An interesting article in the January 15, 2011 edition of the MDJ Online got me to thinking. The article discusses the fact that the lobbying firm for the City of Kennesaw may not be re-hired for this next year. The article also reveals the fact that this same lobbying firm also acts as the Kennesaw City Attorney.

Why is it that law firms who work for municipalities are NOT subject to winning their positions by going through a qualified bidding process, like so many other municipal vendor services are?

The Cobb County School Board has had the same law firm for years (Brock & Clay) and never put that contract out for bid.

Lawyers may THINK they are God’s greatest gift to the world, but they are just like any other commodity-seller, and I think that if tax dollars are being used to pay them, then it’s high time their contracts were required to be bid-out to allow others to bid for those tax dollars, whether it is for legal services or lobbying services.

And, here’s the beauty of this: Get another lawyer in any municipality or government agency, and what may be discovered is a lot of that deep-seated, deeply embedded corruption that has been covered-up for YEARS in our local governments, and takes forever to bring to light otherwise.

CONTACT: Lance Lamberton

(404) 925-8960

January 14, 2011

TAXPAYER GROUPS TO HOLD “HOT DOG GIVEAWAY” IN MABLETON

AUSTELL, Georgia – The Cobb County Taxpayers Association (CCTA) and the Georgia Taxpayers Alliance (GTA) announced today that it will be giving away free hot dogs on the parking lot of Dixie Rides, a car dealership located at 376 Veterans Memorial Highway in Mableton, GA. The event will take place from 12 noon to 4 p.m. on Saturday, January 15, 2011. The purpose of the event is to raise voter awareness of the upcoming vote on March 15, 2011 to re-impose a Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (SPLOST) on Cobb County residents and consumers. Both organizations have taken a position against the SPLOST and are running grassroots campaigns to defeat it.

“ At a time when the Georgia unemployment rate is in double digits, and there are record numbers of foreclosures, collapsing real estate values, and no job recovery in sight, a continuation of this tax is the wrong prescription for Cobb County,” said Lance Lamberton, President and founder of CCTA. “On the contrary, the best approach towards economic recovery is to reduce the tax burden so that individuals and businesses will have more money to save, spend and invest in the private sector.”

If the measure is defeated, Cobb County’s sales tax would decline to 5%, making it the lowest sales tax in the region. Most counties in the Atlanta metro area have a sales tax rate of 7%. “This significantly reduced tax rate would be a boon to Cobb County residents and businesses, saving consumers hundreds, if not thousands of dollars over a four year period,” Lamberton said.

CCTA was formed in 2005 to oppose passage of that year’s SPLOST, which won approval by the slimmest of margins; 114 votes out of over 40,000 cast. The closeness of that vote was accomplished despite hundreds of thousands of dollars spent by SPLOST proponents.

For more information about CCTA, go to their website at: www.votenomarch15.com

For information about GTA, go to: www.gataxpayer.com

Rumors have it that one of the Republican State House Members is seeking to single-handedly assert himself as the Walking Boss of the House. It would certainly seem so when one looks at the activities of one State Representative Allen Peake (R-137), who just happens to also serve as the House Majority Caucus Secretary/Treasurer.

Many of you know that the Representative for HD 136, Tony Sellier, passed away on December 1. This opened his seat up for a Special Election to be held on February 15th. Three people qualified for the election, two Republicans and one Democrat. The two Republicans are Robert Dickey and Judye Sellier, widow of Tony Sellier. Both qualified on the same day, December 15.

On December 15th, at 11:08 AM, House Majority Caucus Secretary/Treasurer Allen Peake sent an e-mail out to his compadres in the House Majority Caucus, imploring them to contribute money to Judye Sellier.

Now, it would be one thing if all Peake did was send-out the e-mail, talking about the qualifications of Judye Sellier and asking people to donate. But, he didn’t do that. No, he opened his mouth, and stuck a foot (or two) into it when he included the statement that Robert Dickey “voted Democrat in half of the last 16 primaries.”

