Saturday’s cleanup effort garnered many bags of debris.At top left, Nancy and Leon Powell who regularly volun-teer to pick up litter collected over 75 pounds near the Jr.Food Mart while Councilwoman Pat McGraw picked uptwo bags of aluminum cans on Jackson Street near herhome.

Starting at 6 a.m., Janice Malone and Teresa Coats pickedup 225 lbs. of trash on the Mt. Zion Road. They are a partof the team of Mt. Zion Men’s Ministry and pick up litterin their community often.

Councilwoman Phyllis Barnes and Gina Skipper collectedover 100 lbs. of trash around town during the AlabamaPALS annual statewide cleanup Saturday. The local andstatewide cleanup continues this week.

Cleaning up Grove Hill

By Jennifer HarrisonSpecial to The Democrat

Two Alabama legislators are pro-posing bills that would make it moredifficult for small communities tocreate school systems. According toJackson Mayor Richard Long, the twobills “would effectively kill” the pos-sibility of Jackson breaking awayfrom the Clarke County school sys-tem and creating its own educationboard.“We are very much interested in

them (the bills),” Long said. “Theytake power away from cities likeJackson, Ala. and other smaller citieswithout 7,000 or 20,000 people inthem. These two bills keep citiesfrom doing what they want to do.”

House Bill 140 by Rep. Becky Nord-gren, R-Gadsden, would increase theminimum population requirementfor establishing a city board of edu-cation to 20,000 from 5,000.

Rep. Jeremy H. Oden, R-Vinemont,is also sponsoring a bill that wouldincrease the minimum populationfor new school boards. In House Bill 183, Oden proposes

that municipalities must have a min-imum population of 7,500 instead of5,000.

Oden’s bill would also require theState Department of Education todetermine the financial capability ofa city to sustain a school system. If passed, House Bill 183 would not

affect cities that had submitted a res-olution to create a new school sys-tem to the state superintendent ofeducation and had met existing re-quirements prior to the passing ofthe bill.

On April 6, Nordgren’s bill was readfor the second time in the House andsubstitutions and amendments wereadded that would require “the StateDepartment of Education to deter-mine the financial capability of amunicipality to sustain a school sys-tem before the municipality couldestablish a city school system.”

House Bill 140 was also altered tolower the population threshold forNordgren’s originally proposed20,000 residents to 7,500.

According to Rep. Elaine Beech, D-

Chatom, there are currently 132school systems in the state’s 67 coun-ties. “Our education system is broke fi-

nancially,” Beech said. “We cannotcontinue to fund systems as thestatutes are now. “I’m not sure which bill will pass

the House and Senate. If the billsaves the state money and still ad-vances education, I am all for it.”

Long said the city of Jackson hasbeen considering a breakawayschool system for nine months nowand has asked for input from Ira Har-vey. Harvey is a paid consultant whohas worked with other cities inter-ested in creating their own schoolboards, including Chickasaw, Sara-land and Fairhope.“He (Harvey) told us there were a

few things we needed to do beforewe could consider hiring him, andthat’s what we’ve been working onsince then,” Long said.

According to the U.S. Census Bu-reau, the estimated population ofJackson in 2009 was 5,096 and Clarke

County’s estimated population was26,042.“We just want to have the best

schools for our kids in Jackson,”Long said. “With the money we’vegot, we should be able to do that.”

According to Ken Roberts, chief op-erating officer and director of re-search for the Alabama Associationof School Boards, House Bill 183 hasa great deal of support.“It’s the version that appears to

have momentum and is moving for-ward,” Roberts said.

“The association does support thispiece of legislation, the main reasonbeing that it strives to ensure the fis-cal sustainability of both the newsystem being formed and the re-maining county system,” Robertsadded.”It requires the State Depart-ment of Education to provide finan-cial parameters in the evaluation ofthe proposed school system forma-tion.”

