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Friday, October 19, 2007
Barnes: ‘We knew this water crisis was coming’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
While former Gov. Roy Barnes was at the Capitol to extoll the virtues of Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards this week, he weighed in on the water crisis.
He told our colleague James Salzer that the crisis shouldn’t have been a surprise to anybody in state government who was paying attention.
“We knew it was coming. It’s not something like we got up in the morning and said, ‘Well, this is a new problem,’ ” Barnes said. “This is a problem that we’ve known has been coming for years and years and years.”
Barnes, who served from 1999 to 2003, said his plan was to create a North Georgia Water Planning District and build three new reservoirs.
“I’d already issued the bonds for the one out in west Georgia. We were going to build one north of Cherokee [County] and one to the east of [Lake] Lanier,” the former governor added.
“The other thing we were going to do was give grants to cities and counties to fix leaks. The greatest problem that you have is leaks,” he said.
Barnes said there is no reason Georgia can’t continue growing and still have enough water for public consumption.
“Los Angeles added one million people without increasing their water supply,” he said. “And if Los Angeles can do it, I’ll tell you Georgia can.”
Word from inside the state Capitol is that streamlining the permit process for reservoirs will be priority legislation when lawmakers gather in January.
Notes on the governor: From Asia, with tough love
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
When last seen on Thursday, Gov. Sonny Perdue was involved in a grip-and-grin photo opportunity with an auto magnate in South Korea.
The same Korean news site picked up on some funereal diplomacy the governor engaged in this summer:
“When Byun Joong-seok, the wife of the late Hyundai founder Chung Joo-young, died in August, Perdue sent flowers to express his condolences and as a token of his gratitude for Hyundai’s project in his state.”
What with his pick winning her job as the new Department of Transportation commissioner, and a muscular fight over mussels and water with the U.S. Corps of Engineers, this has been a good week for Perdue.
The pity is that the governor has been out of town during the dual crises, on a weeklong trade trip. Statements have been generated from PDAs in Tokyo and Seoul, but that hardly satisfies us media jackals.
Somebody has to put his mug on TV, to serve as the face of Georgia’s problems — specifically the draining of Lake Lanier.
And so Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle has reluctantly shouldered the burden. In the last few days, Cagle has been taped walking along the shores of Lanier by ABC. He’s been on Fox. CBS has got him in the can.
He just showed up on NBC’s “Today” a few minutes ago. He’ll call into CNN later this morning.
What a hard working fellow that Casey Cagle is.
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Proof of hope for the Hatfields and McCoys
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
One of the more jarring sights at the Fred Thompson rally on Thursday was watching Joel McElhannon and Jared Thomas walk into the place together.
Not quite arm in arm, but almost.
You’ll remember that McElhannon was a chief strategist for Casey Cagle in the Republican race for lieutenant governor in 2006.
Thomas was Ralph Reed’s campaign manager.
McElhannon is now on the Thompson payroll. Thomas said he was working merely as a volunteer — he remains as head of the Georgia chapter of Americans for Prosperity.
Nothing like a new election cycle to heal old wounds. Almost brings tears to the eyes.
Baxter: Nearly half of GOP voters in S.C. say Mormonism troubles them
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Right there in his hand, our former colleague Tom Baxter has a poll that says 45 percent of likely Republican voters in South Carolina say they’re less likely to vote for Mitt Romney next January because of his Mormon faith.
And so, Baxter speculates, it might not have been such a good idea for fundamentalist university chancellor Bob Jones III to broadcast news of Romney’s religion — despite the endorsement that came with it.
Because his newsletter, the Southern Political Report, is now open to all comers, we can link to it — as John Lewis said — without reservation or hesitation. Enjoy.
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