PV Calls Foul on Peake: Oh, so, Robert Dickey voted “Democrat in half of the last 16 primaries,” eh? Tell us, Mr. Peake, in how many of the last 16 primaries did recent party switcher Ellis Black vote Democrat? How about Amy Carter? How about Doug McKillip? Mike Cheokas? Gerald Greene? Bubber Epps? Alan Powell? How about Bob Hanner? Did you check the Democrat-voting records of these folks before you welcomed them into the GOP fold with open arms?

AND, the voting records of the 8 party-switchers & Mr. Dickey aside, how many Democrat primaries did your candidate, Judye Sellier, vote in? Allow us to share that record with you since you appear to have a foot in your mouth and cannot talk very clearly. Out of the last 10 primaries, Ms. Sellier voted Democrat in 6 of them:

1998-Dem Primary
2000-Dem Presidential Pref Primary
2000-Dem Primary
2002-Dem Primary
2004-Dem Presidential Pref Primary
2004-Dem Primary

So, Mr. Peake, it appears that your candidate has a 6 out of 10 record of voting the horrible “D-Ticket” in Georgia. And, yet, you just bother to point out Dickey’s record without acknowledging Judye Sellier’s record as well. Care to make a guess as to what we call people like you who do things like this?

On top of the hypocrisy of Peake’s omission of Sellier’s true voting record, he sent the e-mail using his personal account…and, went to the trouble of stating in the body of the e-mail that he was not “asking as an officer of the Caucus”…however, he signed the e-mail verbatim as:

Allen Peake
House Majority Caucus Secretary/Treasurer
State Representative, District 137

PV Looks At The Recent Disclosures for HD 136: Dickey reported raising a total of $39,050, $25,000 of which includes a personal loan. In looking at his contributors, it looks like he raised $14,050 from 25 different entities and individuals that appear to be primarily friends, business associates, and neighbors of Dickey.

Sellier raised a total of $12,175, with no personal loans, from 24 entities and individuals…16 of whom are elected officials or recent candidates and who do NOT, apparently, live in the district (and, if they do live in this district, perhaps they should not be representing their districts).

These 16 apparently went ga-ga over Peake’s ‘I’m-not-writing-to-you-as-the-Majority-House-Caucus-Secretary/Treasurer-even-though-I-made-darned-sure-I-signed-it-that-way-so-everyone-would-know-exactly-who-I-am’ letter and opened-up their campaign wallets to pour money into Sellier’s 60-40-Voting-Democrat-record campaign account.

The point here is that it appears that this is a contest, NOT between Robert Dickey and Judye Sellier, but between who Peake and some other members of the House GOP Caucus have decided THEY want to be elected (and who they can, therefore, control), and what, perhaps, the 136th House District actually wants and needs to represent them in the Legislature.

Because, PV will tell ya…if the reason why all these GOP House Members gave money to Sellier is because Dickey voted in 8 of the last 16 Democrat primaries (which is misleading on its face, in addition to the convenient detail of Sellier having similar skeletons in her voting closet), then we are not going to have a representative government worth a pigeon dropping when it is clear that there isn’t a whole lot of independent thinking going on with all these contributions by a bunch of House Majority Caucus Secretary/Treasurer Peake’s lemmings.

Lt. Governor Cagle, Speaker Ralston, Governor Perdue, Members of the General Assembly, Members of our Congressional Delegation, Members of the Judiciary, Members of the Consular Corps, my fellow Georgians:

On this second week of the second decade of the 21st Century, my wife Sandra and I enter the service of our native state with excited expectancy, sincere humility and unwavering resolve.

As we stand here in this beautiful Capitol building, I recall my first visit here as a fifth grade student at Sandersville Elementary School. Our class rode the Nancy Hanks train to Atlanta and visited here and the Cyclorama. For many of us it was our first train ride and our first visit to our Capitol city.

Much has changed in the more than a half century since my first visit here, but my sense of awe and appreciation of our history has not. The historic journey on the road of self-government which our nation and state embarked upon almost two and one half centuries ago has taken us through the battlefields of Revolution, Civil War and World Wars.