Roberts said one of the considera-tions the Department of Educationwould use to evaluate a new schoolsystem is the city system’s ability tospend as much per pupil in localmoney as the existing system.“The goal is to make sure that the

kids in the new system will be servedas well as they were in the old sys-tem. The SDE will also wants to besure that there will be enough moneyso that a new system doesn’t nega-tively impact the system they arepulling away from.” The School Superintendents of Ala-

bama also supports Oden’s andNordgren’s bills, according to thebill-tracking page of the SSA website.

SSA initially opposed Nordgren’sbill on the basis that it had no re-quirement for a new system todemonstrate financial responsiblybut now supports House Bill 140substation and amendments, ac-cording to SSA’s website on April 14.

Both Nordgren and Oden were un-available for interviews.

Troy University journalism studentJennifer Harrison of Mobile wrote thisstory as part of a project partlyfunded by the Alabama Press Associa-tion Journalism Foundation.

Satsuma latest cityto vote to start

municipal schoolsSome Alabama municipalities are

forming, or considering forming, theirown school systems. In Mobile County, the largest county

system in the state, Saraland’s breakaway a few years ago has promptedSatsuma to do the same, voting April12 by 60 percent to enact a new 7.5 milproperty tax to fund a municipal sys-tem that will be up and running by2012.Chickasaw is also contemplating a

municipal system and possibly otherMobile County municipalities as well. In Baldwin County, Fairhope citi-

zens had looked at forming their ownsystem but decided not to do so ear-lier this year. However, the issue isn’tdead and is still being debated anddiscussed.

Jackson has looked into the possi-bility of forming a city system.

Legislative bill would cap sizeof municipalities that couldform their own school systems

Year after BP oil spill, impactlingers in flawed claims process

One year ago, we alongthe Gulf Coast faced oneof our toughest chal-lenges. The most devas-tating environmentaldisaster in American his-tory washed over oursugar white shoreline,fouling the beauty of ourbeaches and tarnishingour reputation as an un-spoiled coastal play-ground. On a regionalscale, our whole econ-omy was dealt a massiveblow. Even our world-

famous seafood took major hits as our wa-ters were closed to fishing and our shrimp,oysters, red snapper and a host of otherGulf culinary delights were shunned.

But all storms pass, and twelve monthsafter the explosion of the BP-DeepwaterHorizon, Alabama’s seacoast is once againopen for business. Our seafood is betterthan ever and our beaches are in pristinecondition. If the hard work of Alabama’spost oil spill tourism campaign is success-ful, summer sun seekers will be back, con-cerned more with tanning oil than spilledpetroleum.

While we all should be optimistic aboutthe prospects of putting the nightmare of2010 behind us, the progress made to-wards the clean-up is a hollow victory forthousands of local businesses, which weredealt crippling blows during a tourismseason that never materialized. Wholecommunities are still reeling from busi-ness losses while the presidentially-ap-pointed administrator of the BP claimsfund slow-walks approval of claims pay-ments.

Louisiana suffered most of the environ-mental damage from the April 20, 2010spill, but Baldwin and Mobile countieswere arguably economic ground zero. Ithas been reported that as many as onemillion tourists bypassed Coastal Ala-bama in the wake of this man-madestorm, taking their valuable tourist dollarselsewhere. For a region that generates upto one third of the state’s annual touristdollars, the oil spill’s scuttling of South-west Alabama’s 2010 tourism season is nodoubt also contributing to this year’sbudget shortfall in Montgomery.

Last June, fresh from a visit to Theodore,Fort Morgan and Orange Beach, PresidentObama promised to get the region backon its feet. He pledged the creation of aclaims fund from which damages wouldbe paid. “This $20 billion [fund] will pro-vide substantial assurance that the claimspeople and businesses have will be hon-ored. It’s also important to emphasize thisis not a cap. The people of the Gulf havemy commitment that BP will meet its ob-

ligations to them.”To date, the GCCF has only paid approx-

imately $3.8 billion out of a total $20 bil-lion fund. Only 233 out of a total of 6,912full and interim business claims havebeen paid by the Gulf Coast Claims Facil-ity, overseen by presidentially-appointedadministrator, Ken Feinberg. For individ-uals seeking damage payments, only 1,007out of 10,813 full claims have been paid,while Mr. Feinberg has paid just 403 of7,037 interim claims.

