Rockdale Citizen

The Citizen Poll is a weekly compilation of reader comments on subjects of local interest. The Citizen publishes as many comments as space allows. Comments, which may be edited for space or content, are published anonymously on Sunday. To submit a comment, call 770-483-7108, ext. 402, email: poll@rockdalecitizen.com or complete the online form.

"The green light part of one of two side-by side traffic lights is out at Honey Creek Road and Ga. Highway 20 - headed East on Honey Creek Road. It has been out since before Thanksgiving. I tried to call the Rockdale County Sheriff's non-emergency phone weeks ago but gave up when they required my name and phone number. We are down to an Employer provided Cell phone (i.e. no personal calls) plus our home phone and work non-traditional hours, so one of us is asleep during the day. Maybe somebody can get this fixed. If the Rockdale Sheriff had an online traffic website where we could report problems it would help. Newton County had one some years ago. You could leave your contact info or be anonymous, your choice. How about an online "suspicious activity" tip line too? Once, again if you want us to report the neighbors teens who appear to be dealing drugs we would do so only if we could remain anonymous."

"This is whats wrong with America. This is the view point of one American citizen that is not afraid to say. Put me in charge of food stamps, there will be no more ding dongs and ho ho's, just money for 50-pound bag of rice and beans, blocks of cheese, and all the powered milk you can haul away. If you want steak and pizza get a job. Put me in charge and the first thing I would do is put women on birth control or get their tubes tied. Then, we'll test them for drugs, alcohol, and nicotine. If you want to reproduce or use drugs, alcohol, or smoke, get a job. Put me charge of government housing. Ever live in a military barracks? You will maintain our property in a clean and good state of repair. Your home "will be subject to inspections anytime and possessions will be inventoried." If you want a plasma TV or Xbox 360, then get a job and your own place. In addition,you will either present a check stub from a job each week or you will report to a "government" job. I may be cleaning the roadways of trash, painting and repairing public housing, whatever we find for you. We will sell your 22-inch rims and low profile tires and you blasting stereo and speakers and put the money towards "common good ..." Before you write that I've violated someone's rights, realize that all of the above is voluntary. If you want money, accept our rules. Before you say that this would be "demeaning" and ruin their" self-esteem," consider that it wasn't to long ago that taking someone else's money for doing absolutely nothing was demeaning and lowered self-esteem. If we are expected to pay for other people's mistakes we should at least attempt to make them learn from their bad choices. The current system rewards them for continuing to make bad choices. And while you are on Government subsistence, you can no longer vote! Yes, that is correct. For you to vote would be a conflict of interest. You will voluntarily remove yourself from voting while you are receiving a Government welfare check.If you want to vote than get a job! This is how a great number of people feel, they are just afraid to voice their opinion."

"I have a solution for the person who is complaining about the drop off at the schools-try the school bus it's that big yellow vehicle that runs down the road close to you. Or is your "sweet child" to good to ride a bus. Spending hundreds of dollars on gas every year to sit in line everyday is nuts. Get a grip folks -- I'm sure there is a response coming with a hundred reasons the child can't ride -- none of which will be valid!"

"Has anyone else noticed how boring car colors and body designs have been over the last 10 years. If you go to the mall parking lot. You mainly see a hundred shades of grey and silver, a few blueish, reddish, or champagne colored. But mostly its all the shades from white to black. If you went to the hardware store and got the color sample card that started with white and gradually got darker to black, that would be the colors you would see. Why cant we spice it up like the old cars in the past? Remember all those cool colors? Racing green, grabber orange, aqua blue, canary yellow, fire engine red, and don't forget those purple Doges from the 70s. Whatever happened to all that? Are we just boring now? Every now and then I see this one nice lady in Conyers in an eye-catching aqua-colored Mazda convertible and I think, "She remembers."

"Picture perfect rescue at Johnson Park Pool Thursday night. Great job by county lifeguards. Quick thinking, quick response, cool heads and they used their training ... outstanding job guys! Excellent."

"History repeats itself. Battle of Kings Mountain, North Carolina (Turning point of the American Revolutionary War). The Patriot Militia defeated the Loyalist Militia headed by British Major Patrick Ferguson Oct. 7,1780. Major Ferguson was protecting the flank of Lord Cornwallis' main force (You remember him from the movie "The Patriot" with Mel Gibson ... The Major attempting to plunder the South East, issued a challenge to the Patriot leaders to lay down their arms or he would "lay waste to their country with fire and sword." The Major having received word that the Patriot Militia was banning together issued another pugnacious public letter, calling for local militia to join him lest they be "pissed upon by a set of mongrels" (The Overmountain Men), wilderness men west of the Appalachian Mountains, With 1,400 strong the Patriots, though outnumbered, defeated the British forces and when the British Major Ferguson lay dead at the end of the Battle, the Patriots pissed on him ... Pissed on or Pissed off ... you make the call ..."

