Cleaning Georgia's waterways 4. Funding educational improvements at public schools 5. City officials want funding for a program targeting violent crime. But when the General Assembly convenes Jan. 8, local legislators plan to work on issues such as nursing home guidelines and grandparent guardian rights. Often, what those want back home and what state legislators will pursue do not match.
Reasons vary, according to members of the local delegation.
In the legislature, massive overhaul is difficult. Often, a bigger impact can be made by pursuing smaller changes, they say. There was a lot more input in the community and a truer feeling amongst government agencies as to what the community wanted and needed. Almost unilaterally, legislators have moved away from that. Twenty community organizations responded to a Savannah Morning News survey asking them to rank the issues most important to them in the upcoming legislative session.