By Elliott Brack
Editor and Publisher, GwinnettForum
NOV. 16, 2021 | Two events last week in Gwinnett County drew immediate uproars.
One apparently got people fired up enough so much that it was immediately withdrawn.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution created a new format of its pages, telling its readers it was working to improve the newspaper. (We got out of it that we’ll get far less real news.) But while most of the changes drew little response, moving the obituaries out of the local news section to, of all places, the midst of the sports section, created quite a hullabaloo for the newspaper.
Two days later, the obituaries were back in the news section. Apparently, readers don’t think funerals and obits are sporting events. We agree. It felt awkward reading obits amongst the sporting news.
Dixon
In Gwinnett, the major political bombshell was the unannounced effort by Republican Sen. Clint Dixon for drastic changes in the makeup of the county commission and school board. The senator introduced legislation, during the General Assembly session supposedly only dealing with redistricting, to add five more seats to the county commission (to 10 members). And in an unrelated effort, this legislation would change the way that school board elections are held, eliminating party affiliations, and making all elected positions non-partisan.
Perhaps the most insidious part of this effort was that Senator Dixon had not discussed either of these changes with county commission or school board officials. It turned out that they are all dead-set against the changes.
In reality, both proposals seemed to be a rushed attempt for Republicans to hold onto power, in the face of the major loss of seats the GOP found in recent Gwinnett elections. Even with redistricting, the Republican Party should find it impossible to win a majority of seats in future Gwinnett elections, mainly because of the increased diversity of the county. But antics like this, which one called “ambush” legislation, may raise eyebrows among independents in backing the GOP.
While Senator Dixon engineered the proposal, don’t forget that four other Republican legislators joined him in signing onto the document. They are house members Timothy Barr, Chuck Efstration, Tom Kirby and Bonnie Rich. (The only other Gwinnett Republican legislator, Rep. David Clark, was not listed among those signing the proposition.)
Besides enlarging the county commission to ten (nine commissioners representing districts, and the chairman, running countywide) the part of the legislation that is most questionable is that it would eliminate the chairman from having a vote, unless matters ended in a tie. This format is called a “weak chairman” vote. It makes the person elected by the whole county literally only the “chairman” of the commission, running the meetings, voting only when a tie, and exercising power only indirectly.
There’s an organization in Georgia that helps cities and counties in structural matters. It’s the Carl Vinson Institute for Government at the University of Georgia. We heard of not the first instance when Senator Dixon called upon this body to help come up with a new structure for Gwinnett’s government. History reminds us that the Institute helped set up the present five members commission back in 1966 at former Commission Ray Gunnin’s urging.
Instead, Senator Dixon pulled out of his magic hat a format that he himself created. The worst part of his proposal is that it is far harder for 10 people to agree and work together than it is for five people. Apparently Senator Dixon neither considered, nor knows, about how people work together.
Senator Dixon’s proposal is a bad idea. It needs to be quashed as did another idea, obits in the sports section.
- Have a comment? Send to: elliott@brack.net
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