Bigger jails only mean more prisoners

Here we go again. More clamoring for a new/bigger jail.

At the same time, our local government is struggling with how to reduce the counties budget in these leaner days. Looking at the budget, you might notice the increase to the jail for boarding from $740,000 to $1.2MM? That's half-a-million dollars!

You can bet this also has a strong effect on the fuel bill as these inmates are shuttled back and forth from the boarding facilities to Clarke County for court appearances, etc.

The time is over where the prosecutors and courts can respond to the public's clamor for "safety" by incarcerating so many people who, under our constitution, are presumed innocent.

As an example, on May 22 (the day of the news report), our jail was responsible for 82 inmates with bonds less than $10,000 (meaning they can put up less than $1,000 to get bonded out.) 78 inmates at $5,000 or less. 46 inmates at $3,000 or less, and 18 at $1,000 or less.

On that date we had 113 inmates housed out to other facilities. This includes inmates with $1000 bond, in jail for more than 2 months on a misdemeanor obstruction charge, and others charged with public indecency, suspended license, and drug possession.

I take this information from the jail's data.

I am not sure what purpose shelling out $1,000 in bond money serves to separate the need to pay for incarceration and lodging out of 82 inmates versus the ability to have them at liberty pending trial. Anyone with the means would surely post the bond. Those without, stay in jail, on our dime. It seems a terrible way to allocate liberty. Are we now presumed innocent only as long as we can afford a bond?

When we are looking at "tough choices," we should not treat as a given that the increased jail expenses are necessary, or even acceptable. The sheriff has no control over the numbers, and must ask for the money to house the inmates put in his charge. For this we must look to the prosecutors and the courts for methods to better allocate the dollars being wasted.

Moreover we must support these decision by not witch-hunting the courts and prosecutors when a malfeasor on bond commits a crime. This will happen, I know.

We cannot lock up people presumed innocent under our system of law because that is the only way we can ensure that they do not violate future laws. Incarceration of the innocent as a means of crime prevention is a step down a very dangerous path to the kind of government we claim not to be.

Only when the public, and the press, remember that, and don't immediately seek to castigate those that protect our liberties for their failure to jail the innocent, will the courts and the prosecutors not be driven to err on the side of bond, which means bigger jails, bigger budgets, more joblessness, homelessness, etc.

We don't need a bigger jail. That's just spending money to placate irrational fears of the populace, rather than spending the money where it can help.

Food for thought.

Cramming it down our throats

On Tuesday, April 8, 2008, the Board of Commissioners voted, with a tiebreaker from the chairman, to allow the citizens of Oconee County, and those who would to choose to come visit, to choose to have a glass of wine or beer with our supper. According to the Oconee Enterprise Commissioners Don Norris and Jim Luke voted for the ordinance allowing the sale of wine and beer, while Commissioners Margaret Hale and Chuck Horton voted against it.

People are outraged. Some people anyway. Really, maybe not so many. But they are outraged. "The majority has spoken when they voted against liquor by the drink. The Commission has defied the people," they say. "The commission is forcing this ordinance down our throats."

Now, that's the difference between our sort of government and mob rule. Sometimes, the will of the majority is not allowed to remove choice from the hands of the citizenry. In no way is anyone being forced to have beer or wine with dinner, or even to go to a restaurant that will serve your fellow diners such demon potions. No, Ryan's and Cracker Barrel will likely remain there for all to enjoy.

Instead, the rest of us, who do not wish to foist our ideals on everyone else, may have the choice of some finer establishments. Other individuals and potential businesses who might call Oconee home would like that choice too. We must all learn to live among these differing ideals, and different choices.

So, for the first time in more than a century, those that wish not to have alcohol with their dinner can no longer force that decision down the collective throats of the citizenry, whether they agree or not. We all get to choose.

But please, no white wine with your steak. OK?

The Moral High Ground

When you boil it all down, the argument isn't between deacons and devils, drunks and the temperate, or even developers and farmers. It is between those who want Oconee County to hold onto its past, and those who wish to help shape its future. (Of course, proponents of keeping Oconee the way it has been are quick to turn a blind eye to the centerpiece of our county seat .... or do they think "tavern" has some alternate, tea-totalling meaning?

The problem with this debate, is that it presumes the possibility of a static, unchanging Oconee County. Look around, folks, this county has changed already. Among the influence of nearby Athens-Clarke County, more distant (but growing closer daily) metro Atlanta, and the Lake Oconee effect, this county is among the 100 fastest growing in the nation. The only choices before us involve how to manage that growth. Maintaining Oconee as a primarily rural, agriculturally based community went away with land prices at $1,000 per acre. With large tracts priced at $12,500 per acre as far south as Farmington, and $30,000 per acre off Elder Road, those days are gone.

