If you will remember, several members of our Peachtree City Traffic Task Force had implored Mayor Bob Lenox and city staff members to provide them with much needed information on the Ga. Highway 54 West corridor.

Not having received much of the information and suffering from a severe lack of meeting time, members of the task force then asked the mayor to table the decision on the appeal for the Home Depot development. As you will recall, the mayor stated that there could be absolutely no delays.

At the same time, RAM Development demanded that they get immediate resolution and said that they had to meet certain time constraints. RAM was so adamant about getting the appeal approved at the meeting prior to Dan Tennant taking office in January that RAM and Home Depot officials resorted to tactics that could almost be perceived as blackmail.

RAM and Home Depot tried to strong-arm officers of the homeowners associations to the west. They told the officers that if they did not support the appeal and the process went to court that they would do the absolute bare minimum required by law to make the development palatable to the community (this from Home Depot — the “do the right thing” company).

The City Council approved the appeal Dec. 16 and as of Jan. 17, RAM Development and Home Depot have not yet signed the statement of conditions for the approval. The lies prevailed. The appeal could have easily been tabled because RAM Development had no intentions of signing the conditions in the immediate future.

Doug McMurrain of RAM Development told a reporter of The Citizen that he would submit a Wal-Mart Supercenter site plan in March or April of 2000. Another lie. McMurrain submitted the plan in early January.

There is a good chance that RAM will try to sue the city and link the Home Depot site plan (that the mayor wanted to rush through) with the Wal-Mart Supercenter site plan. We are about to see what the council members and Mayor Lenox's lack of wanting to act on the big-box dilemma years ago is going to cost us in taxpayer-funded legal fees.

Mr. McMurrain never fairs well with our citizen representatives. In 1995, Mr. McMurrain's Fayetteville Wal-Mart site plan was “tabled indefinitely” by unanimous vote (July 25, 1995, minutes, Fayetteville Planning and Zoning Commission). The Peachtree City Planning Commission on Nov. 21, 1999, rejected McMurrain's Home Depot site plan 4-to-1. Why was Mayor Lenox in such a rush to move the appeal through?

The AJC (Jan. 5, Local Section) reported that the citizens of Athens are beginning a fight against Wal-Mart. Listen to the parallels of our Home Depot arguments in the words of an Athens homeowners association president, “We're not against Wal-Mart. We just don't think this is the best place for such a large store to go.”

The reporter went on to say that “many residents say they fear the store will exacerbate traffic problems, pollute the Oconee River with parking lot runoff and threaten neighboring businesses.”

Do you remember several months ago when the Peachtree City Council reaffirmed the moratorium on annexation (in particular in the traffic-ridden west)? You guessed it; annexation to the west is back on the city council's agenda.

I am afraid that Councilman Robert Brooks and Mayor Bob Lenox are determined to annex that property to the benefit of a few developers, no matter what the costs to the citizens, before their terms expire. These particular developers know that Brooks and Lenox are their only chance and that public sentiment is growing against the perpetual ballooning of the build-out population figure and infrastructure expenses.

Steve Brown
Peachtree City

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