BobGriggs.com

Even if, despite the recent scandals involving top “global warming experts,” you still believe that the phenomena exists, is the change worth spending billions of your tax dollars and giving up some of the freedoms that you now enjoy?

The embattled ex-head of the research center at the heart of the Climate-gate scandal dropped a bombshell over the weekend, admitting in an interview with the BBC that there has been no global warming over the past 15 years.

FOXNews.com – Global Warming in Last 15 Years Insignificant, U.K.’s Top Climate Scientist Admits

Sheriff Joe Arpaio is the subject of a federal grand jury investigation:

Arpaio is widely known for tough jail policies and pushing the bounds on local immigration efforts. He has led a dozen crime and immigration sweeps, some in heavily Latino areas.

Ariz. Sheriff Investigated by Federal Grand Jury – Local News | News Articles | National News | US News – FOXNews.com

The budget that the County Commission is poised to approve on Tuesday is not the same budget about which the county held public hearings last year. It also appears that Chairman Charles Bannister plans to exact a little political payback on a fellow Commissioner, but it will be the residents of Commission District 3 who will suffer.

Budget `Bait and Switch`

Bannister presented his 2010 budget to the other Commissioners and to the public on December 1, as required by law. The law is designed to give the public ample opportunity to review the document prior to its adoption. The required public hearings were also held. [Read the rest of this entry...]

Last week, the Atlanta Regional Commission broke with tradition to reject Gwinnett Commission Chairman Charles Bannister’s bid to become the ARC Chairman. Now, we know what the elected leaders of metro Atlanta think of our top elected official.

Even though the ARC also includes citizen members and city mayors, the Chairmen of the 10 metro counties in the ARC have managed to control the Chairman’s seat. Former Gwinnett Chairman Wayne Hill held the position for years.

Although it was Bannister’s “turn” this year, the board instead chose Tad Leithead by a substantial margin, 23-14. From Cobb County, Leithead is the first citizen member to chair the 60-year-old board.

Joseph Henchman of the Tax Foundation is criticizing a report on the money woes of ten states by the Pew Center. His assessment of California’s problems could apply, in principle, to Gwinnett’s situation:

A big cause of California’s budget crisis was spending commitments derived from overreliance on volatile revenue sources, particularly taxes on high-income earners, corporate profits, and capital gains revenue. These revenue sources soared during the boom, and legislators made spending commitments as if that soaring would never end. It did, and that’s where the budget hole came from…

Here, county leaders banked primarily on two revenue sources to fuel growth in government—property taxes on both commercial and residential development; and the Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (SPLOST) to build infrastructure.

[Read the rest of this entry...]

Gwinnett Buzz takes on the City of Lawrenceville, expressing very legitimate complaints about the city’s monopoly natural gas service. I, too, have wondered why the city charges a $3 “convenience” fee for online payments when the service arguably saves the government money:

Aside from the fact that government has a spotty track record for customer-friendly business practices, the City of Lawrenceville has a monopoly. I have no recourse whatsoever. I cannot vote with my feet and move to another gas provider. Not being a Lawrenceville resident, I do not have the ability to express my displeasure at the ballot box. While I am sending a copy of this article to Lawrenceville Mayor Rex Millsaps and the members of the Lawrenceville City Council, what incentive do they have to serve a non-voter who will continue to be a customer regardless of what they do?

Gwinnett Buzz » Blog Archive » The City of Lawrenceville’s poor customer service