Originally designated as the Parish of St. Paul by the Act creating it in 1758, the name was changed in 1777 to Richmond County in honor of the Duke of Richmond, who, as a member of Parliament, was a zealous supporter of the American cause, advocating independence of the Colonies. It originally included a large part of four other counties: Columbia, Jefferson, McDuffie and Warren. Included within its borders are the incorporated towns of Augusta, the county seat; Hephzibah, formerly Brothersville; Blythe; and McBean.
Originally a trading community dealing in pelfry and tobacco, later its economy rested on numerous industries, principally textile, operated by power developed from its numerous creeks and the Augusta Canal constructed in 1845-1846, and agricultural products from rich arable farm lands. Numerous military engagements occurred here during the Revolutionary War, during which Augusta was twice captured by the British.
During the War Between the States, the United States Arsenal surrendered to State forces without resistance, and a Confederate powder factory, said to be the second largest then in existence, supplied the Confederate Army and Navy. United States Army encampments, McKenzie, Hancock and Gordon, maintained during the Spanish-American War, World War I and World War II, respectively.
The Signers Monument
Located on the 500 block of Greene Street in front of the Augusta Municipal Center/Richmond County Courthouse,
Dedicated July 4, 1848, in honor of the signers of the Declaration of Independence for Georgia: George Walton, Lyman Hall and Button Gwinnett. The first two lie buried in crypts beneath this shaft. The burial place of Gwinnett, whose body was to have been reinterred here, has never been found. George Walton, born in Virginia, settled in Georgia, and was a colonel in the Revolutionary Army, twice governor of Georgia, judge of Superior Court and chief justice of Georgia, six times elected to Congress and served one term as United States Senator; wounded and captured by British at Savannah. Dr. Lyman Hall, born in Connecticut, was one of the group of ardent revolutionaries from Midway, Georgia, who helped lead Georgia into open rebellion in 1776. He represented Georgia in the Continental Congress. Button Gwinnett, born in England, settled in Savannah shortly before the Revolution and was a magnetic and fiery figure in the early days of the war. He was president of Georgia in March 1777. A quarrel with General Lachlan McIntosh, arising out of the ill-fated expedition to Florida, resulted in a duel in May 1777, on the outskirts of Savannah in which Gwinnett was mortally wounded.
Richmond County Demographics
As of the census[1] of 2000, there were 199,775 people, 73,920 households, and 49,526 families residing in the county. The population density was 616 people per square mile (238/km²). There were 82,312 housing units at an average density of 254 per square mile (98/km²).
There were 73,920 households out of which 33.60% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 41.80% were married couples living together, 20.80% had a female householder with no husband present, and 33.00% were non-families. 27.70% of all households were made up of individuals and 8.50% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.55 and the average family size was 3.13.
In the county the population was spread out with 26.80% under the age of 18, 12.00% from 18 to 24, 29.90% from 25 to 44, 20.50% from 45 to 64, and 10.80% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 32 years. For every 100 females there were 93.20 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 89.80 males.
(Please bring any information that is incorrect or needs to be changed to my attention.) Robert McGee (AugustaC4L) - Richmond County Coordinator
I have the podcast links for the "Helen Blocker-Adams' LIVE - Local Candidats Forum" show.
As some of you already know I am on the panel for "Helen Blocker-Adams' Political Dreamteam Roundtable Discussion" radio show each Thursday and as a part of her political team I was one of the panelist present at this event to ask the local candidates questions for the Augusta-Richmond County Commission Elections and a Special Board of Education District 5 election. The links below are from that event Thursday, October 22nd, 2009.
I will also be posting another blog today or by tomorrow with a scoring of each candidate on the issues of freedom in Life, Liberty, Property and Fiscal responsibility. This will in no way be an endorsement for any candidate - as "Campaign for Liberty does not endorse candidates" - this will simply show you (in my own opinion and scoring) where each candidate stands on the issues of liberty and the principles we believe in here at the Campaign for Liberty, based on their answers and remarks from this event. I will also leave my own commentary as to why they received such scores and once I finish my report and scoring I will update this blog with the link to the new "Liberty Scoring" blog with all the scores and my own commentary. So look back for that.
Now to the Canidates forum:
All 12 Candidates were present for this event and they are listed below as:
Augusta-Richmond County Board of Education District 5: Aisha Leverett Patsy Scott James Williams Jr.
