que and speeches are on the menu. U.S. Rep. John Linder (R-Ga.) is expected to be there. There will be a presidential straw poll, a “patriotic photo booth,” a coloring contest, face painting for the kids and door prizes.
Advance tickets are $15. It’ll cost $20 at the door for adults and $5 for children 12 and younger. The shindig runs from 2 to 5 p.m.
For info and tickets, call 770-925-VOTE or visit www.gwinnettgop.org.
Permalink | Comments (6) | Post your comment | Categories: Gwinnett Insider
Nimbies on the Net
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Perhaps a basement isn’t the best place to start a revolution.
Bob Griggs would probably agree with that. The political activist says he’s close to launching an Internet service that provides free Web sites for homeowner groups trying to get organized, articles on development issues and information on how to obtain public records.
The address will be www.savegwinnett.com.
“I have several groups and individuals who are waiting on me to complete this project so that they can be among the first to sign up,” Griggs said in an e-mail he sent us.
Once the site is up, he said, “an individual or group opposing a rezoning, for example, can go to www.savegwinnett.com and sign up for a free site. The site is created immediately and, in a matter of minutes the user can be publishing content.”
Permalink | Comments (2) | Post your comment | Categories: Gwinnett Insider
It may be dull, but it matters …
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Telecommunications taxation reform could be one of the biggest, dullest issues facing the Georgia Legislature.
Even so, some of the proposals floating around the Gold Dome could, if adopted, have a significant impact on the cost of telephone and cable TV service in Georgia.
State Sen. David Shafer (R-Duluth), who chaired a committee meeting on the subject last week, said some of these proposals could actually lower those costs.
At issue are franchise fees that local governments impose on telephone and television service providers. Supporters of reform say the current system was created when telephone and television service were distinctly different enterprises.
But now, with telephone companies, wireless service providers and cable television companies all branching into each others’ businesses, such companies pay widely different rates for providing essentially the same services.
The new proposals include requiring satellite TV providers to pay the same fees cable companies do, and creating statewide franchises for telephone companies, instead of requiring them to negotiate with a multitude of local governments.
“They seem to be unrelated proposals, but they’re made in recognition of the fact that technologies have converged,” Shafer said. “And we need a system of taxation and regulation that’s simple and fair.”
Yes, we know. Zzzzzzzzzz.
Permalink | Comments (4) | Post your comment | Categories: Gwinnett Insider
Everybody hates property taxes but …
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A proposal by House Speaker Glenn Richardson (R-Hiram) to end property taxes in Georgia by lifting the state sales tax is a popular idea.
Last week’s Insider Advantage, the online political newsletter and polling firm, ranked the issue No. 1 among Georgia voters.
The elected leaders of cities, counties and school boards across the state aren’t among them. That’s because if it passed, local governments would hand most of their power to raise their own tax revenue to the state.
The sentiment may be particularly strong in Gwinnett.
“From what we’ve seen so far, the great plan would be not be great for Gwinnett County,” Gwinnett Commissioner Lorraine Green said.
Green argued that under such a system, larger metro counties would lose out to rural Georgia in divvying up of sales tax revenue among local governments.
An added sales tax might dampen collections from special purpose local option sales taxes, Green said.
“We’d like to get rid of taxes, but this isn’t the way to do it,” Green said.
Permalink | Comments (33) | Post your comment | Categories: Gwinnett Insider
What’s your favorite Bob Dylan memory?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Before the Saturday concert at Gwinnett Arena, share your favorite Bob Dylan memory or moments here. Perhaps you were turned on by his lyrics to work for a better world. Maybe you found love. Or maybe you discovered something about yourself.
Permalink | Comments (16) | Post your comment | Categories: Entertainment
He is Innocent and he really loves dogs
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Garry Innocent isn’t happy about his newfound fame.
The Duluth veterinarian has been pilloried by pet lovers after The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported Friday that he’s being sued by a dog owner who says his pet is being held “hostage” for a bill payment.
Innocent said he has been actively working on a proposal to change the state’s current definition of pets as property to “pet wards,” which would give them a little more protection under the law. He also supports the registration of all pets.
Innocent says he has even passed his proposals to a state legislator who’s also one of his customers.
“Pet registration would help ensure that the animals are properly vaccinated,” he said.
“It would also increase pet ownership responsibility.”
If such a system existed in Georgia, said Innocent, Pilot, the dog now at the center of a lawsuit, would have been vaccinated. The puppy wouldn’t have needed expensive treatment for a life-threatening but preventable disease.
And Innocent wouldn’t be seeking to send the dog to the pound because Pilot’s owner can’t pay a $974 bill.