As we grow, we have choices to make. Some involve whether to attract business, and what kind. Much is made of the prospects for the Orkin tract. Other businesses look to Oconee County as well. Subdivisions are springing up everywhere. Businesses need housing, but businesses also need hotel rooms, and entertainment venues. Our good schools, and improved services need tax revenues. More tax revenues than property taxes on houses can reasonably be expected to provide. This comes from the businesses we seek to attract, and the hotel rooms, retail establishments, and restaurants that serve the businesses and their employees who live here.

That's right, the people who move into all those houses want quality places to dine as well. (And, no Chik-fil-A and Ryan's don't cut it. You may notice that Gautreau's and Maison Bleu were built with a bar in place well in advance of the ordinance.)

The current Board of Commissioners is acknowledging, as Watkinsville has, that we have reached a tipping point. Hoteliers are poised to build, and businesses are giving us a serious look. Now is the time to remove the anachronism that is a "dry county." Those who would keep things the way they were are holding onto an Oconee County that is no more. Our Commission deserves high marks for helping to move us into this new territory in such a measured and responsible way. To fail to do so may very well be to consign Oconee County to a retreat to lesser schools, empty houses, and business revenues that have passed us by.

I, for one, look forward to my first good meal at the local DePalma's.

All to Ourselves

We had it in Oconee from our Sheriff. You may recall December 1, 2005, when local authorities rounded up 31 Hispanic men, for basically being at Home Depot while being Hispanic. Now CNN Reports that Stillmore, Georgia has come under a much stronger type action from federal authorities. As a result, the main industry of the town is limping along at 50% capacity, unable to attract workers even after increasing hourly wages by 14%. Truth is, residents don't want to do this work. The immigrants were a needed resource, and, in turn, propped up a slacking economy in this small Georgia town. The plant may now relocate to a place with higher wages, meaning higher prices for all Americans, or may relocate South of the Border, meaning a net loss for the American economy. When we send all the immigrants home, where do we think those jobs are going?

They ain't comin' to the "Orkin tract" - What nobody says, although they're thinkin' it

Lack of educated workers. Insufficiently prepared site. Lack of "motivation" in the workforce. These are the reasons being thrown about as we try to figure out why Novartis went to North Carolina instead of Athens.

Athens-Clarke and Oconee Counties offered up a $61 million dollar package of incentives, according to the Athens Banner-Herald (Vaccine rejection delivers dose of economic reality, by Blake Aued,) to beat the Tar Heels' $44 million. Athens-Clarke County created an entire program for the purpose of providing educated workers. The site is on a highway with direct access to Atlanta, and a short shot from the one and only Centers for Disease Control.

Since 2001 (Clarke-Oconee tract packs mega-potential) this "tract" has been touted as the next great thing in the Athens metro, the Atlanta metro, Georgia, even the South. In the 2001 article, it is cited as "one of the most prime locations on the Eastern Seaboard." Why then, in all this time, is it still a vacant, empty, eyesore of a desolate intersection?

It might be that the foreigners who own this company weren't as thrilled as the Sheriff of Oconee County about our recent round-up of Mexicans at the Home Depot. Or could it be that the Swiss executives at Novartis weren't as excited about the emphasis we as a state have placed of late on banning gay marriage from our borders. Perhaps investors who need to attract and keep management and technical personell weren't as tantalized as we about the need to require additional ID's at Georgia's polls.

One might consider whether the Novartis execs pictured long days at work, or flying in people from other offices, or inviting potential clients to come visit their new digs, and wondered where they would stay (not in the non-existent hotels in Oconee County), where they would eat, (surely not at the Fire Mountain Grill or Cracker Barrel), or, at the root of this dearth, where they might share an after work cocktail. We may not realize it, but in most of the world, the concept of a "dry" county is archaic; a throwback to Prohibition, 'shiners, and revenuers chasing them through the hills. Once again, this may not be the "environment" to which those we would attract would be drawn.

Then again, maybe the recent, and nascent, wranglings about whether or not to fly the battle flag over the state house didn't have the same attractiveness to those who might be more concerned about the schools their children might attend to achieve the levels of success they have reached. Or could it be that coming to the one state that incarcerates its own people at one of the highest rates in the nation, a rate that is accelerating, is not high on the list of those who run a multinational high-tech business?

As those who run this state continue to one-up themselves on who can make more misdeeds into life-ruining felony offenses, on how we can keep "less desirables" from voting, or marrying, or feeling comfortable about staying in the state to live where they can form families, and not live under the shadow of a flag of oppression, they continue to give short shrift to the seemingly less sexy issues of education, infrastructure, and transportation. As long as we focus more on how to lock 'em up, or throw 'em in jail, and less on how to provide the citizens of the state with better choices for bettering themselves, those would bring opportunity our way will continue to go on knocking elsewhere.

The citizens of this great state have to make up their minds about whether we're going to look to our future or our past as our model for governance. Of late we've been looking the wrong way, and should not be surprised that is less than attractive to companies that are looking to the future. We need to wake up, and stop pandering to those among us who would return us to the "values" of an earlier time. I'll drink to that!