Over Coffee

August 21, 2005

   My friends, do you remember several months ago when Bob Irvin publicly called for Ralph Reed to withdraw as a candidate from the 2006 race for Lt. Governor of Georgia? As far as I know, Ralph Reed has ignored that very sensible plea. He’s banking on the public’s ignorance and blind forgiveness for his association with some really gnarly people. I would like you to check out this link to an article that ran in The Seattle Weekly about Jack Abramoff , one of Ralph Reed’s longtime friends and associates:
http://www.seattleweekly.com/features/0533/050817_news_abramoff.php 

   Abramoff and his activities are of interest in Seattle because Abramoff used to work for the Preston Gates Ellis law firm, which is the law firm of Bill Gates’s father. We don’t get coverage like this here in Georgia about these tangled connections and we should! People wouldn’t be fond of Ralph Reed if they were to be reading about some of his business associates. Ralph Reed really does need to withdraw as a candidate for Lt. Governor of Georgia. It’s like when you get that whiff and you know there are rats in the barn. Somebody needs to show me evidence that there are NOT rats in the barn.

   For a different reason altogether, I also hope that our current Lt. Governor Mark Taylor abandons his 2006 campaign for Governor of Georgia as now being inappropriate. The terribly sad recent news about his 21-year-old son Fulton Taylor being held on felony DUI charges in Charleston gives his father’s gubernatorial campaign a whole different light, in my view. When I think about the “what if’s” and try to picture Mark Taylor as Governor of this great state of Georgia, even running for the office, if his son goes to the slammer for being responsible for killing someone, I start shaking my head. Nope! Nope! Nope! THAT scenario is not what I want to see for Georgia! I want to be proud. 

   Being a parent of two sons myself, I do know well that parents can be appalled by what their offspring may think up to do. I certainly acknowledge that an argument may be made that this isn’t Mark Taylor’s fault. Somewhere along the road, though, somebody failed that boy, if he has come to this. The fact remains, folks, to my mind I believe this tragic episode should be the end of Mark Taylor’s campaign for Governor at this time. There are plenty of other people, both Democrat and Republican, who are not lugging heavy baggage like this and can admirably do the job. Heavy baggage does NOT belong in the public arena, no matter what some of the egotistical politicians think. 

***

   The Gwinnett Place Mall environs are up for grabs and up for change. Over recent years as the mall itself has evolved into an ethnic shopping mall which caters largely to Asian and Hispanic tastes, Caucasians have taken a lot of their patronage elsewhere and their dollars have been missed. Merchants in the surrounding area, along with those in Gwinnett Place Mall, have formed a self-taxing Community Improvement District (CID) to turn the whole thing around. Check out this link to learn the details and the scope of this hugely grand plan:
http://gwinnettplacecid.com/properties.htm 

   They call the Gwinnett Place Community Improvement District “The Heartbeat of Gwinnett,” due to its near central location in the county. There’s a ton of asphalt there now, but traffic is still horrible on Pleasant Hill Road and the area is almost completely pedestrian unfriendly. With the CID, all this will change. A distinct business district will be created that will be driveable and walkable. The entire streetscape will be redesigned. Safety and security is already being addressed with security patrols.

   Residential areas and greenspaces are planned. The leaders of this CID want to bring people back to the area to live, work, and play. That is an admirable goal and I certainly do not have the foresight to say how it will all end up. The leadership that CID Chairman Thomas Wheeler of Wheeler/Kolb Management Company, along with the rest of the board of directors, are showing with this plan should vault Gwinnett to the top of the investment heap. Other established CID’s are showing a 17 to 1 return on investment, so the business model must be sound. Gwinnett will surely be the envy of the rest of the state if Gwinnett Place CID can pull this off. I believe that Mr. Wheeler will do it, if anybody can.

   Asian and Hispanic investment is already flowing into Gwinnett, along with the populations of those cultures. I shall be curious to see if Americans embrace the Gwinnett Place Mall area as a place to live and work. Some will and some won’t. When I visited Super H Market on Pleasant Hill Road recently, I noticed that many of the signs of the retail businesses in that huge shopping plaza were unintelligible to English-speaking people who might be standing in the parking lot. This is not Seoul, Korea, my friends. This is Gwinnett County, Georgia, in A-mer-i-ca. Something in the immigrant mindset will have to change if American custom is to be invited. It is pretty obvious that American custom is not invited now in these ethnic markets and stores. I wonder what Mr. Wheeler can do about that, or if it even matters?

***

   Savage weather, isn’t it? The mosquitoes at my house are big as birds so nobody is doing much outdoors these days. My neighbor two doors down took a lightning bolt through his roof a couple of weeks ago. It fried all of his electronics, of course, and just about totaled his family room. Then he was challenged to get his roof fixed in between all of these drenching afternoon thunderstorms. He’s the SECOND person I know who has had a direct lightning strike to their home in recent days. What is the statistical probability of that?

   Hope all is well and thanks for reading.

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