Roy Barnes

By creating a Metropolitan North Georgia Water Planning District, we will give local governments a framework for working together on an issue that affects our whole state.

We are all one - or at least we should be - and it is our job, our duty, and our great challenge to fight the voices of division and seek the salve of reconciliation.

There is no country on earth with a stronger tradition of protecting the public's right to know.

And one of the things I've tried to do in my first months in office is to give more Georgians - reporters and members of the general public alike - a closer look at how their government works.

And this week, I am proposing legislation to strengthen our Open Records laws to make public access to our public records surer, faster, and more comprehensive.

Neither political party is clean when it comes to tactics that divide our people.

Business and the state have a common interest; not an adversarial interest.

I am committed to making Georgia a model for open and honest government.

After all, I have spent the better part of my adult life insisting that government be open... that government be accessible... and that government be held accountable to people who voted us into office.

What I am proposing this year are not lofty concepts far removed form the daily struggle so of ordinary Georgians. They are proposals that directly effect the lives of the people we serve.

I want business to prosper and make a profit caused by business expansion and prosperity.

Repeating a grade needs to be the last resort, not an automatic response to a child who is struggling to learn.