Column for April 19, 2007

A proclamation for the bond referendum

You may or may not see this one reported in the news. The Selma Town Council meeting last week got most of the attention by the media and potential new residents focused on the vote to annex five tracts of land into the town limits. That is appropriate, considering the volatile situation created by that very act.

Following the vote to annex, most of the crowd left the council chambers and did not stay for the remainder of the meeting. I did, since I already live within the town limits and am not personally being annexed. I personally want to find out all that my town is doing. Open meetings are one cornerstone of our republic.

One act by the town council that you may not know about is the passing of a resolution to support the upcoming bond referendum on May 8th. You may have read my previous column on that same topic, seen the billboards around the county, and heard about it in the media.

I don't know who paid for the billboards touting bond support, but I will be greatly unhappy if it was done with our own tax dollars. Our government has no business using such expense and propaganda for its own bond agenda. That should be left up to concerned citizens on both sides of the issue.

I was a bit dismayed that the proclamation to support the bond referenda was not read in open session in the town council meeting, so only those on the town council, in town government, and the media were given the content of the proclamation. I had to ask for a copy, and was graciously accommodated by Fran Davis, the Selma Town Clerk. Thank you, Ms. Davis. I am thankful for public access laws.

I did some rewriting of the proclamation, as I believe it should be written.

WHEREAS, the majority of the burden for paying taxes in Johnston County is unfairly borne by property owners, many of whom do not have children in public schools; and

WHEREAS, the school system already gets millions of dollars in financial support from the county, the state, and the federal government; and

WHEREAS, the school system population is growing as a direct result of the influx of illegal immigrants that are already given government benefits, and education not necessarily available to long term or native residents; and

WHEREAS, there are charter schools in this state that thrive with creative means of utilizing facilities for their academic institutions; and

WHEREAS, many of these same charter schools are able to finance new school construction without the benefit of the additional monies supplied to the public schools for school construction, which is the reason for the aforementioned school bond; and

WHEREAS, the public schools have a lower level of academic achievement today than any time in documented history of academics in this nation; and

WHEREAS, the very innovators of the concept of smaller class are the ones who are currently abandoning that concept as flawed, expensive, and non-productive; and

WHEREAS, the government has already indentured the taxpayers of this county, municipality, state, and nation with a high level of indebtedness far greater than at any time in history; and

WHEREAS, government construction and administration projects are notoriously inefficient and great wastes of taxpayer monies; and

WHEREAS, neither the Johnston County School System nor Johnston Community College have demonstrated sufficient efforts so as to ensure the utmost in stewardship and efficiency with existing taxpayer monies; and

WHEREAS, the taxpayers of this state have already been swindled by inefficient government initiatives such as "Smart Start" and "More at Four"; and

WHEREAS, private and home schools have, in general, been demonstrated to surpass the education quality of our public schools; and

WHEREAS, there is no freedom of choice as to where parents may send their children in the public school system, thereby creating competition in education thereby boosting academic performance; and

WHEREAS, recreational facilities are a nice thing to have for the county and municipalities but are not necessities thereof; and

WHEREAS, there are far more important things to spend taxpayer monies upon than recreation facilities such as infrastructure improvements;

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the Town of Selma encourages the county's voters to defeat the education and recreation facilities bond referendum scheduled for May 8, 2007.

Yeah, like that would ever happen.