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Daniel Connolly December 5, 2002 There are 900 miles of road in Lawrence County; 300 of those miles are gravel. Lawrence County Commissioner Barkley Lentz would like to pave all the roads, but he says the county doesn't have the money to do more than 6 to 8 miles per year. The mostly rural county in north Alabama could get the money if it was allowed to raise property taxes, he says, but it can't do that without going through the Legislature. "The big problem is getting enough revenue to get those paved," he said. "My belief is that we need a new (state) constitution." Rewriting the state constitution was a mantra of sorts at the Legislative Conference of the Association of County Commissions of Alabama, held Wednesday and today in Birmingham's Marriott Hotel. It was hard to find any commissioner who didn't speak in favor of changing the constitution, wresting control from Montgomery and giving it to the counties. Commissioners from across the state said they wanted to give counties more local control, including the ability to raise more money. Currently, county commissions - and city councils, for that matter - can raise sales taxes only on their own. All other tax increases must be shuffled through the Legislature first. "We know at the local level what we need better than the legislators do," said Jerold Dean, a commissioner from Conecuh County in southern Alabama. "I think they (legislators) want to control the power. ... Everything we get we have to go beg (the Legislature) on our knees, more or less." Buddy Sharpless, executive director of the Association of County Commissions of Alabama, said the organization is lobbying to make sure county governments come out ahead in the constitutional reform process. "We don't want constitutional reform to cause counties to lose any of their existing authority and we will only support constitutional reform that causes them to gain authority," he said. "We do have in Alabama today what I believe is the kind of opportunity that comes only about once in every generation," Bailey Thompson, an associate professor of journalism at the University of Alabama. Several factors are coming together, he said. Corporations and grass-roots organization are pushing for reform, he said, while Gov.-elect Bob Riley has said he is in favor of constitutional reform. And the state faces a deep financial crisis that could force action, Thompson said. The inability to raise money affects everything else they want to do, some commissioners said. In Lawrence County, for instance, problems with the roads as well as sewage and gas systems have caused the county to lose some industrial projects, Lentz said. "When industries come in, the first thing they say is, 'Do you have the infrastructure?' If you say, 'We don't have it but we can build it for you,' they say, 'bye.' " Dean, a farmer, said his property taxes are about $2 an acre. The tax on timberland runs about $1 an acre, and 75 percent of Conecuh County is timber, he said. "It affects your schools, every operation of the county and everything else," he said. "The county government is obviously hamstrung in its ability to serve its constituents," said Thomas "TC" Coley Jr., a commissioner from Tallapoosa County. Coley, like several other commissioners from rural counties, said his county is being hamstrung by a poor education system when it comes to attracting new businesses. "You can spend all the money and build industrial parks, but if your work force is dumb as dirt, the businesses won't come," Coley said. And even when you're ready to go to the Legislature, you may have to wait, Coley said. He pointed to Tallapoosa's volunteer fire department, which needs $100,000 immediately but can't act without the approval of the Legislature, he said. That means it'll have to wait until the Legislature reconvenes in January, and even then it may take weeks or months to get anything through, he said. "Without a special session, you have to wait a whole year to change anything, and that doesn't make sense," he said. "Our volunteer fire department is in a financial crisis." Return to: Constitutional Reform ~ In the News Return to: Editorial Index |
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Citizens for Constitutional Reform Foundation, Inc. P.O. Box 34 Montgomery, Alabama 36101-0034 E-mail: accr@constitutionalreform.org |
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