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Saturday, Dec. 19, 2009

Political notebook: France trip not the only one

Local officials’ trip last week to Macon, France, isn’t the only sister city trip the city of Macon, Ga., has been involved with lately.

Back in November, five local students and two city staffers went to Kurobe, Japan, another sister city and perhaps the one Macon has the closest ties to, given Japanese zipper maker YKK’s presence here. Unlike the recent trip to France, the city paid airfare costs for Angela Collins and Martha Clifton, the two city employees who chaperoned the trip.

That cost the city about $2,300, said Keith Moffett in the mayor’s office. The five students — two from Central High School and three from Mount de Sales Academy — paid their own way, Moffett said. The Kurobe Board of Education picked up all in-country costs, which is common practice for these trips, and the group stayed with host families, he said.

The trip wasn’t announced by the mayor’s office, which seemed a bit odd. But Moffett said that was more about timing problems than any effort to keep things quiet. The trip was initially scheduled for July but was canceled due to Kurobe officials’ concerns about swine flu, Moffett said. It was rescheduled for the students’ Thanksgiving break, and there were plans for a news conference when the group returned, he said.

But then one of the students got sick and was quarantined in Japan for a couple of days, and one of the chaperones stayed behind to be with her, Moffett said.

“We were going to do a big event, and then it all fell apart,” he said.

Moffett said the students plan to put together a video and essays to submit to Sister Cities International, the group that oversees sister city programs worldwide.

There was one other expense for the city from this trip, Moffett said. Taxpayers paid $124 for a vase to present to the city. The inscription says, in English, “To Kurobe, Japan, with eternal friendship,” Moffett said.

Animal control still leashed

There’s simply no way the Bibb County and Macon animal control departments can merge by a self-imposed Jan. 1 deadline.

The Macon City Council won’t take any final votes on the matter until after the new year. And Bibb County commissioners plan to take it up again in the second half of January, but only if the city’s finished with its feedback on the proposal. Commissioners keep coming up with more.

Animal control is supposed to be the first new department in years to be merged. Macon would begin running the department. That merger could be used as a model for other departments, including engineering and purchasing. But first the governments have to agree, then they have to actually do it.

Another stumbling block is backlash over a proposed pet-license fee that would be implemented across Bibb County. Macon still has a pet-licensing fee, but it’s almost more of a technicality at this point: Collections plummeted when veterinarians quit collecting the fee.

Rumor has it the vets would get back in the game if it was easier to run, which is to say if it was adopted countywide and if they’d get a share of the license fee to cover their administrative costs.

“We’re getting some push back on it,” Macon Mayor Robert Reichert said, adding that the controversy could end up killing the fee altogether.

Look for engineering to be the biggest merger hurdle. The engineering departments include public works operations, which is to say expensive things like backhoes and a complicated assortment of people, from equipment operators to engineers. The capital costs are far higher, as are the operating costs.

Lucas starting political consulting company

Longtime Macon City Councilwoman Elaine Lucas is starting a new consulting company that will largely focus on political consulting, but it will also branch out into event planning, education consulting and other issues.

The company is called ELucas Consulting and was created last month, according to the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office.

Lucas said the company will be looking for small contracts to distribute, for example, consumer rights information to elderly people. It will also put together educational panels and plan small events.

“But the main focus is going to be political campaigns,” Lucas said.

That means identifying and promoting candidates, and that work is already under way, Lucas said.

Leonard Lucas, Elaine Lucas’ son and a published song writer, will work part-time with the company writing jingles for candidates, she said. Former Councilman Henry Ficklin who, like Lucas, has worked for years in the local public school system, will also be involved, she said.

Lucas works part-time now as a counselor at Hutchings Career Center and said she’ll probably “retire a second time” from the system to focus on the new company.

“It’s something that I’ve been looking at doing for a long time,” she said.

Asked what effect this might have on the 2011 city elections — whether a slate of City Council candidates might be in the offing — Lucas said no.

“It’s not going to be about pulling together slates or anything like that,” she said. “It will be for folks who want to have our services provided. ... We will be very selective in the candidates. If there’s someone I don’t feel would be a good person to be in office, I will not take the contract.”

Porter campaign draws crowd in Dublin

State Rep. DuBose Porter, D-Dublin, held a well-attended political rally in his hometown Monday, despite poor weather.

“It was great,” said Porter, the House minority leader and a 2010 candidate for governor. “We had about 400 people. A little over that, really, on a rainy night.”

Porter said jobs, the economy and job training continued to be the biggest issues for people at the rally and fundraiser. And he continued to preach the basics of his campaign: Do a better job of collecting state sales tax to raise revenues without raising taxes.

A pilot program comparing local business license records in four counties to the state’s sales tax rolls already is showing promise on this issue, Porter said, making it obvious that many licensed businesses simply don’t remit their taxes to the state.

Porter said he also discussed his push for more wood-fired power plants, instead of coal, to make better use of Georgia’s natural resources, and his support for mass transit, particularly a passenger train to connect Macon to Atlanta.

“We had a great crowd, raised some money,” Porter said. “It’s going good.”

Staff writers Travis Fain and Mike Stucka contributed to this report.