DEAR EDITOR:

The vote on whether to create yet another bureaucracy to approve public school charters is simply a way to get around local processes already in place to do the very same thing. It will grow our state government and cost taxpayers additional money. It is not necessary and it is simply a means of shifting more power up to our state government thereby weakening the power of our local school boards!

The amazing part is that it is the so-called Republicans who are pushing for this amendment. Now that they are in power they have forgotten what being a Republican means. They have forgotten that line in the Republican creed that says “the most effective government is government closest to the people.” If they truly believed this they would be advocating less interference of local school boards, not more.

There are lots of bad consequences that come from a higher-level government taking over functions that should be handled by closer, more local governments: One size fits all. The larger the government entity, the less flexible they are and the less attentive they are to the unique issues of local areas. The more power they have, the less relevant local government becomes.

The cost of government keeps going up because we are having to fund bureaucracies that are doing what the local governments should be doing but it does not reduce the cost of local government

Most importantly, the people making decisions for us don’t understand our needs as well as those in our local government entities. Not only does a legislator from Waycross not understand what is going on in Cobb as well as a local official, he is not interested in solving our problems. His concern is Waycross.

My message to Republican elected officials who support this amendment — you have forgotten your roots and the party philosophy you claim to espouse. Don’t be a hypocrite — either come back home or go join President Obama’s party.

Vote no on amendment 1!

Dan Valentine

Marietta