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Friday, December 14, 2007
House members in no mood for GREAT beating
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jock Connell took great pains not to offend Gwinnett state lawmakers when he presented the county’s wish list for the 2008 General Assembly.
That’s probably because the head of that delegation was in no mood to get “beat up” over GOP House Speaker Glenn Richardson’s GREAT plan.
That’s the plan that seeks to end local property taxation in Georgia by adding new state sales taxes to replace the revenue local governments and school boards would lose.
Connell, Gwinnett’s county administrator, has remained mum on the idea. But several county commissioners think it stinks.
At a meeting between county officials and state lawmakers last week, Connell gave a polite and fairly neutral presentation of how GREAT, if enacted, might affect the county.
“We appreciate your approach to that,” Rep. Bobby Reese (R-Sugar Hill), the Gwinnett House delegation’s chairman, said after Connell’s presentation.
“If we were going to get beat up over it, we were going to leave,” Reese said.
Reese said state lawmakers got “beat up pretty bad” at a prior meeting with the Georgia Municipal Association.
“But they fed us well right before,” Reese said.
Connell suggested it was good the county decided to serve sandwiches instead of a full-course meal.
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