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Local Politics

Posted by jeremyjanson • 10/16/09 • Subscribe to this Discussion [RSS] • Report This Topic
Topics: bc community, light, Local, taking a break

It seems to me that we pretty much always discuss national issues on this forum, so I wanted to open up a moment to share and discuss local issues from each of our individual regions. I know very few (if any) bloggers here have a region in common, but I think we can learn from communities besides our own as well. Here are a few articles I did recently about issues in Inner-City Atlanta/Fulton County GA. The first one's mostly about local economy, the second is about State's rights and FEMA after the Atlanta floods not long ago, and the third one is a funny short tribute to the most common streetname in Atlanta, and possibly all of North America as a result of its' severe overuse in Fulton County:

atlantapoliticsonline.blogspot.com/2009/10/delta-airlines-and-atl-on-leash....

atlantapoliticsonline.blogspot.com/2009/09/states-rights-argument-against-f...

atlantapoliticsonline.blogspot.com/2009/10/night-of-killer-peachtrees.html

If you don't have any articles, but just want to talk about local issues in your area, feel free to do that as well.

User Comments

10/16/09

anticsrocks

Well, I can't seem to get the Township Road Commissioner to unplug the culvert that runs under my driveway...

You said local.

[reply]
1. 10/16/09
  
  jeremyjanson
  
  We have a lot of Peachtree's in Atlanta:
  
  Peachtree Street
  West Peachtree Street
  Peachtree Road
  Peachtree Dunwoody Road
  Peachtree Industrial Boulevard
  Peachtree Lane
  West Peachtree Place
  Peachtree Center
  Peachtree Center Avenue
  Peachtree Walk (?)
  Peachtree Parkway
  
  We also have a road that's just called "Boulevard."
2. 10/16/09
  
  anticsrocks
  
  In the town I moved from in 2005 there was a Southeast Street and a South East Street. The town had a population of 1200. I guess they ran out of ideas for street names early on...
3. 10/16/09
  
  Agit8r
  
  They need the following streets:
  
  Peachtree Drive
  
  Peachtree Spur
  
  Peachtree Terrace
  
  Peachtree Way...
4. 10/16/09
  
  jeremyjanson
  
  There might actually be a Peachtree Drive. We don't have any terraces, sadly, to name Peachtree Terrace. Peachtree Embarcadero would be cool though, out on the Chatahooch!
5. 10/18/09
  
  Agit8r
  
  I wonder if there aren't quite a few Evergreen Streets, etc. in greater Seattle...
6. 10/18/09
  
  jeremyjanson
  
  I don't think I've ever seen an Evergreen Street in greater Seattle, and lived there for 19 years! Further, all these peachtrees are in the Inner City. I found a few more today:
  
  Peachtree Park Drive
  Peachtree Hills Avenue
  Peachtree Way (Yes, it does exist)
7. 10/19/09
  
  Agit8r
  
  so there is no Peachtree Spur or Peachtree Loop off of Peachtree Road?
8. 10/19/09
  
  jeremyjanson
  
  Didn't see it on the map.
9. 10/19/09
  
  Agit8r
  
  well, somebody needs to get on that!
10/20/09

clioandme

Local politics in my jurisdiction (Washington, DC) is frequently national, because idiot representatives from other states decide that we are an appropriate place upon which to attempt to implement their agenda. Bush's school voucher program was one such thing. And now that the Democrats are in, the kids get to pay the price and lose what they got under Bush. Not good to be treating DCs youngsters like so many guinea pigs, no matter what your politics are.

We also sometimes get this interference when some Congressman decides that DC's local firearms rules don't comport with how he would like things to be, no matter that this is a big East Coast city, not a universally virtuous and benevolent society of gun-toating, self-protecting, law-enforcing yeoman farmers or what have you.

And how many other jurisdictions get stereotyped as something so dirty that even Chicago and Florida politicians feel dirty just thinking about DC?

[reply]
1. 10/20/09
  
  Agit8r
  
  so, how do you feel about Obama's education "reforms"?
2. 10/20/09
  
  clioandme
  
  Though I know some localities need help and possibly a kick in the pants, I'm skeptical of any educational policies that are too heavy handed, which Bush's certainly were. I don't know where the wind is blowing yet on Obama, though.
  