Mr. Feinberg dismisses accusations thathis claims system is a failure. However,since he refuses to open up his claimspayment process for review, he is able tooperate with impunity. For this reason, Iam calling for an independent audit of theGCCF and its claims process.

Our communities were promised resti-tution for damages from the BP oil spilland we will continue to hold the govern-ment, BP and Mr. Feinberg accountable.

House passes $38.5 billion in spending cuts

History was made in Washington lastweek as the House passed record-settingfederal spending cuts. More importantly,these cuts - combined with a new budgetblueprint also passed by the House – dra-matically change the direction of federalspending.

While it’s true that the amount of cutspassed last week - $38.5 billion - is thelargest non-defense federal spending re-duction in U.S. history, the really big newsis we’ve put an end to overall annual fed-eral spending increases. The trend ofyear-after-year increased federal spending– something Washington simply took forgranted for as long as any of us can re-member – has been halted under the Re-publican budget plan.

We all realize that our nation’s spendingaddiction has led to a $14.2 trillion debtcrisis that will take decades to dig out of.As with any addiction recovery, the firststep is to acknowledge the problem andstop doing it. House Republicans paved apath to recovery that involves more signif-icant cuts and long-term reform.

Also last week, President Obama seemedto finally bow to pressure to reducespending, but his actions don’t match hisrhetoric. I’ll comment next week in moredetail about the Republican budget planand the president’s response.The work of conservatives in Congress

to end government overspending andmove us toward a balanced budget is onlybeginning.

My staff and I work for you. If we can everbe of service, do not hesitate to call my officetoll free at 1-800-288-8721 or visit my websiteat http://bonner.house.gov.

CongressReports

Dear Editor, An on-line search reveals 92 named

cemeteries in Alabama. Looking along thesides of the highway as I ride the back-roads, I suspect that number is very low ifyou count the three to four grave plots Ifrequently see languishing from neglect.The families there have moved away ordied out; now there is no one to tend thegraves, no one to care.I thought that having my family mem-

bers in Ulcanush Cemetery in northernClarke County would be safe. I wrote thechecks to the Alabama Baptist Founda-tion, and was assured that perpetual carewould be provided. Not flowers—that’s forthe family, but the grass would be mown,leaves raked, and trash picked up. It is dif-ficult to check on graves from half a stateaway, thus the need for perpetual care.

Last Sunday—Palm Sunday—my wifeand I went to Ulcanush to put flowers onour family graves; four generations ormore are interred there. The weeds wereabove the copings and flat headstones.Trash littered the area, including old artifi-cial flowers possibly from the overflowingtrash can. Beside the gate, latched with aused plastic Wal-Mart bag, was a sign ex-plaining the cemetery rules, the last ofwhich said active church members are ex-empt.

A phone call to the Alabama BaptistFoundation yielded two names of people

who received Foundation money formaintaining the cemetery and who wereresponsible for using the funds to keep thegrounds respectable. The Foundation de-nied knowing any phone numbers, andboth directory assistance calls and Inter-net searches yielded no current phone ineither name.Two things bother me here. First, the

cemetery is in disrepair, and that is ashame on the church, the Alabama BaptistAssociation, and on those of us familymembers naïve enough to believe the per-petual care promise. Second, it appears tome that someone is taking money formaintaining the cemetery with little toshow for it. The total lack of accountabilityby the Foundation for use of the funds ap-pears at best irresponsible.I call on all families to check on the

cemeteries where their loved ones are in-terred; to investigate and determine who isresponsible for maintaining the grounds;and to hold those persons’ feet to the fireto ensure they are doing their job.

Personally, I am considering crema-tion—I have no faith that the maintainersof our cemeteries will do any better in thefuture. But we all must try, we owe it to thegenerations who went before us.

Rick Horne, Lt Col USAF (Retired)

Opelika

Cemetery needs attentionLetter to the Editor

Need A Special Gift?This will please them!

Need a laugh? Read the comics, Page 8B

April 21, 2011 The Clarke County Democrat, Grove Hill, Alabama 36451 Page 5A