The Georgia capitol, via Unsplash.
By Elliott Brack
Editor and Publisher, GwinnettForum
FEB. 25, 2025 | Being a member of the Georgia General Assembly can be difficult.
Voters send legislators to Atlanta to be their local voice in state politics. Yet at the same time, these senators and representatives must think what’s good for the whole state. Sometimes this can be difficult, for what is good for the goose (the people who elected you) may not be good for the gander (the entire state.) That’s what makes being a legislator difficult.
Two recent proposals are examples.
One is the 2024 statewide Adjusted Base Year Homestead Exemption introduced in House Bill 581, passed by the Legislature. Where did this come from? The legislators were concerned about rising property value assessments, and eventually about higher taxes. The proposal would essentially mean passage of a bill with floating homestead exemptions, plus new local option sales taxes, if approved in a statewide referendum. Yes, it passed, so this legislation became law.
Yet a problem reared its head. You see, the new bill required every county in the state to adopt this new procedure, even when what was proposed was already in existence in a different form in many counties, cities and school boards.
So what happened: numerous governments in the state opted out of this new law, keeping their own better homestead exemptions intact.
What legislators thought was good for the entire state was looked upon by some taxing authorities as not good for them. This legislation did not make sense for many areas. At least an “opt-out” was included in the exemption legislation.
Here’s another bit of legislation this year that shows the difficulty in writing legislation for the whole state.
A Macon legislator thinks the speed zone cameras in popular use to slow down traffic are abusive. He wants to abolish them, and has about 100 legislators signing a bill on this subject.
Yet other jurisdictions feel that speed zone cameras are useful in providing safer streets and slowing down motorists in school zones.
One local example is telling. In Norcross, Police Chief Bill Grogan says the speed zone cameras help his department in numerous ways. On February 4 of this year, at the four schools where there are cameras in Norcross, 90,851 cars drove by them, but only 146 vehicles were ticketed for speeding. Those ticketed were driving at least 37 miles per hour in a 25 mph zone. (Less than three percent of vehicles tagged for speeding are in the Norcross 30071 Zip Code.)
Chief Grogan also noted that before speed zone cameras, his officers investigated 2,200 accidents a year. Today that figure has fallen to only 1,235 crashes, with 300 fewer injuries each year.
Add another aspect: With 1,000 fewer accident investigations, this also frees up Norcross patrol officers an estimated 600+ hours a year to get back into patrolling neighborhoods and businesses, helping prevent crime. The school zone program is also 100 percent safe, with no chance of officers or drivers getting injured on the side of the road.
So in this case of speed zone cameras, the City of Norcross residents get safer streets, fewer accidents, and added police presence in the city.
Places like Macon, or rural areas, may not need speed zone cameras as much as some other areas. It’s another example of the difficulty of our senators and representatives writing solid statewide legislation for this growing state’s people.
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