Permalink | Comments (41) | Post your comment | Categories: Gwinnett Insider
What’s the trick?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Handout
Jim Costelloe
3, 1461, 220-6400, 1. What do these numbers mean? No, they are not related to the sequence of numbers from “Lost.” They are actually even more puzzling.
•3 — as in three websites of so-called ticket brokers I looked at Monday morning after Hannah Montana tickets went on sale Saturday. These scalp — um, I mean, brokers — were Peachtreetickets.com, Razorgator.com (also known as Encore Tickets) and Smoothtickets.com.
•1461 — as in 1,461 — the total number of tickets these three websites (combined) had and were “selling” for the Hannah Montana concert coming to Gwinnett Center Arena in November.
•220-6400 — as in $220 to $6,400 — the price range that these tickets are selling for on these websites.
•1 — as in one family out of about 30 that we know who was actually able to get tickets to the Hannah Montana concert through the conventional means of trying to buy them through the online pre-sale as a member of Hannah’s fan club, or trying to buy them on the official sale date on Saturday morning, Sept.15.
I have puzzled over how these “brokers,” aptly named because buying tickets through these places will leave a family broke, are able to suck up the lion’s share of tickets while the vast majority of the non-broker population gets left empty-handed.
Think about these numbers, as they are truly staggering. These three places were each able to get their hands on hundreds of tickets. (There are other web sites with Hannah tickets, too; these are just the ones I checked.) That is an astounding success rate considering that there are limits on the number of tickets that can be purchased at one time, and knowing that most families with a child in the 7-10-year-old range living in Georgia were also online, on the phone or in line trying to accomplish the same thing the brokers were. I would think the odds would be stacked against the brokers.
People I know who attempted to buy tickets during the pre-sale were shut out instantly, within seconds of hitting enter on their keyboards. These same people then tried again by either attempting to purchase tickets online, by phone and by standing in line, still to no avail. People who stood in line saw that no line ever made it past the second person before being told that all the tickets were gone.
So what gives brokers such a leg up? These places can’t be sending employees into the street to wait in line with the rest of us. That wouldn’t make sense. Ticketmaster’s lottery system would not guarantee them a high enough success rate to make it profitable.
For those who do not know, the lottery system means you don’t have to camp out over night to be first in line. If tickets go on sale at 10 a.m., the outlet will hold a drawing about 9-9:30 a.m. for those people waiting to determine the order of people buying tickets. Therefore, it makes no difference if you arrive three minutes or three days before the drawing, your chances are the same.
So what could brokers be doing to gain such an enormous upper hand?
In some cases, it appears they may have technology. According to a lawsuit filed by Ticketmaster LLC in Los Angeles, four individuals in Massachusetts used sophisticated technology to circumvent Ticketmaster’s security protocols and flood the retailer with potentially hundreds of requests using multiple credit cards and E-mail addresses. The four accused individuals are alleged to have bought more than 45,000 tickets since 2003.
Other lawsuits filed in Texas, Ohio and Illinois allege that similar technology was used there to purchase 120,000 tickets in the same time span.
Of course there isn’t a single broker out there who doesn’t insist it obtains its ridiculous inventory of tickets through proper and legal channels. Go to any of these websites, and you will read essentially the same line: We obtain our tickets by maintaining extensive contacts with season ticket holders and by purchasing tickets from individual ticket purchasers.
The only problem with this stale rhetoric is that there are no season ticket holders for Hannah Montana concerts, and it would be literally impossible to obtain the number of tickets these brokers advertise from individual purchasers, let alone have them posted to their website within minutes of the concert selling out.
Maybe it’s time to go back to the old-fashioned method of selling tickets at retail outlets only and eliminating the online purchase. At least it would level the playing a field a bit more.
In the meantime, nothing changes, and our children get a first-hand lesson in disappointment.
At least we can take comfort in the fact that our children are not alone in their misery while the scalp — oops again, I mean, brokers — make money from it.
Jim Costelloe is a husband and father of two who lives in Suwanee and works in the commercial mortgage industry.
Permalink | Comments (13) | Post your comment | Categories: Entertainment
Lieutenant governor comes to Gwinnett again
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Casey Cagle came to Lawrenceville 10 days ago to check out the county’s new Animal Welfare and Enforcement Center.
In 12 days he’ll be back to talk to Gwinnett chamber members about his efforts “to make Georgia a state where every single citizen, regardless of their current circumstances, can achieve the American dream.”
That doesn’t sound like the typically wonkish fare the chamber serves up at its regularly scheduled chicken dinners. Gee, you think Cagle might be making the rounds, albeit a tad early, for a possible run for governor in 2010?
