Rowing in the same direction helps Albany’s legislative delegation

ALBANY — Egos abound under the Gold Dome of the state capital. These egos spill down the marbled halls and into the House and Senate where, once a year, lawmakers parry over how best to spend taxpayers’ money — which means funding local projects and bringing some of that money back to their home districts.

In Albany, there has been a steady stream of funding headed south in recent years. Most recently, the local delegation pulled off $4.9 million in funding for the Carlton Construction Academy at Albany Technical College. Last year, the state provided money for renovations to Dougherty County’s Northwest Library; prior to that, the local delegation worked with the Technical College System of Georgia to secure $3.3 million in seed money for the new Commodore Conyers College and Career Academy. The year before that, the state provided $19.8 million for a new Fine Arts Center at Albany State University and later added an additional $2.1 million to furnish the soon-to-be-completed facility.

The area’s local delegation, consisting of Sen. Freddie Powell Sims, D-Dawson; Reps. Darrel Ealum, D-Albany; Winfred Dukes, D-Albany; Gerald Greene, R-Cuthbert, and Ed Rynders, R-Leesburg, have put aside their egos to work for Albany, which as the economic hub of Southwest Georgia, benefits the entire region.

“This past session started with tremendous stress from the two storms coming back-to-back in Albany, and our story of two storms took several weeks to find its footing,” Ealum said. “But when the urgency of our issues began to rise for our area and for Dougherty County, we pulled together as a team and accomplished our most important missions for our districts and Southwest Georgia.”

The way the community and its delegation reacted to those disasters made Ealum proud to represent the district and the region.

“I am elated and proud for Georgia and Dougherty County,” the House District 153 representative said. “Our last three session accomplishments created truly unprecedented results. Now to come back with a fully funded Phase II of our Carlton Construction Academy borders on folklore. It’s just a miracle, and it’s because each of our delegation members’ unwavering understanding of the unique part that they and only they could play.

“And we all played our parts as though it meant the sun would not rise unless we performed them as an integral elements of the strategic level equation. I am so proud to serve as the junior member of this tightly performing, well-oiled delegation.”

Sims, who played a pivotal role in securing funding for the ASU Fine Arts Center and the Albany Tech construction academy, agreed.

“We have to stand together down here,” the District 12 senator said. “Look at what happened in Atlanta; that illustrates my point. For 13 years, MARTA has been trying to expand into the more affluent suburbs so that they could offer mass transit to the people in those areas that work downtown, in Fulton County. But folks in those cushy suburbs have refused, saying that even though 70 percent of Atlanta’s workers still drive cars, they didn’t want MARTA coming into their communities. Now, with the disaster on I-85, they’re panicking, trying to figure out how their citizens are going to be able to get to work.”

While he represents Lee County, House District 152 Rep. Rynders said he knows that what’s good for Albany is also good for the region and Lee County.

“Southwest Georgia has a history of good projects, from the Mental Health Center, the Broad Avenue Bridge, along with several projects involving higher education,” Rynders said. “Albany, in particular, has a history of selecting — and getting — worthy projects.”

And those projects are helped along by the five people in Atlanta, rowing the region’s boat in the same direction.