Home > Transportation > I will not vote to have my tax dollars redistributed to Cobb, Gwinnett

I will not vote to have my tax dollars redistributed to Cobb, Gwinnett

October 18, 2011

CrossRoadsNews – No rail for I 20 in final transportation projects for referendum.

Why am I not surprised by this?  This was DOA and anyone with half a brain knew it. No one on that roundtable was interested in helping marginal folks in South DeKalb. Whats worse is that the member we had who was suppose to look out for our interest caved. CEO Ellis made a bold statement wanting to yank funding from the GA400/I285 area, but I bet he knew that was going nowhere and can hide behind the fact that he did offer up an alternative. It pisses me off that I have to live North of the Stone Mountain Freeway to get decent schools, decent roads, clean streets and transportation alternatives. We are a marginalized people who are being asked to give 1 cent of every dollar spent here to citizens in Cobb who don’t even want rail and have historically been downright hostile to it.  The more I think about it, the more I realize that this is just redistribution in the other direction. Take our tax dollars and spend them on projects that people don’t want just because they can.  If they rely on my vote to help pass it, then we all we be stuck in 20th century transportation options.

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  1. Trackboy1
    October 18, 2011 at 11:17 pm

    “It pisses me off that I have to live North of the Stone Mountain Freeway to get decent schools, decent roads, clean streets and transportation alternatives.”

    C’mon now. The overwhelming majority of SPLOST I-II and III spending by the school system has been for South DeKalb schools. Four black school superintendents in a row, with a majority black BOE. The county commission has been majority black for years, with 11 years of a black CEO. The DeKalb rep on the State Transportation board is Robert Brown, also black, and very powerful locally with his long term on the Grady board and as an architect with many DCSS contracts.

    Who’s fault is it exactly that South DeKalb doesn’t have in your opinion, “decent schools, decent roads, clean streets and transportation alternatives”???

    Do the parents in South DeKalb have any ownership/involvement in their children’s schools? If the streets aren’t clean, isn’t Commission Chair Larry Johnson somewhat culpable?

    Enough with the blame game. It’s time for the residents of South DeKalb to step up, ’cause they haven’t really ever done so.

    • annettegay
      October 23, 2011 at 12:17 pm

      IF the majority of previous SPLOST spending has been in S. DeKalb, it was to accommodate the explosion of students which accompanied the explosion of growth, particularly in the St. Mountain/Lithonia area. Where would you have proposed to put those kids in the early- to mid-2000’s? Were you even aware of the “packed like sardines” scenarios all over what you call S. DeKalb back then? As for DeKalb’s superintendents, the newest one makes three unless you’re counting the interim. And in the big scheme of things, a majority black school board has been around only recently. Before then, we had decades of majority leadership whose failures were much the same — by commission and omission. Don’t forget that before any modern-era school could be built, the school system had to free itself from the segregation lawsuit — which hung around all that time for what I’m thinking is a good reason.

      Sure, S. DeKalb has a lot of work to do. A citizen’s willingness or refusal to step up is not defined by race or geographic location. Just the other day I drove through the Brockett area and decided that I much prefer my own streets in what you’d call the Horrible South DeKalb area. I saw lots of trash and untended yards. Perhaps you should have joined us for the Hands On Cleanup Day at Snapfinger Elem. so you can be assured that S. DeKalb people really do step, not that any of us need your validation to tell us we’re doing what we’re supposed to do.

      Finally, enough with the monolithic broad brush strokes. To point out that certain people in leadership are black or white or purple is useless and unintelligent, since when it comes to leadership, service and accountability, I’ve yet to get a straight answer when I ask someone “how do you know he’s BLACK?” You can also insert any other color or gender into the question. It truly doesn’t matter.

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