Throughout this “Experiment in Democracy,” there has been a healthy skepticism by “We the People” about the role of government which we have “ordained and established.” The lingering pain of this “Great Recession” in which we are still engulfed has underscored the urgency of re-examining the role of government in our lives.

The evolution of society has infringed on much of the elbow room our ancestors enjoyed and government has been asked to regulate our actions as we bump into each other in our frantic search for success. In times of economic prosperity, we often ignore the costs and inconvenience of governmental paternalism. But in times such as these, with more than one of every ten of our employable citizens out of work, we must justify every cent that government extracts from our economy. Therefore, we must concentrate our attention and our resources on the core responsibilities of government.

Our State Constitution provides that “Government is instituted for the protection, security, and benefit of the people…” (Article 1, Section2, Paragraph 2). Keeping our citizens safe, therefore, is one of state government’s primary responsibilities. The challenge is great. Presently, one out of every thirteen Georgia residents is under some form of correctional control. It cost about Three Million Dollars per day to operate our Department of Corrections. And yet, every day criminals continue to inflict violence on our citizens and an alarming number of perpetrators are juveniles.

College students should be concerned about their grades not whether they are going to be mugged on their way home from class. Visitors to our cities should be treated as welcomed guests and protected. Families should not live in fear of gang violence and drive-by shootings. But most of all, our dedicated law enforcement officers must not be targets for criminals. Anyone who harms one of them harms us all, for they embody the Constitutional mandate that government provide us with protection and security.

Breaking the culture of crime and violence is not a task for law enforcement officials alone. Parents must assume more responsibility for their children. Communities must marshal their collective wills; civic and religious organizations must use their influence to set the tone for expected behavior.
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The special council on studying Georgia’s state tax revenue system issued its final report today. You can view it here:

2010 Special Council on Tax Reform and Fairness for Georgians

When I read of Rep Larry O’ Neal’s involvement in the creation of this council, and the fact that Governor Sonny Perdue made darned sure he parked his rear-end somewhere on the Council, I KNEW we were being set-up for the continuation of the same type of Democrat-Socialist-led government that Sonny Perdue (RINO-Georgia) has governed for the past 8 years.

Larry O’Neal is famous for orchestrating a special $100,000 tax exemption solely for the benefit of Sonny Perdue. After all, what else should ex-Democrats/RINOs do for their fellow ex-Democrats/RINOs? Give them all the tax breaks they can find and engineer as best you can. So, it’s fitting that these two (O’Neal and Perdue) played key roles in the council’s make-up and the direction of just what “fairness for Georgians” really means for Georgians.

It means things like the following: New sales taxes on a slew of services for you and I AND special exemptions for agricultural industries (like ALL of Sonny’s business interests).

The report will make most people’s eyes glaze-over…but, if you’re like me, you know how to scan and get to the real stuff: On Page 96, you will see the beginning of the list of proposed services that they propose should start being assessed sales taxes. That is, the stuff that will directly affect 99.999% of Georgians.

What about the 00.001% of Georgians like Sonny Perdue’s Ag-businesses? Turn to Page 88 where you see a new category for someone paying license fees if they are a “Qualified Agriculture Producer” (a new term described in the proposed new law shown on Page 86).

If you are a Qualified Agriculture Producer, you are someone who produces over $2,500 in agriculture products. And, what do you get to pay for your license fee that will add so much in “fairness” (cough!-cough!) to the Georgia Tax Digest?

Between $5.00 and “no more than” $20.00. No kidding. Wow! Thank goodness Sonny Perdue won’t have to dip too deep into his millionaire pockets to pay licensing fees as a “Qualified Agriculture Producer”, eh?

The rest of the small, medium, and large businesses pay upwards of $50,000+ in licensing fees, but not good ‘ole Bubba-Perdue. Nope! Special people like Sonny Perdue need special, fellow-crooked minded people like Larry O’Neal to always look to give special tax breaks to him.

I got news for you folks in the House and Senate: If you are DUMB enough to vote for this claptrap of unfair-to-the-majority-of-Georgians proposals, every single one of you deserve to have your butts beaten when you run for reelection. Every….single…one of you.