Two visits do not a campaign make, and while Cagle has acknowledged he’s interested in the top job, he cautioned tea leaf readers against looking for “gov” in all the wrong places.
Nonetheless, it kind of reminds us of the string of visits Sonny Perdue made to Gwinnett before his re-election in 2006. We haven’t heard much from him since.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment | Categories: Gwinnett Insider
Peace rally in Snellville? Huh?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Snellville seems like an odd place to hold a peace protest against the Iraq war.
First, the politics don’t quite match up.
Snellville is a staunchly conservative bastion. Most folks there still stand by President Bush. Many of its inhabitants might match late liberal columnist Molly Ivins’ definition of a “Shiite Baptist.”
Second, rallying against the war in Iraq while in Snellville seems a little like passing out rain slickers in a desert. Snellville City Hall is not known as a peaceable kingdom.
The elected politicians who run the city are constantly sniping at each other for reasons that might seem picayune to many outsiders.
Nevertheless, on Friday the Gwinnett/DeKalb Citizens for Peace will take to the streets to urge Congress to put a “moratorium” on Iraq war funding. The rally is scheduled to take place at 5 p.m.
For more information, go to www.georgiapeace.org or www.iraqmoratorium.org.
Permalink | | Categories: Gwinnett Insider
Shafer appointed to regional energy panel
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
State Sen. David Shafer (R-Duluth), was appointed Thursday by Georgia Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle to the Southern States Energy Board.
The panel, based in Atlanta, promotes policies and provides technical assistance for Southern state lawmakers on economic development, environmental protection and energy security.
The panel is made up of governors and state lawmakers from around the South.
Permalink | | Categories: Gwinnett Insider
In Gwinnett, it’s a doggy-dog world
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Since we ran the story about the doggy and kitty oxygen masks recently donated to the fire department, we’ve gotten a bunch of e-mails and calls from people who’d also like to purchase and donate these masks to animal rescuers.
H.E.L.P. Animals Inc., in Orange City, Fla., has a program through which dog and cat lovers can purchase the masks and donate them to their local fire and rescue departments.
For information, go to www.helpanimalsinc.org or call 386-775-4966 or contact oxygenmaskinfo@helpanimalsinc.org.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Categories: Gwinnett Insider
Pirkle. Now where have we heard that name before?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It turns out that Glenn Pirkle, the unknown running for chairman of the Board of Commissioners, is politically connected. Sugar Hill Mayor Gary Pirkle is his second cousin.
Glenn Pirkle said he and the mayor are close.
“We have family gatherings up at our family pavilion,” Glenn Pirkle said.
But does he expect to have his cousin’s political support?
“I haven’t talked to him about that yet,” Glenn Pirkle said.
Last week, Glenn Pirkle filed the necessary paperwork to begin raising money for his campaign. In doing so, the electrical contractor from Buford jumped ahead of a couple of political heavyweights who are also expected to run.
Among them are incumbent Chairman Charles Bannister and Commissioner Lorraine Green.
Last week, we told you that Pirkle’s opposition to the county’s year-old stormwater tax compelled him to run. Pirkle said he wasn’t really all that upset about his own bill.
But the devout Baptist told us on the Friday evening before Memorial Day that he was incensed that churches must pay the tax. We didn’t report that detail last week because we couldn’t confirm it. It turns out to be true.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Categories: Gwinnett Insider
Cal Warlick / On Gwinnett
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Permalink | | Categories: Cal Warlick / On Gwinnett
Huntsville copies Gwinnett’s anti-illegal immigration law
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Beginning Oct. 1, contractors looking for work from the government of Madison County, Ala., will have to abide by the same anti-illegal immigration policies that the Gwinnett Board of Commissioners adopted in June.
Madison County Commissioner Mo Brooks told the Huntsville Times a couple of weeks ago that the ordinance he drafted was specifically modeled after Gwinnett’s amended purchasing ordinance.
Among changes approved by the Gwinnett commissioners on June 26, all county contractors must verify that all of their employees are legal U.S. residents. The changed ordinance also empowers county auditors to periodically inspect the records of these companies and interview their workers.
Some contractors initially balked at Gwinnett’s ordinance over the employee-verification requirements, which they considered difficult, if not impossible, to comply with.
A friendly follow-up interpretation of the ordinance by county staff allayed many of the contractors’ concerns.
Permalink | Comments (8) | Categories: Gwinnett Insider
The taxman cometh … again
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
This is just a friendly reminder to all Gwinnett property owners: The deadline for paying the first of two property tax bills is Sept. 15.
