What a difference 24 hours can make.
Tuesday night’s meeting between Habersham County and Tallulah Falls was emotional and packed with hurt feelings. But it was not just over Roads & Bridges SPLOST or radios.
It was clear that Tallulah Falls’ leaders were tired of being the other town to the north. They came in with a chip on their shoulder from years of what they perceived as disrespect from Habersham County leaders.
Since the county has almost a completely new leadership group across the board, it is hard to blame them for those things. But it was an undercurrent to the already choppy sea between the two bodies.
During the meeting, Chairman Bruce Palmer – who admitted the situation had pushed him to the limit of his “open-mindedness” – was having none of the talk to trade one thing for another from separate pots of money.
Palmer, who was insistent the discussion stay on the Roads & Bridges SPLOST, instead went into an emotional plea to justify the importance of the new radio system. His dramatic example posited a scenario where Tallulah Falls Police Chief Tonya Elrod could be killed by a criminal at a traffic stop if she has a faulty radio. This example certainly pulled on emotions and hit hard, since Elrod was nearly killed in such an incident in 2013, when Marshall Allen Rice pulled a gun on her and it misfired. Rice is serving a 70-year sentence after that attempted murder nine years ago, but those kinds of incidents never leave you as an officer.
After the meeting, Tallulah Falls Mike Early said the county “blindsided” his council by trying to block talk about the radio system. He also floated the option of trying to work exclusively with Rabun County on future projects.
“Another option we are looking at is going to the state legislature and seeing if we can redraw the county lines to remove ourselves from Habersham County completely, which would solve a lot of these issues,” Early said.
So, if we are done reliving traumatic experiences and threatening secession, can we talk now?
Cooler heads finally prevailed after the formal meeting broke up, and officials from multiple cities were able to guide the parties involved into a potential solution with another viewpoint free from hurt feelings and emotional baggage.
That, folks, is leadership.
It was like the old telephone game, except the message stayed intact all the way through. A plan thrown out there by Cornelia City Manager Dee Anderson made its way to the principals in the matter, and everyone put aside their own issues to talk once again.
Let’s use this as a teaching moment for next time.