Here’s my advice: Let Sonny Perdue go quietly into his Oaky Woods/corruption-infested goodnight and start from scratch. Let Governor Deal start with a TOTALLY clean slate of policies and maybe we’ll have a better chance of seeing “good government” in action in our future.

(Marietta, GA) – ID Builders, Inc. announces a new business website designed for helping clients of all sizes with their direct-mail marketing.

Called AdvertisingPostcard.com, the site offers a variety of in-house design capabilities, as well as contract printing services.

A marketing tool that has been used in the past with great success by political clients of ID Builders is the “Magnet-Mailer”, a postcard designed to carry a magnet to the targeted household. Magnets and postcards come in a variety of sizes, and all are printed in a full, 4-color process.

“The magnet-mailer has been a huge seller for us due to the fact that any message you want someone to remember about your business can be integrated on the postcard part, and the magnet will give recipients something to hold onto long after the postcard has been discarded,” said Bill Simon, Marketing Advisor for ID Builders.

Several elected political candidates have used the magnet-mailers in the past to help push their name ID to the top of their voters’ minds. Notable examples are Cook County Probate Judge Chase Daughtrey, who was a write-in candidate in a field of 3 candidates in the fall of 2008. The magnet-mailer postcard combined a postcard with the Cook County High School Football Schedule on it, and helped raise Daughtrey’s name ID high enough to get him into 2nd place in the general election, and then he won 55% of the run-off vote to become the youngest probate judge in Georgia.

AdvertisingPostcard.com offers postcard printing services, mailing services, design and shipping services, all in a one-stop shop. Other websites in the same family of websites are:

ScheduleMagnet.com
College Schedule Magnets
Political Toolkit
Anti-Germ Pen

Rumors have it that the nifty little “compromise tax package” that came out of the U.S. Senate earlier this week failed to include the repeal of the onerous Form-1099 Time Bomb initiated by Obamacare.

PV confirmed with Senator Isakson’s office late today that the Senate Republicans did attempt to insert it into this package, but that was rejected by the pissant Senate Democrats. (Note: The word “pissant” is terminology inserted by PV, and not terminology uttered by Isakson’s office.)

For those of you who are not aware of what this Form-1099 issue entails, it is simply this: If you run a business, every single purchase you make for that business, from whatever entity you purchase it from (whether it is the cost of a component to your final assembly, or the cost of a finished good in which you are merely the sales arm for OR for your print paper you buy from your office supply store) will have to be reported to the IRS under its own, separate 1099 Form.

Talk about a “business-killer.” Rather than spending your time (and money) on working to improve your business by marketing or managing your business better, you will have to devote MORE TIME and MORE MONEY to ensuring that more freaking paperwork is filled-out correctly to submit to the IRS.

Because that 1099 requirement was not a part of this tax package, PV is completely against the tax package. Because whatever “relief” it supposedly provides for some minute segment of the tax world, that “relief” will be no relief for any business once the Form 1099 requirement kicks-in.

Plus…according to a RedState.com Action Alert (yeah, mark this down as a “desperate time” that calls for a “desperate act” for PV to forward anything from RedState) issued this afternoon, Obama has stated that his Presidency will “fail” if this tax package fails in the House.

Let’s help Obama fail by making this tax package fail. Encourage your Congressman to vote AGAINST this bill in the House and require Pelosi to try and find ever-diminishing votes from her side of the aisle to pass this bill.

Go here to find out the correct phone number to call to reach your congressional representative’s office to issue your opinion that this bill should be voted down. You will be prompted to enter your ZIP Code, and if your ZIP code splits a congressional seat, you’ll be asked for a more pinpointed address (like the 4-digit ZIP extension or a more complete address) to get connected to the correct Representative’s office.

Rumors have it that U.S. District Judge Henry E. Hudson has ruled against the Obama Administration’s claim that the Commerce Clause allows the government to require citizens to buy health insurance.

Hudson is reportedly the first federal judge to rule against the Obama Administration’s diabolical plan to subvert the U.S. Constitution.

