The Rockdale Voter
Serving The Citizens of Rockdale County Georgia.
Commissioner Doreen Williams Praises Muddessar Ahmad
Muddessar Ahmad serves on a number of Committees in the Rockdale County Government. He is currently running for the Rockdale County Board of Commissioners Chair against the Incumbent, Oz Nesbit. You can get more information about Ahmad and his goals for Rockdale County from the Candidates link on the menu above.
Video Courtesy of the Ahmad for Chairman Campaign
Commissioner Williams responded to the video of her praising Muddessar Ahmad’s contribution and service to Rockdale County.
The Video and the related description make no mention that she was endorsing him for any office and certainly did not indicate that Commissioner Williams was endorsing him for the Board of Commissioner’s Chair position.
The video is simply an endorsement of his character and his contribution and services to the county in the positions he has held and in some cases still holds.
In her post, Commissioner Williams makes it very clear that she has not and will not endorse anybody for Chairman of the Rockdale County Board of Commissioners.
No one. We are left to presume that includes any incumbents.
To clear up any confusion in the Video, we have edited the video to show that “Commissioner Doreen Williams Praise Muddessar Ahmad’s Service to the Community” which more accurately describes the content of the video.
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In her response, Commissioner Williams accuses Muddessar Ahmad of being deceitful in using the video in his campaign. As far as The Rockdale Voter knows he has not, and in contacting Ahmad, he confirms that they have not.
Commissioner Williams also says that no one asked her permission to publish the video. When a video is published on YouTube it can be marked Private, not visible to the public, or Public in which case it is published in YouTube’s Public Domain and becomes public property. The Rockdale Voter published the video as is without editing the content. We are not aware of who the original publisher was.
We would also wish to make it clear that The Rockdale Voter holds a neutral position on all candidates and simply reports on Rockdale County issues that are important to its readers.
Every Candidate that is running for office has an open offer to have their Campaign Material published in The Rockdale Voter. Only Ahmad’s campaign has responded so far.
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The Rockdale Voter needs your help. It costs money to run a campaign, to buy advertising, and buy signs. We ask that you help by donating so that we can continue to fund campaigns that are important to you. Just click the Donate Button at the top and Donate. It can be $10, $20, or more. Every Donation helps. The Rockdale Voter appreciates whatever you can donate. If we all club together we can do this.
Homestead Exemption Legislation.
The County collects 1% Sales Tax to be applied as an exemption against property taxes. This should be applied against homeowners Property Taxes for Tax Relief. The BOC was taking 30% of the money collected to use in their General Budget as discretionary funds. They have reduced this to 25%, but 100% of the money collected is supposed to go to Homeowners for Tax Relief. It’s not. The legislation has been passed by the legislature to force the BOC to apply 100% of the monies collected to Tax Relief, but to make it enforceable, Citizens of the county must vote for it. We bneed to get this on the ballot, but we require 5,000 signatures to get it on the ballot and they cannot be Electronic Signatures. We need your help to collect the signatures. Please sign HERE to select a day you can help collect signatures.
Secret Courthouse Committee Revealed
First Public Meeting: Thursday April 28, 2022 at 5:00 P.M. in Courtroom 225C
Due to the efforts of The Rockdale Voter the secret courthouse committee has been exposed. This committee was formed in secret without public knowledge to overrule Rockdale County Citizens to a downtown courthouse and rubberstamp the building of a downtown courthouse for $150 million instead of at Parker road for $50 million. Despite pressure from a high pressure lobby group this plan was defeated once. The second attempt is a hand picked committee headed by Janice van Ness who headed up the group pushing for the courthouse in the first committee to build a downtown courthouse.
County Committee Members
Sheriff Eric Levett
Judge Mumford
Judge Reid
Citizen Members
Janice van Ness – Chair
Doug Smith
Wendy Armstrong
Dr. Steven Boyle
Franklin Buford
Donal Murphy
School Tax Exemption.
With your support the School Tax Exemption for our seniors was raised from $35,000.00 to $50,000.00.
If we stick together as a community, we can have a voice.
Public Facilities Authority
With your support, although the Public Facilities Authority Bill was passed, it was not passed they way the resolution was written giving the BOC a free hand to indebt the county without any oversight. SB 638 is a very different animal than the BOC tried to get passed. You can read the bill HERE.
Our Delegation voted to APPROVE the Public Facilities Authority. It has now gone on to Governor Kemp to sign. If you want to contact Governor Kemp to VETO SB638 call 404-656-1776. You will be answered by a live person and be recorded. ALSO, go to https://georgia.gov/contact-georgiagov and write your opposition to SB638 and ask him on behalf of the citizens of the county to VETO the bill.