Augusta-Richmond County Commission District 1: Jo'rae Jenkins Butch Palmer Bill Fenoy Matt Aitken
Augusta-Richmond County Commission District 3: Cleveland O'steen Joe Bowles Joy Mitchell Booker
Augusta-Richmond County Commission District 5: William "Bill" Lockett Bobby Hankerson
I have listed the questions that were asked during the event. Not all were from me, some were from Megan Seda of the (Columbia County Young Republicans) and Butch Gallop of (Gallop and Associates) who were also on the panel and toward the end a few questions from audience members. The questions were addressed directly to individual commission districts as opposed to across the board or to each individual candidates. Questions that were presented by myself will be marked by an ( * ) beside them. The questions are listed in order below but you will have to listen to the podcast in order to hear the candidates responses.
Questions Incude:
District 1: What exactly will you do about the problem of flooding in East Augusta that has existed for the last 30 years?
* District 3: In your opinion, should an individual's private property be protected from eminent domain? If so, how would you protect the individual's rights - in your district - to their property?
Board of Education District 5: What would be your prime initiative that you would advocate for on the school board to improve the educational process in Richmond County?
District 5: South Augusta is growing right now with a lot of new businesses, residential areas, [etc]. What I would like to know is, at this point in time what will you do to make sure that the infrastructure is in place with the concerns to that growth.
* District 1: How do you feel about the use of tax revenues or tax abatements being used to subsidize any business, including subsidizing owners of sports franchises for the construction of facilities such as stadiums?
District 3: This past year we've had an $8 million dollar budget deficit in Augusta-Richmond County. How would you in a time of recession and tightened budget make sure there is always enough funding to support law enforcement functions?
Board of Education District 5: You have furloughs for the teachers. What incentives will you now give or support for the teachers?
* District 5: As a means of lowering city overhead, would you consider selling off some of the city's public facilities to private industry, and which facilities in District 5 could you name that would be worth looking into doing so?
District 1: What achievements in your personal or professional life do you think show, that you could go into the commission and be effective as commissioner in implementing your ideas?
Questions from Audience members:
District 1: What are you all going to do for the children in that district?
District 3: How will privatizing Government agencies save us money?
District 1: The commission originally agreed on $20 million dollars for the TEE Center, It has since ballooned up to about $70 million dollars. I want District 1 candidates to justify why you would vote on it as it stand right now?
Board of Education District 5: I am a parent and person experience is important to me. In a nutshell I would like to know what personal experience the candidates have with children and the public education.
(End of questions)
This opportunity to be on Helen Blocker-Adams' Political Dreamteam Discussion Panel, as well as the opportunity to sponsor the Political Dreamteam Discussion portion of her show, has been great all around. The Campaign for Liberty is gaining more support and members, Helen is picking up new fans (which I know she's happy about) but some of these are Campaign For Liberty people and she says she loves it when she finds you Campaign for Liberty people listening in and she's getting Facebook messages, fans and friends requests, so keep it up guys and feel free to call in during a live show and put in your own thoughts. THIS is just one avenue for helping to restore America and the principles of liberty we believe in, we have to speak out, get the message of liberty out there, educate people and Helen's show is TRULY independent and fair to all peoples ideas, so call in no matter where you are from, you can listen live online, and let's get more people spreading these ideas. Thank you guys so much for showing support!
And if you're reading this one Helen... Thank you again for the opportunity you've given to put this message out there!
(NOTE: These files will stop working after Thursday 10/29/2009. They get rotated out of their original source archive position. However I have all the files from all of my podcast blogs and am working on reloading them to a server as soon as I find the right one. Please be patient while I get the previous podcasts back up and running. You can always send me a message and I will try to work something out to send you the files you wish for as well.)
To listen to the weekly, Thursday night's "Helen Blocker-Adams' Political Dreamteam Roundtable Discussion" show live online 7:00pm (EST) - 9:00pm. Go to www.helenblockeradams.com, scroll down and click the "Listen to Helen live online" link, or a more direct link to the streaming player here. Hope you all enjoy!!!
The Next Political Roundtable show: Will be November 5th, 2009. The 10/29/2009 show has been canceled as Helen will be covering another event live that night. So join us Thursday, 11/05/2009 for the Poilitical Roundtable Discussion, it will be two days after the local Augusta-Richmond County election and I am sure that it will be one of the hot topics of the show that night. You can find the call in numbers at Helen Blocker-Adams' website.
