Wednesday, September 13, 2000

By DAVE HAMRICK
dhamrick@TheCitizenNews.com

Georgia Regional Transportation Authority's board will formally "activate jurisdiction" over Fayette County in its meeting today, and that prospect has local government officials squirming uncomfortably.
County commissioners have made it clear in recent months that they don't like the message coming from the GRTA, and as time drew near for today's vote, commissioners last week figuratively slew the messenger.
"I apologize if I seemed a little agitated about this," Commissioner Greg Dunn said following a 45-minute grilling of GRTA director Catherine Ross, "but I must admit that I am." Commissioners also invited local municipal officials and political candidates to express their opinions.
"We will not allow anybody outside of Fayette County to make land use decisions in Fayette County," Dunn told Ross and Rob Alexander, GRTA's director of government relations.
The two attended the commissioners' meeting to talk over the organization's plans, but commissioners used the occasion to complain about GRTA's powers.
The authority was created by the state legislature just over a year ago to help cement a regional transportation plan that would meet federal air quality standards, and was given broad powers to levy taxes and make other decisions that affect local people, including land use decisions.
Ross said GRTA has no intention of enforcing land use decisions or levying taxes in Fayette County. "Judge us by what we do," she said. "Anything we do will go forward in a negotiated way with everyone at the table."
Fayetteville City Councilman Al-Hovey King pointed out that GRTA has no elected representatives and yet is taking jurisdiction over elected governments.
But GRTA, Ross said, is acting merely as a facilitator in carrying out the long range Regional Transportation Plan, short range Transportation Improvement Plan and Regional Development Plan agreed to by the Atlanta Regional Commission, which is composed largely of elected officials from Fayette and nine other metro Atlanta counties.
"We've said to ARC, 'We will work with you to develop your TIP, your RTP and your RDP,'" she said.
But in strongly worded letters to local counties asking for commitments to its "smart growth" development plan, ARC made it clear that GRTA was in the driver's seat, commissioners said.
And even if GRTA doesn't fully exercise its power, the fact that it has been given that power makes them feel uncomfortable, commissioners said.
"How do you negotiate with some you've taken jurisdiction over," demanded Commissioner Linda Wells. "
"The bill (SB57, which created GRTA) clearly states that if you decide we aren't cooperating, you can punish us," said Dunn, adding that if other governments in the region emulated Fayette's planning policies, Atlanta wouldn't have an air quality problem. "If the rest of the region looked like this, you wouldn't be standing there," he said.
"Why don't you have it rewritten? It'd make us feel better," said Commissioner Herb Frady.
Mitch Seabaugh, who was elected to the state Senate in August, promised to work with GRTA officials to rewrite the group's enabling legislation so those powers don't exist.
But in the end, Ross hinted that GRTA may have to use its powers after all, because the region is going to have to conform to federal air quality standards.
"The Clean Air Act amendments require that we have a conforming plan," she said.
She said she would carry the commission's message to the GRTA board. "I appreciate the candid, open and frank discussion," she told commissioners.

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