Long Calls On Constituents To Attend Public Hearing

State Rep. Ralph Long, D-Atlanta, is calling on his Cascade constituents to attend a Wednesday public hearing on his bill to more strictly regulate Georgia's mattress and bedding industry.

"If you value your mattress, and want to be able to go to bed without itching or twitching, then you need to come to this hearing," Long told members of NPU-S during its regular meeting last week. "Not enough people come down to the capitol. It's your building."

Among other things, House Bill 678 would provide definitions of what constitutes a new mattress, as well as a used one.

"We have mattress factories down here that take old material from mattresses and sell them as new ones," Long said. "Y'all elected us to do a job and make demands on us. Well, I'm putting some demands on all of you to come down to the capitol for this public hearing."

The bill is currently before the House Agriculture & Consumer Affairs committee. Long said the hearing will be held at 8 am.

At the meeting, Long also expressed his support for charter schools.

"My wife and I have a four-year-old little boy, and we've had some hard conversations," he said. "I was the first elected official to call for (former APS superintendent) Dr. Beverly Hall's resignation. No one joined me. And very few school board members come to NPU meetings like these.

"Charter schools are the way of the future, whether we like it or not."