I've also created a POLL on my last blog in response to a topic from that night's discussion ( Helen Blocker Adams' Political Dreamteam Radio show - 10/15/2009 ) to get your thoughts on "spoiler" or "non-electable" candidates in elections. I encourage everyone to participate in this poll and would appreciate you sending it to everyone you know. But please hurry and vote and pass it along because the poll ends at 11:59pm EST - 10/28/2009. I want to get as many votes on this issue as possible and I plan to reveal the results ON AIR - if possible - when we return back to the regular political roundtable discussion show on November 5th. Thank you all for your participation and support.
I have the podcast links for the most recent "Helen Blocker-Adams' Political Dreamteam Roundtable Discussion" radio show that I appear on each Thursday. These links are from Thursday, October 15th, 2009, discussion always begins 30 minutes into the show but the first 30 minutes are relevant to the first topic of our discussion so listen to it at the start of the show to understand what the discussion was about.
Topics include: To begin with: Something we all have addressed many times in the Campaign for Liberty and that is the issue of "electable candidates", "spoilers" in an election, "the constitutional RIGHT to run for office and the right to vote for who you want", the "Two party monopoly". I jumped in going after the widely held belief of - "Voting the lesser of two evils" or "Vote for the most electable candidate" - that people have. It was good! We also discussed: Local Augusta-Richmond County politics; Candidates and a A HUGE local candidates forum coming up here in Augusta, GA.
This opportunity to be on Helen Blocker-Adams' Politicial Dreamteam Discussion Panel, as well as the opportunity to sponsor the Political Dreamteam Discussion portion of her show, has been great all around. The Campaign for Liberty is gaining more support and members, Helen is picking up new fans (which I know she's happy about) but some of these are Campaign For Liberty people and she says she loves it when she finds you Campaign for Liberty people listening in and she's getting Facebook messages, fans and friends requests, so keep it up guys and feel free to call in during a live show and put in your own thoughts. THIS is just one avenue for helping to restore America and the principles of liberty we believe in, we have to talk, get the message of liberty out there, educate people and this show is TRULY independent and fair to all peoples ideas, so call in no matter where you are from, you can listen live online, and let's get more people spreading these ideas. Thank you guys so much for showing support!
And if you're reading this one Helen... Thank you again for the opportunity you've given to put this message out there!
To listen to the weekly, Thursday night, political discussion show live online 7:00pm (EST) - 9:00pm. Go to www.helenblockeradams.com, scroll down and click the "Listen to Helen live online" link, or a more direct link to the streaming player here.
Hope you all enjoy. Next Thursday will be the local Candidates' Forum aired live on the show. I will be apart of the panel asking questions to the candidates. There will be no call-ins for this show but the following Thursday, October 29th, will return to the normal roundtable dicsussion program and you all are welcome to call in and voice your opinions. You can find the call-in numbers on the Helen Blocker-Adams website.
I've also created a POLL to get your thoughts on "spoiler" or "non-electable" candidates that I encourage everyone to participate in. I plan to read the results ON AIR when we return back to the regular roundtable discussion show on October 29th.
(On a side note: I'm still working on reloading the previous podcasts on my previous podcast blogs. Hope to get it done this week.)
For liberty,
Robert McGee
Poll: What do you think about "spoilers" or "non-electable" candidates in an election race?
OK friends, I have the podcast links for the most recent "Helen Blocker Adams' Political Dreamteam Roundtable Discussion" radio show that I appear on each Thursday. These links are from Thursday, October 1st, 2009, The "political discussion" portion always starts after the first 30 minutes into the begining of the show, so Segment 1 file - around 30:00 into it is where it all begins, if you would like to skip ahead.
Topics include: Local August-Richmond Country politics; Candidates; A HUGE local candidates forum coming up here in Augusta; The 12th Congressional District race; AND a special surprise mention about the effort going on to draft fellow C4L'er Valerie Sargent Meyers for CD 08... BY THE HOST! Helen Blocker Adams herself! I had not even known of this yet but she heard about it from a friend and fellow listener who lives in Albany, Ga. Hear that portion at Segment 2 file - about "32:50" into the program coming back in from commercial. How cool is that? This opportunity to be on Helen Blocker Adams' Politicial Dreamteam Discussion Panel, as well as the opportunity to sponsor the Political Dreamteam Discussion portion of her show, has been great all around. The Campaign for Liberty is gaining more support, Helen is picking up new fans (which I'm sure she's happy about). If you're reading this one Helen, Thanks again for the opportunity!
