RSS Feed
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Chancellor Byrne another Hitler, declares Joe Reed
Reed had written Byrne a letter critical of his treatment of recently retired Bishop State Community College president, Rep. Yvonne Kennedy in backing off a promise to permit Kennedy, who left the college under pressure, to continue to use an office at the school to write the history of Bishop State. Gov. Bob Riley weighed in on the side of Byrne, who he appointed chancellor, saying that Reed "crossed way over the line with the letter," and charged that "AEA and Paul Hubbert are engaged in a series of lies" about what he and Byrne are trying to do to force legislators to choose between their legislative positions and their jobs at the twoyear schools. Last week Hubbert, AEA's executive secretary, called the Riley/Byrne plan "un- American." At present 13 legislators have been identified as working in state government positions. Eleven of the 13 working for twoyear schools are Democrats and Byrne and Riley want to reduce the amount of leave the 13 can take for their legislative work to the point it would require them to give up their legislative seats. They haven't made any proposals to curb leave time for the other positions, which are in four-year colleges, K-12 and non-educational departments. As I pointed out last week there are significant legal hurdles which must be overcome before such a policy can be successfully implemented, including a constitutional provision that allows legislators to hold other public offices. Another statutory hurdle, which I failed to mention, is Section 17-1-7 of the Code of Alabama that protects the right of public employees in city, county and state government in Alabama to participate in political activities "to the same extent as any other citizen of the State of Alabama." It is going to be extremely difficult for Byrne and Riley to win an argument that a regulation or administrative rule adopted by the State School Board changing leave policy for the purpose of denying public employees the rights they have under both constitutional and statutory law, can prevail. As Hubbert points out, the scandal and corruption in the two-year system is not the cause of the 13 lawmakers who work in the system, some who were employed there before they became legislators, and he believes Byrne is overreaching against them instead of cleaning up the problems in his own office. Water war with Georgia A more important battle Riley is waging, and one on which he should be spending most of his time and energy, is the one to secure Alabama's rights in the water war with Georgia. Riley contends the Corps of Engineers has illegally withheld an estimated 18 billion gallons of water that should have been released from Georgia's Allatoona Lake. "The Corps is going to have to live up to the congressionallymandated purposes of these reservoirs," Riley recently told the AP. The Corps says the government has not illegally withheld water from Allatoona that is sought by Alabama, despite claims by Riley. Riley has alleged that the Corps is not following its own reservoir operation manual for Lake Allatoona, saying Alabama has been shortchanged by 18 billion gallons of water during the recent drought. Water from Allatoona Lake flows into the state in the Coosa River, and it affects the levels of reservoirs, lakes and rivers in eastern and south-central Alabama. Riley contends that, even with the drought, Lake Allatoona has as much water in it as is typical for a wet year. Of course, the big sucking sound, echoing along the river basins of Alabama and Florida is the sound of the region's water being consumed by the uncontrolled growth of Atlanta. This could very well be the biggest issue Alabama will face in the next century. It is already affecting our lakes and rivers in the eastern part of the state. Bob Martin is editor and publisher
of The Montgomery
Independent. E-mail: bob@montgomeryindependent.
com
|
for larger version       |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
)
