August 19th 2009

Madison County / Banks County / Franklin County

Day 54: 10 miles walked today. Today was a relatively short walking day, because I had to go to Atlanta to attend a number of meetings. I began walking at seven a.m. just north of Ila, Georgia, in Madison County. These ten miles took me through some beautiful countryside of rolling hills farmland—just the relaxing scenery I needed before the series of meetings I had planned for the afternoon. Arriving in Atlanta by car, I attended a meeting held by Governor Perdue to brief gubernatorial candidates on the recent developments in Georgia’s ongoing water problems.payday loans I was glad that the Governor took the time to update us—indeed, he’s updating everyone, in the hopes of building support for his plan.

I still feel like there is more we can do as a State to conserve water, thus preserving the moral high ground on the issue that has set Georgia apart from the other states vying for the same resources. Basically, what has happened is that a federal judge has issued a court order with which Georgia must comply within three years. Perdue has several ideas for getting around the order, including appealing in court, but I believe that at the end of the day the State will have to comply and that we need to do everything we can to start saving water now. As I told the reporter afterward, the cheapest gallon of water is the one we never use. And I believe that. Currently, in the State of Georgia, there are areas that have massive losses of water every single day due to leaks in the distribution systems.

While other candidates have said they intend to follow a policy of hoping for the federal verdict to be overturned (which is extremely unlikely) and that they would not accept federal dollars under any circumstances, if I were elected Governor, I would have no problem accepting federal dollars to fix leaky pipelines in Georgia. After all, the systems were built with federal assistance in the first place, and the State could not afford to fix all the problems on its own. Thus, I think the best approach (and the one over which the State has the most control) would be to do everything possible to conserve water and to supplement those efforts by fixing the leaks in our system.

After leaving the Governor’s office, I went and visited with the Georgia Municipal Association to discuss issues of interest to them. I told them one of my main priorities for this State is to fix the problems in the Department of Revenue. I’m not blaming any one person in particular, but I believe the Department as a whole has gone too long without certain issues being addressed. I look forward to continuing my discussion with the GMA in the near future. Later this evening I sat down with leaders of the State Republican Party to discuss the status of the Party and what we can do to improve our performance going forward. I believe too many Georgians think we haven’t lived up to the promises we made when we came into office—and as Governor, I intend to change that. That’s one of the things I think hurt us so much in Washington: the simple fact that we never did what we said we’d do. I want to make it my job to be certain we keep the promises we’ve made to the Georgians who’ve put us in office. Thank you for listening, and keep following the Walk of Georgia to see just how serious I am about that promise. Goodnight and God bless!

GPS:   N34 20.076  W83 15.359                                                                      889.03 miles walked