Around and around with the tax plan

After last week's special purpose local option sales tax meeting, Augusta Commissioner Andy Cheek said that if he were on the Titanic rearranging the deck chairs, it would feel pretty much the same.

"Maybe we're such creatures of habit we always think of things at the last minute to gum up the works," he said. "It's like Yogi Berra said, 'It's dj vu all over again.'"

He, of course, was referring to last fall's failed $486 million tax package that was hammered out, or should we say yammered out, at the last possible minute.

With four commissioners absent last week, a motion to cap the sales-tax package at $160 million failed. That was after interim Mayor Willie Mays raised questions about where the money will come from to finish the final phases of some major road projects that are not in the proposed package and Mayor Pro Tem Marion Williams couldn't persuade his colleagues to cap the number of years the tax would run instead of the dollars.

After awhile, City Administrator Fred Russell told them they could talk about it until doomsday and add whatever they wanted to. It was their decision. He asked them what they wanted to do and got no answer.

Richmond County Republican Party Chairman Dave Barbee, who was at the meeting, contends Messers. Mays and Williams were just doing a "ropadope."

"When Fred threw the ball at them, they just threw it back," he said. "If the tax fails at the ballot box, it won't be their leadership, it will be Fred's leadership. They're looking for a scapegoat."

We don't know what Mr. Mays would have to say about that because he didn't ring us up, even after we told his secretary what Mr. Barbee had said and asked for his response.

A SPLOST BY ANY OTHER NAME: Meanwhile, Mr. Russell has made progress in accounting for the $153.6 million from previous phases of the tax that hasn't been spent and hopes to be able to be able to tell his bosses the status of $99 million of unfinished road and drainage projects by month's end. But he said it's been like pulling teeth.

Even if he does get a satisfactory accounting, the specter of that many unfinished or un-started projects might scuttle the sales tax at the ballot box.

One who says she won't vote for the tax is Dia Bettencourt-Stokes, who says her house on Alberclauss Drive was "unfairly and inequitably" reassessed this year.

"I'm going to starve this government," she said. "It's the only voice I have. They can't even pronounce 'SPLOST.' They say 'SPLOSH.' It drives me crazy."

QUOTE OF THE WEEK: "That money is explainable, but it's hard to explain - that $90 million for public works projects that goes back to Phase 1. Some of them go back to 1988."

- Augusta Commissioner Tommy Boyles

IT'S OFFICIAL, ALMOST: As if we didn't know, Mr. Mays wants the mayor's job full-time. He filed notice Wednesday with the board of elections that he intends to accept campaign contributions. A formal announcement will be forthcoming, possibly next week, said his campaign chairwoman, Sheila Paulk.

Interim Super District 9 Commissioner Freddie Handy says that except for District 5 Commissioner Bobby Hankerson, he's getting no help with proposed sales-tax projects that would help him make an intelligent decision about the tax.

Mr. Hankerson has taken Mr. Handy around to various project sites in an effort to bring him up to speed since his appointment to fill Mr. Mays' seat. Mr. Handy represented District 4 until his defeat by Mr. Williams seven years ago.

According to Mr. Handy, Mr. Williams and Commissioners Betty Beard and Richard Colclough will hardly give him the time of day. For example, at last week's sales tax meeting, Mrs. Beard said she has an idea how the old library could be put to better use than for sheriff's administration offices, as Mr. Russell has proposed.

"If she has an idea, why hasn't it been discussed with other commissioners, especially me, since I represent that district?" Mr. Handy asked.

We suppose that must have been a rhetorical question because he answered it himself.

"Everybody wants to be the mayor," he said. "They only want to look at their little segment. They don't want to communicate."

Human accessible?: The Richmond County Human Relations Commission, which handles complaints of discrimination based on race, gender and physical disability, is on the second floor of a building on Bay Street, which is not handicapped accessible.

"You can't even get to it to file a complaint if you're in a wheelchair," said Mr. Barbee, a former chairman of the commission.

OF SLUMLORDS AND MORONS: An attorney for Ruben's Department Store and Ramada Plaza Hotel owner Bonnie Ruben has written Mr. Cheek demanding he "cease and desist" making slanderous comments about his client.

During a city commission meeting last month, Mr. Cheek led the charge to take action against Ms. Ruben over the condition of the old Kress dime store and J.C. Penney buildings and the Bayou Restaurant building, which burned in 2001. Mr. Cheek referred to her as "the worst slumlord in Augusta," an appellation she and her attorney Jeffrey M. Butler vehemently deny.

"Ms. Ruben is not a slumlord," Mr. Butler states in the letter. "To call her a slumlord and to assert that she has failed to comply with court orders is, I believe, slander per se."

The letter was backed up with documentation indicating a building contractor lied about his agreement with Ms. Ruben to renovate her properties.

Someone has yet to dispute what Ms. Ruben said about Mr. Cheek and his colleagues, though, which was that they were "a bunch of disgusting morons that don't have the brains of a flea."

RETURN OF THE RIBBON CUTTER: Former Augusta Mayor Bob Young will be in Augusta next month for a ribbon-cutting ceremony and community building dedication at Walton Ridge, sponsored by Walton Rehabilitation Health System. Mr. Young, now regional director of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, will speak.

Walton Ridge will provide affordable and accessible housing to seniors who are expected to begin moving in next month. And if you don't think Mr. Young loves seniors, just ask some who used to frequent the former Senior Citizens Center on 15th Street.

STUPID CROOKS: First it was a thief who stole Richmond County Sheriff Ronnie Strength's trolling motor off the sheriff's fishing boat parked in his son's carport. A few months later, a carjacker stuck a gun in the face of Superior Court Judge Carlisle Overstreet's sister-in-law, Ann Overstreet, and ordered her to give him the keys.

Then, on Aug. 18, five teens were arrested at Westside High School in a car stolen three days earlier from District Attorney Danny Craig's daughter and son-in-law, Martha and Heard Robertson.

Mr. Craig said his office will prosecute the case, but he won't have anything to do with it.

"I'm sure justice will be done - no less nor more than any other case for which we have responsibility," he said.

PICTURE THIS: Neither the accuser nor the accused showed up in Richmond Civil and Magistrate Court last week for a case in which the old boyfriend had accused his ex-girlfriend of entering his vehicle and placing a photo of a certain part of her new boyfriend's anatomy along with a boastful note.

The photo and note were part of the evidence that caught Judge H. Scott Allen's eye as he flipped through the cases before court. The judge said he was shocked that anyone would do such a thing, but he said the photo was "impressive."

Reach Sylvia Cooper at (706) 823-3228 or sylvia.cooper@augustachronicle.com.