This is Viewpoints for Tuesday, August 1, 2017

Kudos to the Gottwals

In regard to July 27 article on Abby and Shane Gottwals. The Gottwals have been a great addition to our community. They have been involved in many different community projects in the past, and I expect they will continue to do so in the future. We are very blessed to have them in our town. Their used bookstore is also a great plus for all of us.

Club location — for now

Please allow me to apologize for not identifying the location of our Tree House, the home office of the Single digit IQ club. The location is west of Interstate-75 on Hartley Bridge Road, township “Macon, Georgia,” of the consolidated-Macon-Bibb County. Allow me to explain the lag time in response, you see due to the financial strain imposed on us since consolidation, 4 percent franchise fee, garbage fee triple increase, 3 mill tax increase and school tax increase coupled with the newspaper price increase has cause this taxpayer to make adjustments. We are in negotiation with management at McDonald’s due to cash flow restraints, on the number of cans we need to collect for a cup of coffee. We may have to picket. Management is standing firm. Maybe that will do for now.

Best days past?

This week has shown the latest installment in a long tradition in Middle Georgia of claiming to support its local music scene while simultaneously failing to do so. It happened in 2016 with the bankruptcy of the all-ages Macon Venue Project. It’s happening now with the announced closure of Wellston Station, and it’s looming on the horizon for Macon’s Fresh Produce Music Hall.

We can claim all we want that Macon is “the song and soul of the south” and that “Macon rocks” and is “where soul lives,” and that’s all well and good to keep Macon’s musical past alive — but what people fail to realize is that Macon’s current musical heritage is on life support. Sure, we produced the Allman Brothers and Little Richard and Bill Berry and Capricorn Records, but Macon continuously kills off every possibility of this city ever becoming the musical hotspot it once was ever again.

The only consistently all-ages venues in Macon are 5/4, Fresh Produce and Cox Capitol. Every other all-ages venue that’s tried to open in Middle Georgia has closed within six months. Every other existing venue is only accessible for 21-year-olds and up. This is not sustainable for a “musical city.” If you don’t get young blood into the music scene, it dies out. And if Macon can’t pull together and revive it, its musical heritage may only be in the past.

An idea

I would like to make a suggestion to The Telegraph that may make unconcerned property owners sit up and take notice. The type of owner I am primarily referencing are those who have rental property that goes unmaintained. My suggestion is to publish photos of the property with owner’s name attached in a special section of the paper each week (might increase the reading public). This is public information anyway.

I have been posting on SCF with mixed results, contacted owners who I could identify and spoken with renters. While happy to see Mercer stand up and improve our city, I am pleading with the general population to speak up and do their part to improve the quality of life in our city.

Do they finally understand?

For seven years, Republicans promised to “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act, more commonly known as Obamacare. They called it Obamacare from the beginning to confuse their constituents into thinking it was unrelated to health insurance. When we began to realize that they were one and the same, we woke up and spoke out, but our elected officials did not listen. They drafted and passed legislation in the House called the American Health Care Act that President Trump called “mean.” The Senate drafted the Better Care Reconciliation Act that had a popularity of 12-17 percent.

Our legislators not only didn’t listen to their constituents, they didn’t listen to health-care policy experts, physician groups, hospital groups, nursing groups and many others. They continued to spout the rhetoric, “but we promised to repeal and replace Obamacare!” They failed to hear that Americans changed their minds. We like having health insurance, but we realize the current system is broken. We want the problems of the ACA repaired. What more do we have to do to make them understand?

Not a peep?

Our state’s health insurance exchange in 2018 will be affected by the U.S. Senate vote on the Republican health Care law that was taken July 25. That could eventually cause 25 million citizens on Medicaid to lose their coverage. What do our local state representatives and state Sen. Larry Walker III care what happens to our state’s health insurance exchange?

Why haven’t we heard from our local Republican state representatives in our local media about our state health insurance exchange and its future? Because they don’t care? Sen. Walker owns an insurance agency in Perry. Not a peep from him. He doesn’t trust the federal government-like Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security.

Why do some of us elect state representatives who obviously don’t care about those of us on Medicaid and our uninsured? Who passed a law banning taking photos up ladies’ skirts? Who wants guns on the campuses of our state colleges, universities and technical colleges. Who believes in the Fair Tax that is basically unfair except to the rich.

Let’s call up our state representatives and ask them why they want to repeal Obamacare. Let them know that we want them to represent us and not just their wealthy campaign donors.

What if?

Imagine this: the chief executive of your company (or your club, neighborhood association, or church) posts multiple statements on Twitter that intentionally criticize his top legal assistant only months after appointing the assistant. The CEO has an interview with a newspaper and refers to the assistant as “beleaguered,” casting doubt about whether he should even be on the team.

Would you reasonably expect that CEO to retain the support and confidence of his employees and customers much longer? Now, using the same standard, check last week’s tweets from the White House about an assistant named Jeff Sessions.

This story was originally published July 31, 2017 at 9:00 PM with the headline "This is Viewpoints for Tuesday, August 1, 2017."