To listen to the weekly, Thursday night, political discussion show live online 7:00pmEST - 9:00pm, go to www.helenblockeradams.com, scroll down and click the "Listen to Helen live online" link, or a more direct link to the streaming player here.
Here is the link to my previous blog we were talking about tonight with pictures from the 09/17/2009 show. I didnt actually have any new ones to post tonight. The audio files in that previous blog have been rotated off from the radio server, as they are every week. I have them however and am working on reloading them.
Hope you all enjoy and get a chance to listen in next Thursday and by all means feel free to call in during the show and voice your opinion on the topics. You can find the call-in numbers on the Helen Blocker Adams website. I could use a little help from my fellow C4L'ers.
OK friends, I have the podcast links for the previous "Helen Blocker Adams' Political Dreamteam Roundtable Discussion" radio show that I appear on each Thursday. These links are from last Thursday's show September 17th, 2009. Topics include: Obama's Healtcare reform - HR 3200 and candidates for local races here in Augusta.
**If these do not work, the main podcast page can be found here
To listen to the weekly, Thursday night, political discssuion show live online 7:00pm - 9:00pm, go to www.helenblockeradams.com, scroll down and click the "Listen to Helen live online" link, or a more direct link to the streaming player here.
Hope you all get a chance to listen in and by all means feel free to call in during the show and voice your opinion on the topics. You can find the call-in numbers on the Helen Blocker Adams website. I could use a little help from my fellow C4L'ers.
Oh, I almost forgot. I have some pictures with myself and the others on the panel from inside the studio during the 09-17-2009 show.
The First Friday event went wonderfull tonight. About 7-9 people showed up to help out at the table, some old members who havn't been able to make it in a while, regular members and some brand new members.
We got roughly 30 new signatures for the HR 1207 petitions (havn't counted yet) to CD-12's Representative John Barrow, and a great response from the people who came to see "what the petition was about". There was good number of people who walked up and asked us to explain what "HR 1207" is and what the petitions were for, as soon as they heard the words "Audit the FED", they said "OH, say no more, where do I sign?". It was great, people are REALLY waking up out there to the Federal Reserve, what it is, what they are doing to our money, and how the system is just a blank check for all the government's wants, and these were people who have not even heard about the Campaign for Liberty. So if they are as passionate as they acted towards signing the "Audit the FED" petition, I imagine we might have some new Campaign for Liberty supporters after they check out the brochure they received and come to the website.
We also gave free copies of C4L's pocket constitutions and/or the "Citizen's Rule Book" which is the same as the pocket constitution but has a bit more information in it on a few extra subjects like 'Jury nullification' and such, we presented them both to the people and let them choose which one they would like to have, as "a gift" for signing the petitions.
It was a really fun night and overall wonderfully productive. No bad weather, no wind to fight, not too hot, not too humid, tons of people, really fun.
I hope those who have not made it out to our table at one of our Augusta-Richmond County "First Friday" events will get to make it to one of the future events, it happens every 'first' Friday of every month and the Augusta Campaign for Liberty has the best location spot on the street with the most traffic flow in front the most hopping places.
A video of some Richmond County members who visited Georgia's Congressional District 12, Representative John Barrow's office in Augusta-Richmond County, GA.
(Please click on the "HQ" button for a better quality version. Youtube lowered the quality greatly in the 'normal view' version.) Click here to go to video page.
We had no problems and the secretary faxed the petitions immediately.
In the video:
Kathy
Heather
&
(Myself) Robert
We will be making another trip to his office soon with many more petition signatures and plan to do this on a regular basis, delivering new petitions, perhaps monthly.
"Educate and inform the whole mass of the people... They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty."
—Thomas Jefferson
Campaign for Liberty is a 501(c)4 lobbying organization which neither supports nor opposes candidates for public office and claims no responsibility for the actions of individuals or groups of individuals who use the Campaign for Liberty logo or name or who may claim to act as representatives of the Campaign for Liberty without prior written consent of the Campaign for Liberty. [?]
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