Republican voters in Gwinnett County still have a chance to provide fresh leadership to the County Commission: On Aug. 5, they can nominate Lorraine Green to be the new commission chairwoman. Green is the superior candidate to incumbent Charles Bannister, who upset longtime chairman Wayne Hill in the Republican primary in 2004.

At a time when Gwinnett continues to face major challenges, Bannister's tenure has been less than inspiring. The county has become home to vicious criminal gangs. Demographic shifts are exacerbating the income differences between the north and south ends of the county. And Gwinnett has only recently started to tackle traffic gridlock fed by decades of commercial and residential growth.

Both Bannister and Green joined the commission in the same year, but Green was quicker to make her mark. When The Atlanta Journal-Constituton provided details about millions of dollars in secret land deals that the commission had approved, Green took up the cause. She forged a consensus to stop the unlawful practice of buying property in secret and telling voters about it only after the deal had been closed. Bannister, on the other hand, seemed content to maintain the status quo.

The new process has worked well for the county —- with at least one notable exception. Earlier this year, the county secretly purchased land to make available to the Atlanta Braves so the baseball club could establish a minor-league franchise in Gwinnett, and Green put aside her open-meetings stance to jump on the Braves bandwagon. She should have known better.

Green also has floated the idea that Gwinnett should switch to a homestead option sales tax as the primary method of financing county government operations —- a process already in place in DeKalb and Rockdale counties. The concept has some appeal because it is supposed to replace property taxes.

But, in reality, the concept has some very real flaws. For one thing, it could require county residents to pay both a 1 percent sales tax and keep some property taxes in order to pay for county services, as DeKalb taxpayers do.

Nevertheless, Green remains a better candidate than Bannister. She has been an energetic commissioner, full of ideas, and with her background as a homeowner activist, she remains in much better contact with her constituents than the present chairman. Gwinnett could use her leadership.

—- Mike King, for the editorial board (mking@ajc.com)