You can pay in person at the Gwinnett Justice and Administration Center in Lawrenceville or the North Gwinnett Motor Vehicle tag office in Buford.
Taxpayers can pay their bills in several other ways:
•By mail: Gwinnett County Tax Commissioner, Department of Property Tax, P.O. Box 372, Lawrenceville, GA 30046-0372.
•In person: The Gwinnett Justice and Administration Center’s property tax office at 75 Langley Drive in Lawrenceville, GA 30045; or, the North Gwinnett Motor Vehicles Tag Office at 2735 Mall of Georgia Blvd. in Buford. Both offices will be open from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. this week.
• By telephone: call 770-822-8800.
• By Internet: www.GwinnettTaxCommissioner.com.
For more information, go to the Web site and telephone number listed above, or e-mail tax@gwinnettcounty.com.
Permalink | | Categories: Gwinnett Insider
Cal Warlick / On Gwinnett
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Permalink | | Categories: Cal Warlick / On Gwinnett
For the record
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Gwinnett County Administrator Jock Connell got the raise we told you about last week.
The Gwinnett Board of Commissioners voted up the raise, with little comment, shortly before midnight on Tuesday.
The unanimous vote, which was the last item on the board’s agenda, took all of 47 seconds to be carried.
Connell will see his salary jump from $200,000 to $225,000. But his combined annual vacation and leave time will drop from 11 weeks to seven weeks.
What a shame.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Categories: Gwinnett Insider
Governor appoints Royal to Consumer Advisory Board
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue last week appointed Mike Royal to the Consumer Advisory Board of the Governor’s Office of Consumer Affairs.
It’s a panel we like to call CABOTGOOCA.
The board is charged with making recommendations to the consumer affairs office on how to do a better job of protecting — you guessed it — Georgia consumers.
Among other things, the agency investigates cases of racketeering, home improvement fraud, identity theft, counterfeiting, forgery and theft by deception.
Royal, an insurance counselor, is active in Gwinnett County politics.
The Lawrenceville resident is a former Gwinnett GOP chairman and currently serves as vice chairman of the county Zoning Board of Appeals.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Categories: Gwinnett Insider
Snellville mayoral candidate: I’m not new or old guard
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Bruce Garraway was none too pleased by this newspaper’s characterization of him last week as the choice of Snellville’s “old guard.”
He is, but the Snellville city councilman and newly qualified mayoral candidate hates that label.
“My vision is to see only one guard in Snellville, and that is the ‘inclusive guard,’ where a mayor and City Council would include all citizens, newcomers and longtime residents, supporters and opponents,” said Garraway, in an op-ed column he wrote for AJC Gwinnett News last November.
When we brought up the old guard-new guard thing on Friday, the day after Garraway signed up to run for mayor, he fired off an angry e-mail.
“What kind of reporting is this?” Garraway wrote.
In fairness, Garraway and his incumbent opponent, Mayor Jerry Oberholtzer, were allies when the two ran for their current jobs in 2003. And Garraway’s Snellville roots don’t run that deep. He moved inside the Snellville city limits about a year before he was elected to the council.
Garraway and Oberholtzer had a falling out within the first year of taking office. Since then, Garraway has consistently sided with the voting bloc backed by supporters of former mayor Emmett Clower. Clower, who governed the city for 25 years, was ousted in 1999 by political newcomer Brett Harrell. Harrell, who served only one term as mayor, ran on a platform of change.
Garraway says he’s running as an agent of change, too. And he says he wants to be everybody’s choice.
But if Garraway is seeking to run a campaign of municipal unity, we’re not sure “inclusive guard” works. It seems like a mouthful.
How about “right guard”?
Permalink | Comments (4) | Categories: Gwinnett Insider
Unknown tosses hat into ring vs. chairman
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It’s not who you think. His name is Glenn Pirkle.
Yeah, we’d never heard of him either.
But last Wednesday, Pirkle filed a “declaration of intent” to run against Charles Bannister for Gwinnett commission chairman in 2008.
That means he can start raising money for his campaign.
“Charles Bannister has done a good job, but there’s more fat that needs to be cut out,” said Pirkle during a telephone conversation with GI on Friday night.
In particular, Pirkle, who says he’s “never been in politics, never cared for politics,” is steamed about the storm-water tax the county adopted last year.
“I’m just fed up with it,” he said.
Since you might be hearing Pirkle’s name a little more often, here’s a little more info on him. He is a 53-year-old electrical contractor who’s married and has four grown children.
A native of Jacksonville, Fla., Pirkle has lived in Gwinnett since he was 9.
Permalink | | Categories: Gwinnett Insider
.JPG)
-1.JPG)
Services »
