Those Wild Growth Expectations for Jasper County

Listen!  Don't you hear it?  Jasper County is going to grow and grow.  Between the development authority and the newspaper and our smart growth representatives, we are being directed to see the growth coming.  We should be overrun within a few years. 

The new population projections show that Jasper County will add a whopping 3000 more people in the next 20 years!  

There will be strategic planning by unelected few to line their pockets while the uninformed taxpaying working man foots the bills.  It's the Jasper County Way.

BAXTER HAS $3.2 BILLION IN CASH AND A $2.33 BILLION PROFIT WHILE JASPER COUNTY HAS BAD COUNTY ROADS & HIGH TAXES

BUT COUNTY'S GUARANTEE DEBT FOR BAXTER SO THEY CAN MAKE MORE MONEY

Baxter Pharmaceuticals is a global company making billions of dollars a year, yet they are in collusion with State and Local governments to take money from local taxpayers that should be used to support the needs of the people in the counties.

Latest Baxter report: fourth-quarter earnings highlighted steady sales growth and increased profits despite a large one-time expense.  In the latest quarter, Baxter reported net income of $494 million, or 89 cents per diluted share, up 7 percent from $463 million, or 82 cents per diluted share, in the year-ago period.

The company’s bottom line was hurt by $206 million in special items related to layoffs and pension obligations. Excluding these charges, Baxter’s earnings would have been $700 million for the fourth quarter, or $1.26 per share, matching the estimates of analysts surveyed by Yahoo Finance.

For all of 2012 Baxter posted a profit of $2.33 billion or $4.18 per diluted share, a 4.6 percent increase from $2.22 billion or $3.88 per share, in 2011.

Sales for the year rose to $14.19 billion, a 2.1 percent increase from $13.89 billion in 2011.

Does Baxter need State and Local Money?

After the deal had been struck and the State gave away millions and the four counties agreed to $100M or more in tax and other incentives, Baxter was busy in November 2012 buying another company to make themselves richer.

Baxter International Said to Be in Talks to Buy Gambro for $4 Billion ... 
Nov 23, 2012 – Baxter International is in talks to buy Gambro of Sweden for about $4 billion, potentially adding more dialysis products to its lineup, people ...

A takeover of Gambro would be Baxter’s biggest deal ever. The medical products maker is no stranger to acquisitions, having struck eight in the last two years, according to Standard & Poor’s Capital IQ.

Baxter has plenty of firepower to buy Gambro; it reported $13.9 billion in sales and $2.2 billion in profit last year, and had $3.2 billion in cash as of Sept. 30.

Will Baxter be a good neighbor?

·  CalOSHA Fined Baxter Healthcare For Safety Violations
July 22, 2011. Cal/OSHA issued 11 citations totaling $371,250 to Baxter Healthcare Corporation dba Baxter Bioscience recently for deliberate and willful workplace safety violations which resulted in the death of one of their technicians and serious injury of two others.

·  Baxter Fined $4.3 million for Attempt to Stifle Competition in ...
Baxter Healthcare Ltd., the Australian unit of Baxter International Inc., must pay A$4.9 million ($4.3 million) in fines for misusing its market power in the sale of fluids used by kidney patients, a court ruled.

Jasper County has decaying roads because there is no money.  The county has high taxes and Baxter pays nothing for several years while making billions.  The school has State money cut year after year, but the State has millions to give away.  We are told we will have jobs and growth if we spend just a little bit more, and a little bit more, and .....

Why are the banks, developers, lawyers and real estate agents more important than the people paying the taxes?  Priorities are put on these special favors and come on the backs of hard working people that are barely making it.  People in Jasper County will be looking for jobs at the new Baxter plant (good luck with that) while our economic development authority director continues to make himself more important with positions on committees and more titles in his quest to help Baxter in another county.   

Never ask common sense questions and always agree to back millions in debt while forgiving taxes to lure investment and enriching lawyers and developers.  It’s the Jasper County Way.

Carl Pennamon the Puppet Chairman

Carl Pennamon has started his 29th year on the board of Commissioners of Jasper County.  He is the only Democrat with four so called Republicans on the board; nevertheless, he was elected Chairman of the Commission for his supposed expertise.

One has to wonder how influential a local bank president and our State Representative were in having Carl appointed Chairman.  He has long been their inside man.

Carl will have to continue to bow down to the wishes of those  few he has served for many years.  Carl Pennamon is not representative of Jasper County as a whole, but he is representative of the special interest that control Monticello.  Those special interests appear to have a lock on the new group of Commissioners, and they will expect them to do their bidding.

What is good for the few in Monticello is not always good for the county as a whole, but it is the Jasper County Way.

Who is Tim Sweezey Monticello City Manager?

Tim Sweezey is the new city manager for Monticello.  Who is he?  Where did he come from?  When was he interviewed?  When did the city council vote to hire him?    The Monticello "News" has not reported these things.  A search of the internet tells us a few things about Tim Sweezey.   He is from Alabama and went to Auburn University at Montgomery. 

