DEKALB COUNTY — More than 100 DeKalb County citizens braved the snow and slick roads Monday night to meet with their state senator and discuss the current legislative session.

Sen. Lowell Barron began the evening at 5:30 p.m. with a Community Chat in Ider, where some 60 citizens gathered at the community senior center. Barron opened the meeting by presenting a check for $1,000 to Ider High School Principal Steven Street in support of the school’s athletic program. House of Representatives member Todd Greeson was also on hand to present a $1,000 check for the same cause.

At 7 p.m., Barron met with a crowd of more than 40 citizens in at the Henagar Fire Department. There he presented Mayor Winston Jenkins with a check for $2,000 to help fund improvements to the city’s public park.

At both meetings, Barron discussed some of the key legislation that has been addressed during the current legislative session, which began last month. This included the bill Barron introduced to create a job-creating road and bridge improvement program. “This bill would take $100 million a year for ten years out of the Alabama Trust Fund,” Barron explained. “This is our rainy day fund, and I believe with the economy that we’re in right now, this is a rainy day.”

Barron explained that a vote was recently taken to end debate on the bill, but the measure fell one vote short. He said he plans to bring it back up for debate within the next two weeks.

Accountability was also on Barron’s mind, as he discussed the bill passed last week by the Alabama State Senate to ban no-bid contracts. He explained that some $2.6 billion worth of contracts had been let by Gov. Bob Riley without being bid, including a recent $13 million contract for computer services to a Virginia-based company without a phone number, address or Alabama business license. “There are companies in Alabama who could have performed that work, and it would have created about 100 jobs,” Barron said.

Other legislative issues Barron discussed with the crowds included:

• a bill to fix the state’s ailing pre-paid college tuition program — the Senate passed the bill and it now goes to the House for debate
• a bill to return all funds TVA pays in lieu of taxes back to the counties served by TVA —  the House passed the bill and it will be brought up in the Senate this week
• the Education and General Fund budgets — Barron said cuts will be necessary because of the sharp decline in state revenues, but that he was committed to protecting vital services such as the state’s Pre-K program and Alabama Reading Initiative, as well as the Senior RX prescription program, Meals on Wheels and Medicaid.

“One thing we’re not going to do, and that is raise your taxes,” Barron said. “Alabama citizens pay the lowest state and local taxes of anyone in the nation, and now is certainly not the time to talking about raising taxes.”
Barron thanked the citizens for placing their trust in him for 27 years as their State Senator so he can focus on goals such as keeping taxes low and working on economic development issues.