Start of reapportionment session
means time to be diligent again
By Elliott Brack
Editor and Publisher
Gwinnett Forum.com

Aug. 7, 2001 - - It's time to be vigilant.

As the Legislature begins work on reapportioning the state to insure an equal representation, it's also time for the Gwinnett school board and county commission election districts will also be re-drawn.

This also means you can bet there will be efforts to maximize the re-drawing to benefit every county interest group. Therefore each of us must be vigilant that the lines are drawn with the interest of "Best Government" in mind.

Since every interest group has a horse in this race, it automatically means that not every proposition to come before those drawing the lines will be a good move. Who doesn't want the re-drawing that suits us best?

Lately, there has been less rhetoric on enlarging either the Gwinnett school board or county commission. That doesn't mean that efforts have not been going on behind the scenes to enlarge these boards.

Since that will come before the Gwinnett legislative delegation, we ask: Do we have a "bad" school board or a "bad" county commission?

That view, to some malcontents, is right. Some do not feel that the work being done these days by the Gwinnett School Board or the Gwinnett County Commission in guiding these two entities is good. Some may even say their work is poor.

But they would be in the vast minority.

The Gwinnett County School System is recognized as being among the best, if not the very best, in all of Georgia, in spite of having the largest school enrollment in the state.

The work of the Gwinnett County Commission is also that of an exemplary body, continually in the forefront of good government practices, offering solid, clean government without corruption. Can every government in Metro Atlanta make that statement?

With such commendatory government by these two bodies, why would anyone suggest enlarging the two bodies? After all, it is far more difficult to get more people to agree on anything. Again, we suggest that there is no better case for not enlarging the two bodies than another in our presence, the 15 members (plus council president and mayor) of the Atlanta City Council. That body dramatically illustrates that a larger governmental body is not necessarily more efficient.

Some point out that in a large county like Gwinnett, with 600,000 people, having four or five people to represent 125,000 or 150,000 each is too many to represent. What if two more seats were added to either body? Would six or seven people be able to represent 85,000 to 100,000 easier? In reality, there is not much difference.

We would suggest it's more reasonable to trade off the easier working relationship of a small body than representing fewer people.

But be ever vigilant. Some insist we in Gwinnett need larger governmental bodies. Yet it's hard for this group making the call---the often bickering and sometimes dysfunctional Gwinnett legislative delegation---to get enough votes to tip the scales toward larger governmental bodies. This group of five senators and 12 representatives---17 people---find working with this size group is difficult.

What does that really say?

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY:

"The library is the temple of learning, and learning has liberated more people than all the wars in human history."

- - Carl Rowan, author and journalist, 1925-2000.

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