"I have seen a good trend with our Sheriff and police lately. I have been reading articles where police are responding quickly to small robberies and doing fast and thorough investigations. Nothing bothers me more than when a policeman says, "Well, to be honest, there are a lot of burglaries and we probably won't catch them. you should have better locks." I am glad our police aren't doing that as much. And the more small burglars that they put away, the less bold criminals will be to hit banks and Fred's managers. Whatever happened with that by the way? Did they catch the shooter?"

"I still owe a few hundred more bucks on my property tax and have until the end of the month to pay it before they start the mean paperwork. I'll get it paid. But, what I don't like is that it really went up this year. It increased more than $1,000. We are new home owners and my wife was in tears because she was saving up for some much needed things around the house and now it went to taxes. Also, I need a new lawn mower and the house needs painting. I know taxes go to pay for much needed things but the elected officials should show a little respect and not buy frivolous stuff like Oden's portraits or hiring people that are not absolutely crucial. I now understand why the citizens of Boston revolted back in the 1700's. If we don't pay them, they will use the police (that we pay for) and take our homes. Again, I'm fine with taxes as long as I can trust the officials. But right now, I don't trust them. They are not treating these tax funds like the hard earned dollars that they are. I am scraping and I don't buy anything unless it's necessary. They need to be stingier too. Every time I see a city worker standing or riding around, or hear of some unneeded perk for an official, or see some city or county worker not doing their best, I think of my wife crying and it makes me angry."

"I hear our schools are going to be doing some cutting this year. If they cut anything this year, it needs to be the expensive County office leadership jobs first! Or tell them the only thing they are allowed to do is personally coach the worst teachers in the county. How about, instead of sitting around thinking of a whole new report card grading system that dumbs down the curriculum, the math coordinator pick our the worst performing math teachers and sit in their classrooms giving them pointers like a coach would until the scores come up. Same thing for the other subjects. We don't need a new report card, we need better teachers. You guys know who the bad ones are. Get in their classroom and help them fix it. Is that too radical? I know it will require you to take your feet off the desk. I know it's not sitting around listening to some salesman selling you the next best education program. But it will achieve real results."

"Well Cherokee Run got renovated. Wish that kind of money could be found to start fixing the streets in town, they are awful. Maybe some stations could be place along the way so the city can give free front-end alignments."----

"My wish for 2012 is, that every litterbug out there, gets caught and pays a stiff fine, plus 30 hours of community time, picking up other people's trash."

"I am glad we celebrate MLK day. Dr. King was a fine example of how to accomplish liberty and justice for all. I just wish more young African American men would try to emulate him. He was sharp, well informed, well educated, and demonstrated self control in very difficult situations. He did not fly off the handle and go nuts because someone said bad things about him. He never said, "you better give me respect before I show respect to you". He did not raise his children to be a "pimp", "thug", or "diva". He had self-respect and wisdom and thought past the moment. I don't think he would have excused the current behavioral trends among african american youth like the current "civil rights" leaders do."

"I here that Commissioner VanNess is still trying to close Fire Station 6 on Hurst Road. Can the paper do a story on why she thinks the citizens in that area do not deserve the same fire protection as she is getting from the newest fire station that is right down the road from her house?"

"I am here letting everyone know that we are starting up the Rockdale Young Republicans group again here in Rockdale County. We are going to have a meet and greet on Saturday February 4, 2012 at Glenn's BBQ. We will have a great line of speaker for you to come and hear. If you plan on attending would you do me a favor and go to our website at www.rockdaleyr.weebly.com and sign the commitment form there on the home page. Thank you and God bless hope to see you there. The age group for the young Republicans is 18-40, so please young people come and be apart of this very important election year."

"Hey Conyers/Rockdale! I'm starting to see the return of Del Taco our neighboring cities and counties. Someone needs to jump on this quickly. Put it near the hospital. Put it on West Avenue beside the McDonald's. Just do it. Just get it here."

