November 26, 2009

I was sent this article from a friend and he said it has been put in the opinion section of the Wall Street Journal since the 1960’s every year on Thanksgiving Day. It is truely amazing when you read this how you can see how it relates to all the years and political leaders we have had. I know many believe we are in the most tragic political times ever, but that is what many thought 10, 20, 30 and even 100 years ago. We are a strong nation. A great nation. We will survive.

Have a happy Thanksgiving.

By the way. I am thankfull the midterm elections are close and we can vote out the idiots!!!!

November 22, 2009

If you want a topic that gets my blood boiling, it is trying to force Spanish part of our society. I really get pissed when I call a company on the phone and it says press two for Spanish. Now they want to force Spanish on the election ballots. Why? You are supposed to be an American citizen to vote and then you are supposed to understand basic English.

To the Hall County Commissioners and especially Commissioner Ashley Bell – keep up the fight.

To Jerry Gonzalez – get a life you looser!!!

Here is the article.

November 18, 2009

Today at the council meeting we discussed giving $361,000 to Hortman and Dobbs for a reimbursement to the costs of their company to build phase 1. Now this sounds like we are giving money away when we are really not. The topic of TAD is a bit complicated, but I will give a reader digest version.

The City and County have an IGA (Inter Governmental Agreement) that they will give us the County’s portion of the taxes received from the TAD district, which is mostly Stonebridge Village, for a certain number or years to allow us to work with a developer to reimburse a portion of the total costs of the project, in our case 15%, once the project is complete, or a CO (Certificate of Occupancy), has been issued. These projects are built on property that does not have a strong tax stream and once the project is complete, the City, County and School Board will receive higher taxes on property that is now worth more.

This is a great opportunity to help develop our City. As I said at the meeting, I support this as long as the citizens will not pay one cent of our pockets. I will not allow anyone to receive your tax dollars without value in return and this does not invole your city taxes. I would also like to let you know that the city has spent over $40,000 dollars that we will be able to recoup as well.

All in all, this is a great tool for future growth and good for you and our city.

Please read here and here.

November 16, 2009

We finally got home Sunday at about noon. Then it was off to the drug store for the boy’s painkiller. My wife took the day off and when I got home from work, Ethan is acting like he does not have a broken arm with a two-inch incision on his elbow and 3 pins sticking out his skin with a cast on from his hand to shoulder.

Enough about the wild one.

I guess we will have terrorist receiving the same treatment in court as we do – not a military tribunal as war criminals are suppose to. Gotta love Obama!!

November 14, 2009

At about 4:00 pm yesterday we get a phone call our son fell off the monkey bars at daycare. My wife picks him up from daycare and gets to Northeast Medical Center by 5:00 pm and in an ER room within 10 minutes. After seeing the nurse, doctor and x-rays, it was determined at 7:00 pm that he needed to go to Scottish Rite to be looked at by a pediatric orthopedic doctor. At 8:30 pm, at our request, we loaded our son in our mini van and headed toward Scottish Rite. We walked into the Scottish Rite ER at 9:40 pm and were triaged and in a room by 10:00 pm. After a couple of visits from the nurses, doctors and surgeon, it was determined he would have surgery at 8:00 am the next morning. We did have to wait for an overnight room until about 2:00 am, but that was not a problem.

The break was on the Humerus just above the elbow and it was a clean break in which one part went in between some of the mussels and almost was a compound fracture – ouch.

My questions are:

How long would have Obama care taken? It was not a life critical situation.

Would he have still received Morphine for the pain or would they have given Tylenol because they were low on money?

After the surgery and cast, would they have given him some pain medication and antibiotics and sent him on the way instead of keeping him for anther 12 – 24 hours for observations?

November 14, 2009

Well, I have been in Houston since Monday and flew back, on a delayed flight, Thursday, which put me in the driveway at 9:40 pm. I went to work on Friday and received a call from the wife that our 3-year old son, who will be 4 in a month, fell off the monkey bars at daycare and broke his arm. We went to North East Medical Center and after looking at the x-rays – they sent us to Children’s Health Care of Atlanta for surgery. The doctors have informed us this is an ugly break of the hummers bone just above the elbow – and I mean broke in two and pointing in different directions. I guess my son is definitely a Fetterman, when we do it – we do it good.

Well surgery is scheduled at 8:00 am this morning.

November 8, 2009

There are 220 dumb ass U.S. representatives who need to be tossed out of office in 2010. These morons voted to pass this piece of junk healthcare bill that will help destroy this country. I hope all who voted for these idiots are happy they may have helped to end our county as we know it and if anybody does not believe our country could end up a weak nation controlled by countries like China, Russia and nations who hate us – you are stupid.

God – please help our nation!!!

November 4, 2009

Today at the meeting we talked about a subject that is one of those unfunded mandates that the federal government passes to the state and then it is passed to the county and finally to the city. The definition of a unfunded mandate is some government entity thinks up some great idea and gets some legislative body to pass it but they fail to find any funding and they say let the lower level pay for it. That is what local governments have to deal with.

Today’s unfunded mandate is about FOG (Fats, Oils and Grease), which involves our sewer system, and is something we passed in July, and it appears we need to revisit the issue and fine tune our ordinance. As it stands now, we have about 141 commercial sewer accounts and about 33 of those actually deal with FOG, that would be mostly restaurants, and all 141 are charge and extra $15 a month to cover the $75,000 it costs the city to inspect and file paperwork to the EPA that we have clean sewer lines, but we only collect about$25,000 in fees now. That is a $50,000 difference that has to be paid by someone – that would be the sewer users of Flowery Branch. Don’t you just love unfunded mandates?

We have to figure out something because we need to have the FOG ordinance so we can get permits for our sewer plant expansions in the future and at the same time keep our sewer rates at a level to continue to attract residents and small businesses. Read about it here and here.

November 4, 2009

I would like to thank Chris Bozeman and Stacy Carlson who ran for the open seats and congratulate Kris Yardley, Tara Richards, Mike Miller and Mayor Hirling on their victories. We had 415 votes cast, which was about 14% of our 2900 registered voters. Read here and here about the staggering numbers they won by – 76%, 78%, and 90% of the vote – that is a huge message from the citizens and an awesome responsibility.

It was neat to see all the volunteers waving signs and pushing for their candidates. I hope this is a trend to get more people involved in our city.

I am excited about our new council and cannot wait until 2010 to serve with them.

November 2, 2009

One day left before Election Day. I am looking forward to see who all of you want to represent you from the list of candidates. I have seen and heard the candidates are out vying for your vote. I hope you all exercise your constitutional right and vote. I have a huge number of you reading this site and look forward to working with whomever you put into office.

I also am looking to talk with your county commissioners about the ridiculous sewer rates that will take effect January 1, 2010 unless we voice our opinions on the stupid act the majority of the current city council gave away earlier this year.