What the internet does not reveal is the confirmation of the rumor that Tim Sweezey got his job because he is related to Joel and Jan Gaston.  Getting a job because who you know is part of the Monticello elite.  It's the Jasper County Way.


April 23, 2009
St. Clair News-Aegis 

2006 Police Report Surfaces Alleging Assault by Sweezy

By Michael Mee

Last week Pell City Parks and Recreation Director Tim Sweezy was not reappointed to his position at a council meeting after a 4-2 vote.

After his ouster, Sweezy and his wife appeared on AM 1430 WFHK’s radio show and spoke for nearly an hour with host and ex-mayor Adam Stocks about an incident that both Sweezy and his wife called “regrettable.” That incident involved a domestic violence report.....
http://www.newsaegis.com/local/x155259984/2006-Police-Report-Surfaces-Alleging-Assault-by-Sweezy

 May 1, 2009
St. Clair News Aegis (Pell City, AL)

Sweezy Pleads with City for Job

By Joel Paris

The Pell City Council voted unanimously there was no position opening for former director Tim Sweezey in the parks and recreation department last Thursday afternoon at his personnel hearing. Mayor Bill Hereford allowed Sweezy to make a lengthy statement in which he implored the council to reconsider their decision.

“In the ten years that I’ve been here… I’ve had a solid track record for the city, a solid track record of achievement and a solid track record of doing what’s right. We all make mistakes,” Sweezey said. “I’ve admitted publically and I’ve admitted privately to my wife that I have made mistakes, she’s made mistakes. We both accept 50 percent of the responsibility. In fact, I’ll go a step further. I actually have more responsibility that she does. With that being said, I don’t know that the punishment is equal to the crime.”

Sweezey’s wife, Rebecca, filed a domestic abuse report and has since filed a supplemental report to further explain the incident that Sweezey believes cost him his job.
http://www.newsaegis.com/local/x155260030/Sweezy-Pleads-with-City-for-Job/print

Gun Control Isn't about Guns

...and never was.

Gun control has not worked in D.C. The only people who have guns are criminals. We have the strictest gun laws in the nation and one of the highest murder rates. It's quicker to pull your Smith and Wesson than to dial 911 if you're being robbed. - Lieutenant Lowell Duckett, President Black Police Caucus, Special Assistant to Washington, D.C. Police Chief
I am convinced that we can do to guns what we've done to drugs: create a multi-billion dollar underground market over which we have absolutely no control. - George L. Roman

They have gun control in Cuba. They have universal health care in Cuba. So why do they want to come here? - Paul Harvey, 1994
This year will go down in history. For the first time, a civilized nation has full gun registration. Our streets will be safer, our police more efficient, and the world will follow our lead into the future! - Adolph Hitler, 1935, on The Weapons Act of Nazi Germany

The Enormous Power of a Biased Media

A REMINDER IN HISTORY

General VoNguyen Giap was a brilliant, highly respected leader of the North Vietnam military. The following quote is from his memoirs currently found in the Vietnam war memorial in Hanoi :   'What we still don't understand is why you Americans stopped the bombing of Hanoi . You had us on the  ropes. If you had pressed us a little harder, just for another day or two, we were ready to surrender! It was the same at the battle of TET.  You defeated us! We knew it, and we thought you knew it.   But we were elated to notice your media was helping us. They were causing more disruption in America than we could in the battlefields.  We were ready to surrender. You had won!'   General Giap has published his memoirs and confirmed what most Americans knew. The Vietnam war was not lost in Vietnam it was lost at home.  The same slippery slope, sponsored by the U.S. media, is currently underway. It exposes the enormous power of  a Biased Media to cut out the heart and will of the American public. If you lived through the time of 'Nam you will recognize the truth of this thought, Do not fear the enemy, for they can take only your life. Fear the media, for they will distort your grasp of reality and destroy your honor.

The single largest challenge to Georgia's competitiveness is a lack of K-12 education

Georgia economic growth will continue for 2013 but....

By J.D. Sumner - Albany Herald

If Georgia wants to remain competitive for new businesses with other states and with countries overseas, it will have to get a grip on education, officials from the University of Georgia's Terry College of Business said this week.

Speaking at a luncheon on the 2013 economic forecast, Terry College Dean Robert Sumichrast put it bluntly for the business, civic and political leaders in attendance: 

"The single largest challenge to Georgia's competitiveness on a regional, national and global level is a lack of K-12 education," Sumichrast said.

READ MORE http://www.albanyherald.com/news/2012/dec/06/georgia-economic-growth-will-continue-2013/

Commissioner Jack Bernard has been condemned for questioning the quality of education in Jasper County over the past several years.  He may have been right all along, but that does keep those in charge from incessantly tooting their own horn and willingly tell us everything is wonderful.  It's the Jasper County Way.