Read more about this case here.

Rumors have it that an ethics complaint has been filed against Tamela Adkins, one of the candidates running in the Georgia Supreme Court run-off election to be held on November 30.

PV Discusses The Issue: Despite what some of you may believe, violations of state ethics laws should be of a significant concern to you…especially when the violations concern a candidate who is running for a statewide position in which her prime responsibility will be to interpret laws and issue rulings on her interpretation of laws.

Here is a copy of the filed complaint (and we chose to mask the filer’s personal info). It succinctly lays-out three violations, of which we will present in reverse order of their presentation due to more examination being needed on one of the allegations regarding her 2008 race for Court of Appeals:

1) In her 2008 race for Court of Appeals, she was required by State Ethics Laws to file a Financial Disclosure within 15 days after qualifying. That was never filed, and has not been filed as of 11/19/2010.

2) In her current race for Georgia Supreme Court, she was required by law to file a Financial Disclosure within 15 days after qualifying, and did not file this disclosure in that time period. And, upon recently checking the State Ethics Website, it was not filed until November 18, 2010…shortly after she received a copy of the ethics complaint filed against her this past week.

3) In her 2008 race for Court of Appeals, as of her October 2008 disclosure report, she had approximately $40,000 of Cash on Hand. She lost that election, but did not file any disclosure after that October 2008 one as was required to disclose to the state exactly what happened to nearly $40,000 in cash. So, at minimum, one violation of not filing the required 12/31/2008 disclosure.

And, if she did not get rid of all that Cash on Hand as of 12/31/2008, then other disclosures were due in 2009 that were not filed that disclosed whether or not that nearly $40,000 was either a) properly spent on campaign activities, or b) used for personal purposes in violation of state law, or c) possibly even used for her current race for Supreme Court, which would also be a violation of state ethics laws.

No one knows if this money was properly disposed of, which is, actually, a concern to us. Because there are legal uses for money not spent on an election…and, then there are some specific illegal uses for money leftover from a campaign.

With no proper adherence to our state’s disclosure laws, no one really knows either way. And that is a problem because we are being asked to vote for someone who is charged with interpreting laws who may not know how to follow laws. See the relationship there?

And, in due diligence fashion, PV has confirmed that Adkins’ opponent, David Nahmias (pronounced NAH-mee-iss), has filed all proper campaign and financial disclosures.

Rumors have it that current Enotah Circuit District Attorney Stanley Gunter cannot be bothered with doing his job in enforcing the law against former Union County Tax Commission office employee Joy Griggs, who was terminated in June 2010 for (according to current Tax Commissioner JW Payne) borrowing money from the Union County coffers, admitting to it, and then repaying it all back.

The October 27, 2010 edition of North Georgia News reports that it is DA-elect Jeff Langley (who will not be sworn-in to the office until January 2011) who has declared publicly that he intends to pursue an investigation into Griggs when he takes office in January. He told the News that “…we need a completely nonpolitical, unbiased investigation. My intention is to ask the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to conduct that investigation.”

PV Ponders The Situation-Part 1: Why can current DA Stan Gunter, who has taken an oath to uphold the law, and the Georgia Constitution, just ignore this matter? It has been known since September 2010 of the entire incident when it was printed in the News of what is alleged to have happened…so, where is the current DA (i.e., Stan Gunter) on this matter? Is Gunter exempt from carrying-out his sworn duty because he has to run around the state begging for endorsements to run for Court of Appeals?

PV Ponders The Situation-Part 2: You may recall the Alert sent-out 2 nights ago. In that Alert, we described the fact that back in the mid-1990s, Tax Commissioner JW Payne began taking money from the Union County tax office cash bags and writing IOUs to the tax office. And, he continued this for a few years. Well, we now have more details about that, including evidence of the IOUs themselves.

In 2000, an audit of the Union County Tax Commissioner’s office identified the fact that there was missing money in the amount of $30,000. This is described in the letter from the county attorney to the sole county commissioner back then (click here for copy of letter from 2000)

In 2004, a Republican named Chris Bergen qualified to run against Democrat JW Payne. He took out ads in both of the main newspapers describing in detail the taking of money from the Union County tax funds by JW Payne, and in these ads, included a full description of the acts by Payne, and he included copies of Payne’s IOUs (click here for a copy of those ads from 2004).