  I'm not a fan of Michelle Rhee or Mayor Fenty in DC (whose education policies Obama appears to support), but the teacher's union is a failure here too. Whatever happens, though, I wish that it would bring some stability into the system. While I was against the vouchers in DC, I hate the disruption of sudden policy reversals. Our kids deserve better.
3. 10/20/09
  
  clioandme
  
  I should rephrase my initial statement to say my skepticism of heavy-handed policies is directed at *national* policies.
4. 10/20/09
  
  Agit8r
  
  I'm fine with policies being heavy handed so long as such does not take the form of economic sanctions, which in our present "neo-federalist" system it inevitably does.
  
  Unfortunately what happens in our society, is that when a school district goes bad, rather than lynching the superintendant, people feel obliged to just move to another district which isn't run [as] criminally. Then subdivisions start popping up nearby, the school gets overcrowded, the people pass a bond to build an additional school or a larger one, but then balk at the bonds necessary to maintain it.
  
  There may be a twist on this cycle in the inner cities, but there is needless to say disfunction all around. The best solution would be to have a NATIONAL education system, since an educated populous is in our national interest.
5. 10/20/09
  
  clioandme
  
  I hear you, but wouldn't that just revive the culture wars? For example, I don't want some congressmen from South Carolina and Texas having a say in what kids here learn, and I'm sure the feeling is mutual. They wouldn't want congressmen from Massachusetts or Vermont having a say in what their kids learn.
6. 10/21/09
  
  anticsrocks
  
  @mark...why are you against the voucher program that helps disadvantaged kids be able to attend private schools? I figured that would be right up your liberal alley.
  
  www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/mar/09030504.html
7. 10/21/09
  
  clioandme
  
  I was against it because it undermines the public school system. But now I am against taking it away from kids and families already in the program now that it exists for reasons stated above. And I don't feel like national politicians should be acting out their ideologies on local children merely because the nation's constitutional structure makes local children vulnerable to their whims.
8. 10/21/09
  
  Agit8r
  
  The whole of society deserves to have an educated people.
  
  "It is only when the people become ignorant and corrupt, when they degenerate into a populace, that they are incapable of exercising the sovereignty. Usurpation is then an easy attainment... Let us by all wise and constitutional measures promote intelligence among the people as the best means of preserving our liberties."
  
  -- James Monroe; 'First Inaugural Address'
9. 10/21/09
  
  clioandme
  
  No doubt. How do you do that while doing justice to differing social and cultural environments? How do you distribute the financial responsibility, curriculum decision-making, and accountability for results among the localities, states, and the federal government?
10. 10/21/09
  
  xmarks
  
  I have no issue with those with the means providing superior education to their children. There does, in my opinion, have to be a minimum acceptable level of education. Currently, we are failing to provide that to too many of our children.
  
  by many measures we are failing in education, e.g.
  Drop out rates
  Literacy rates
  International education level
  
  The other consideration is how do we provide better education when the students and their parents are not willing to participate in improving their education, note drop out rates?
11. 10/21/09
  
  clioandme
  
  Or note the disrespect that knowledge and learning and teachers get in our culture. Yes, part of this goes beyond government. But can government influence the culture in a positive way in this respect? I'm not so sure, unless you are talking about leaders and their bully pulpits. But maybe someone's got some good ideas I just haven't heard.
12. 10/21/09
  
  Agit8r
  
  I think i hear what you are saying. Why do some "public" schools crumble, and have a shortage of computers etc, while others have olympic sized swimming pools, depending upon the price of property in the neighborhood that the school exists in. The whole purpose of PUBLIC education is to provide a minimum standard of education necessary to survive, govern one's own actions according to reason, and to participate civilly. That it becomes a privelege to be attained through upward consumption, speaks to how far our notion of republic has devolved during the course of two centuries
10/20/09

cooper

Sad though mark, because they all need to learn the same thing and they aren't.It allows the education of those in Mississippi to be really crappy, it also allow those in relatively well heeled areas to continue to thrive educationally and those in poorer areas to do ...not so well. I don't care if Texans are ignorant, but they night in twenty years or so. I mean face it mark the people getting the best public education in this country are those with money - generally speaking noting that there are rare exceptions.

[reply]
1. 10/21/09
  
  clioandme
  
  You see the disparities in cash both for public and private schools very starkly in our region. That's for sure.
10/25/09

clioandme

Politio's running an article today on how the current economic situation is hurting incumbents pretty badly in city hall. www.politico.com/news/stories/1009/28688.html

[reply]
10/25/09

jeremyjanson

Here in ATL we have a problem with pharmacies misfilling perscriptions.

[reply]