A Wake-up Letter to the Taxpayers of Gilmer County by Joene DePlancke

Are you guilty, too??? Do we even have a clue what is happening right here in Gilmer County? I know it’s bad in Washington and we feel totally out of control and that there is nothing we can do. But we can make sure we vote in November for ULTRA conservatives locally, state-wide and for all Federal positions to try and get us out of this ditch we dug for ourselves through APATHY. Our apathy got us to the edge of this cliff. Are we going to continue to sit by and think everyone else will do something?

And how about right here in Gilmer County? Here you can really make a difference. Here you have a say, a direct say, in what is happening and what WILL happen. And yet election after election where are most of us? We are sending our young men and women to war to give people the right to vote. And yet most elections less than 35% of us even bother to go to the polls. But maybe even more importantly, month after month virtually no one even bothers to come to the BOC and BOE meetings. It is our taxes that they are spending. Do you realize how high the taxes can go if you don’t get involved now?

Your Board of Education spends 74% of the taxes collected in Gilmer County! Seventy four percent! Only 26% of the taxes collected go for EVERYTHING else: police, fire, rescue, 911 dispatching, our court system, District Attorney, our jails, our road department, landfill and trash collection sites, etc. ONLY TWENTY SIX PERCENT OF YOUR TAXES pays for all of these things. Your Board of Education spends 74% of your money and they don’t care whether we like what they do or not because no one bothers to show up and question them. And the reason the BOE can put SPLOST taxes on the ballot, and the reason they can keep building newer schools, new administration headquarters, new baseball fields, etc. is because no one shows up. We vote for SPLOST because we think we are doing what is best for the children. But did we read what the SPLOST is used for? It’s for buildings not for educating your children. The BOE meets the second Tuesday of each month at 6:30.

Joene DePlancke
Ellijay