Stan Gunter was elected District Attorney in 1998, and has served straight through all those years, and will serve through to the end of 2010, and his circuit covered Union County. Still, Gunter completely ignored the allegations against Payne in 2004 and the proof provided of JW Payne’s printed IOUs. Back then, Gunter was a confirmed Democrat, as was Payne. To us, it would appear to have been a clear cover-up by DA Gunter to protect his fellow Democrat JW Payne. Gunter wasn’t the LEAST bit interested in getting-off his duff and looking into the allegations regarding Payne’s IOUs.

AND, since it is now apparent that the incoming DA (Langley) does have an interest in looking into the current matter of the allegations by current Tax Commissioner JW Payne against Joy Griggs, perhaps Mr. Langley will suggest to the GBI that they look into this documented record of Payne’s IOUs (click here for a PDF of those IOUs written by Payne) to the tax commissioner’s office.

After all, Griggs worked in the office when Payne wrote all his IOUs that totaled $30,000 from 1996 to 2000…and HE got protection from being investigated by Gunter. What else was she to think with regards to the law when she saw Payne get away with it?

Stan Gunter clearly has no clue as to the concept of the equal application of the law. And THIS is the guy some people are really pushing to be the next Court of Appeals’ judge? Puh-leeze!

Rumors have it that Court of Appeals Candidate N. Stanley Gunter has quite the record of turning a blind eye to prosecuting felony lawbreakers when the person in question is a member of his own political party.

PV Provides A Little Background: In 2002, Gunter was elected as a Democrat to be District Attorney of the Enotah Judicial Circuit.

Beginning in 1995, Democratic Union County Tax Commissioner J.W. Payne allegedly wrote himself several “IOUs” from county taxpayer money. The dates and amounts of the IOUs varied widely and were ultimately repaid by Payne, but many went unpaid until a Tax Office employee disclosed these IOU’s in an advertisement in October of 2004 in the North Georgia News.

In the 2004 Tax Commissioner’s race, Chris Bergen ran an ad in the North Georgia News informing the electorate of these IOUs written by Payne.  At the time, DA Stan Gunter was also a Democrat, and he refused to investigate what some observers of criminal acts have identified to be felony fraud on the part of Payne.

Fast-forward to September 2010.  In an article published in the North Georgia News on September 22, 2010, an employee of the Union County Tax Commissioner’s Office was discovered to have done the same thing Payne was accused of doing back in 2004 by Chris Bergen.

From our sources, that employee (who was NOT the Tax Commissioner JW Payne) was recently fired from her job…however, as of right now, current DA Stan Gunter has refused to investigate this matter and pursue an investigation into what may be felony fraud.

PV Summarizes The Issue At Stake: Does Mr. Gunter believe it is “okay” for someone to “borrow” from the county coffers ANY amount of money, as it is alleged his then-fellow Democrat-in-arms JW Payne did from 1995 through 2004, and then pay it all back, and no crime has been committed…as long as the person being accused is a member of his own political party…Democratic?

Is THIS who we want to sit on the Appeals’ Court bench?  Sure, why not?  After all, isn’t it more important that every elected official seek to protect “their own kind” and show favoritism to any cases brought before them as a “judge”, right?

Wink-wink, nod-nod…after all, this is how “things are”, right?  Protect your own, cover-up for their alleged acts against the community, RIGHT?

Thanks, but no thanks, Mr. Gunter.  Integrity matters to some folks.  A blind eye to justice, absent the political affiliation of the wrongdoer should be your constant record of achievement…and, you don’t appear to have it.

PV Provides One Very Important Footnote:  For all of you who have been told that Gunter “stopped being a Democrat in 2006” to qualify and run as a Republican for his reelection as DA, current voting records show that he voted in the 2008 Democratic Primary and the 2008 Democratic Primary Runoff.