In Floyd County, only a single precinct – South Rome – supported the TSPLOST. Of the 15 counties lumped into a single Northwest Georgia region for road-funding purposes, only one supported the added penny of sales tax – Dade. South Rome is densely Democratic; Dade is immensely Republican. How did they ever agree on anything?
Given how massively this was massacred in our part of the state, what causes citizens in these two far-removed places at opposite ends of the political spectrum to buck the trend? What do they have in common?
Probably only a long, long history of being isolated, cut off, not having ever gotten much in the way of vehicular access and being ignored. Much of this is due to geography.
While that’s started to change for South Rome in recent years, there’s really only one main route in and out of the area.
Dade only has one road from Georgia leading to it and that didn’t exist until about 70 years ago. It’s still more accessible from Alabama and Tennessee. Of course, it does have an interstate while Greater Rome can’t get such a thing. Trenton, the county seat, would have gotten a new in-town I-59 interchange out of the TSPLOST, a very big economic boost in such a small place.
What would South Rome have received? Well, nothing was “on the list” but there would have been a ton of extra money dedicated to local, pick-your-own projects. Those might have included removing those ugly light poles from an otherwise beautified South Broad Street … or the vaguely mentioned dream of turning Cave Spring Street into a wide boulevard down to Darlington School or even beyond.
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