After the race to pick Walker’s next sole commissioner, the only other heated contest up for a vote this week is the decision to continue SPLOST. SPLOST, the SPecial Local Option Sales Tax, is a 1% or one-cent-on-the-dollar sales tax applied to every purchase conducted in Walker County. SPLOST is always temporary and has to be voted back into existence every five years. Every twenty years it falls on a regular election year, which is why it’s up for a vote at the same time as Commissioner and the other 4-year jobs.

Let’s take a little closer look at the details of SPLOST’s ballot measure and see what we can learn about its intentions and purposes. The SPLOST measure is explained pretty well on the electronic ballot screen voters will be seeing Tuesday, but even with all the detail provided there some smaller points are left out. For the full text of the measure we have to go to the local paper and look in the classified section. Last Wednesday’s Messenger details the whole thing as an announcement in the classifieds, on page B3. It’s also located on the Messenger Web site, but may not be there long since most things there disappear after only a few weeks.

To clarify, this site will be dealing with all matters of interest, not just things pertaining to LaFayette. Most of what you read here will be regarding the city of LaFayette or the pitiful excuse for a county that somehow manages to keep LaFayette contained inside its borders. The current cityoflafayettega.com domain may eventually be supplemented with something related to the county or perhaps another name that binds it less to a specific geographical area. Regardless of domain, occasional postings may wander off the local news path and touch on anything else regarded as interesting.

How fitting then that the first post be about the county rather than the city.

The purpose of journalism is to inform the citizens of happenings within their world or community. Informing truthfully, without reporting dubious items that edge towards gossip, yet at the same time not ignoring important issues that citizens should be made aware of.