"We went to the movies to see Sherlock Holmes and it was so loud I thought my ears would be bleeding before the movie was over. I stuffed tissue into my ears but it was still painful. One of the speakers sounded like it had blown and was fuzzy and just loud static. There are regulations about the decibel level of sound acceptable at concerts but what about movies. Who would I call to report it..OSHA? I won't be going to the movies in Conyers any time soon ... I don't want to be deaf."

"To the person who wanted to know about the black mecca thing, it wasn't Rockdale and it wasn't Oprah. There was an article in the Jet Magazine talking about Atlanta being the black mecca. Maynard Jackson was Mayor for several terms, then Andrew Young, the King family was prominent in Atlanta, the SCLC was active and everyone was prospering, both blacks and whites. As people became comfortable, they started moving to DeKalb County, who had the best schools in the state at that time. With prosperity comes corruption, drugs, crime, the poor move to the inner city to live off the government and those with jobs move to the suburbs, buy houses and raise their families (black and white). After theleaches in the inner city have no one left there to rob and burglarize, they too must move to the suburbs because that is where the money moved. And so it goes, people from DeKalb moved to Rockdale looking for a safe place to raise their families, the criminals follow, where are the people in Rockdale going to go? I have lived here since 1976, my house is paid for, I am old and can't buy a new house. My neighborhood has turned into abandoned houses and Section 8, and even if someone would buy my house, I couldn't get anything for it. So here I am, the cycle continues. Law abiding blacks who want the best for their family and a good education for their children are leaving now which again will just leave the criminal element again. And our county government continues to grow and hire people to administer their growing kingdom of outlaws."

"I take my kids to the library all the time, and the staff there have been nothing but nice and helpful. Every time I've been in there, it's been a little noisy in the kids area and staff never act ugly toward any of them, so maybe you're more used to the noise your child is making and don't realize how loud she really is. About that little old ladies comment, though. The lady I see at the desk most of the time looks to be not much older than I am, so either you're a teen mom to think she was old or at 38, I should consider myself a senior citizen."

"I think the people of this county would go nuts if they saw the salaries of the county office leaders and what they did during the year. I wish this huge report card training effort was open to the public. This paper needs to do an in-depth story on ASCD training at the county office. It is a complete remodeling of the grading system. It concentrates on reducing grading on what the students complete and grades them on what they know. But every person in the world knows that knowledge is only half of the battle. Completing work is what counts in life. This new grading system will hurt our students. Not only that, They are pulling every high school teacher in the county out of the classroom and paying for a sub for each teacher. Just to show us how to dumb down our grading system."

"Whatever happened to the community service workers that used to help keep our community clean? It amazes me the amount of beer bottles and cans that decorate our streets (Goode Road). Do you think just getting rid of the evidence is going to save you from a DUI? I know we don't have a shortage of these community service workers and it would be nice to get them back out there cleaning up some of the trash they more than likely contributed to and then got caught with a DUI. Our winter has been warm enough to have enough time to clean up the whole county. Please help clean up our streets!"----

"Has anyone else noticed a brand new Rockdale Water truck with WA 235 on the bumpers sitting at LA Fitness every single day from 11:30 till almost three o'clock? I have and I am sick of seeing it there near Chic-Fil-A. If this is all they have to do with their time give me a job. Please commissioners handle this extreme waste of our money. What kind of employees do they have, or more importantly. what kind of Managers do they have that allow this kind of behavior? Nobody should have a three hour lunch, who is paid by our hard earned tax dollars. What a travesty!"

"After reading the Citizen Poll for several months I am convinced that the problem with education in our county is bad administration, incompetent principals, uninvolved parents, and non-caring students. However, if I am to believe the Poll, we have the greatest teachers in the world."

"OK I have to get this out of my system and my bosses won't listen. This school system is making a huge mistake with this new grading and report card program. The proponents of this program must not have any clue of what it takes to survive in the real world. In the real world, performance and results are what makes money. Dr. King and his team of county office leaders want to train the kids of this county that it is OK not to turn in assignments as long as you can pass tests. This is a terrible disservice to our children and our citizens. The school board doesn't like the failure rate so they want to change the report cards and grading system. I do not know the cost of this new grading system and the trainers but they are pulling all of the teachers out of the class room and paying for subs for this. It makes not sense. We need to over haul the county office. The way it is managed, the way they are evaluated, and their job descriptions."

"Walmart and HH Gregg, did you notice that the people that you are employing to put your brochures in the local newspapers are getting the job done very very fast. That is because they are putting 7 of the brochures in at one time, in one issue of the paper. Wake up and supervise the people you are hiring to do the job for you."