Fellow Republicans and concerned citizens,

The Executive Committee of the Forsyth County Republican Party would like to extend a heartfelt “Thank you” to all who have written letters, made phones calls, or participated in the September 13th, 2005 party meeting regarding local school system issues.

The pivotal question heard again and again remains – “What do we do now?”

While many steps have been discussed in the media and at our party meeting, we felt it prudent to give an easy to understand course of action.

1) If you are not currently a member, join the Forsyth County Republican Party. As was accurately noted by our chairman, the problems we face with the Board of Education are Republican problems. Members that were elected as Republicans are not following the Republican platform of keeping local school control in the hands of “parents, teachers, and local school boards”. As such, the party must hold these officials to account. The most effective voice for addressing these issues will be a strong, robust local party. Contact Parkey Thompson at parkeyt@yahoo.com (H# 770-889-6895) or via our website at www.forsythgop.us/MemberApplication.cfm.

2) Find out who your state legislative representatives are. You have one representative in the Georgia State House and one in the Georgia State Senate. You can find out who your representatives are by visiting the following web site: www.sos.state.ga.us/cgi-bin/locator.asp. All of the representatives are listed below:

State Senator - 27th District Bill Stephens

236 State Capital Atlanta, GA 30334 (404) 656-0048 Fax (404) 463-4220 Email: bstephens@legis.state.ga.us

State Senator - 51st District Chip Pearson

OFFICE 321-B Legislative Office Building Atlanta, GA 30334 (404) 463-1368 OFFICE (404) 656-6579 Email chip@votepearson.com

State Representative - 24th District Tom Knox

220 A State Capitol,Atlanta, GA 30334 (404) 656-0188 OFFICE (404) 656-0250 FAX (404) 656-0250 Email: tknox@legis.state.ga.us

State Representative - 23rd District Jack Murphy

OFFICE 504 G Legislative Office Building Atlanta, GA 30334 (404) 656-0325 OFFICE (404) 651-0886 FAX Email: jm7772@aol.com

State Representative - 9th District Amos Amerson

401 G Legislative Office Building Atlanta, GA 30334 (404) 656-0287 OFFICE FAX (404) 656-0294 Email: amos@amosamerson.org

3) Call your state legislative representatives, as well as all the other Forsyth County state representatives, and insist that they work to pass the following three legislative items:

· A property tax assessment freeze for school tax purposes. Simplistically speaking, this measure will freeze the tax value of your property. This prevents back door tax increases by simply raising its value. Losing this weapon will force the Board of Education to account for their spending and to justify any new increases to the public.

· Restrict Special Elections to the filling of vacant offices. This measure will force important bond and sales tax measures to appear on a ballot in the general election when the majority of citizens will vote. Losing this weapon will force the Board of Education to listen to the voices of all the people, not just the special interests.

· Change the position of School Superintendent to that of an elected office. As experiences in Cobb County and Forsyth County have shown, the superintendent must be held accountable to the people for the policy and implementation decisions that he or she has made.

As a party, we are focusing on these three issues for the near term. At first glance, you may wonder how a property tax freeze and a Special Elections ban will impact other issues, such as the school start time changes. The local Board of Education has been ignoring, manipulating or successfully stonewalling parents, teachers, local school councils, and PTA/PTO groups for years. The only way that we will begin to force its members to pay attention is by taking away the weapons used to keep its coffers overflowing. When the board finds that the tax revenue stream is not an open, unaccountable faucet, you will begin to see a dramatic change in its responsiveness to the people.

Once we score victories in these important battles, we will press on and take our fight to other areas such as the future transportation needs, the new grading system, and sensible re-districting to name a few.

Our state legislative representatives will respond to our voice only if it thunders in their ears from hundreds of active local party members. Help us grow our party and create that voice.

Finally, we will be forming education task forces and committees to begin addressing and communicating the multitude of issues before us. If you would like to serve in some capacity, please contact us. We need you, your skills, and your creativity to be effective in returning the government back to the people. Contact Chairman Gray Smith at 770-205-7668 for more information.

Sincerely,

Chris Goldston

Corresponding Secretary of the Forsyth County Republican Party