Wednesday, September 27, 2000
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Wednesday, September 27, 2000 |
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PTC ignores rail danger to proposed new school The mayor of Peachtree City along with council members Brooks and McMenamin have begun an unprecedented display of supercilious deeds that will increase traffic and send our county school system to even lower depths. Last Wednesday's vote on the Katz property and the failure to reappoint Planning Commission member Willis Granger should serve as a call to action for all parents in Fayette County. Willis Granger is an esteemed member of the Planning Commission. He has voted against big boxes and against the west side annexation. Mr. Granger had raised objections with Mayor Lenox about his personal dealings with developers and planners outside the open meeting context of the Annexation Task Force. It was announced last Wednesday that Lenox, McMenamin and City Manager Jim Basinger had voted Mr. Granger off the Planning Commission. By eliminating Granger, another obstacle impeding high-density residential development and big boxes has been removed. Chalk up another one for the special interests. What good is a $65 million school bond referendum when the county and its municipalities continually add to student overcrowding by way of rezoning? Please keep in mind that rezonings produce new students that the school system has never before anticipated because of the property's previous zoning. Now the citizens of Fayette County will be heading to the polls in November to vote on school bonds knowing that the local governments are currently generating the need for additional school facilities beyond what is included in the referendum. Do they really expect us to keep rewarding such shameful behavior? At this pace you can look for another bond or SPLOST vote in about two to four years. Dan Tennant, who listened to the Planning Commission, was the only council member to vote no. In fact, Tennant got City Attorney Rick Lindsey to admit that the council had a great deal of control over the density of the Katz property rezoning and Lenox, Brooks and McMenamin still voted for 350 homes. Both Brooks and McMenamin cited that the donation of a school site by the developer was important to them. Do the math and see if the school site works in conjunction with 350 additional homes. The 350 homes would create around 700 school children and the donated elementary school site can house around 800 students so that leaves 100 available slots. Unfortunately, there will be at least 750 students in the new AMLI apartments, 425 students in the new Cedarcroft subdivision and all the students in the established Wynnmeade subdivision for a total of over 1,475 students (this is a low estimate). What we have is a "neighborhood school" that cannot handle the neighbors. What was the benefit of the school again? Get ready for some school redistricting in Peachtree City. Even worse is the fact that they want to build a school near the railroad tracks on a site that has extremely limited evacuation routes in case of derailment. Councilman Brooks used the indescribable logic of what does it matter since we already have four schools just as close to the tracks? I asked a hazmat derailment expert subcontracted by CSX railroad whether he would build a school on that site and he said, "No way." What is even more amazing is that the city council is so careless with the lives of our children that they will not even ask the county's Local Emergency Planning Committee (who handles hazmat disasters and evacuations) for a position paper on the site. The buffer measurement projection used by the city planners was the absolute minimum (500 feet) that assumes the smallest possible leak. If the hazardous chemical is in a pressurized tanker and it ruptures, the city planners' 500 feet is worthless. This is like saying that a fire hydrant is not necessary in your neighborhood because we are assuming you will only have small fires that can be handled with a fire extinguisher. We recently had derailments in Social Circle, Lawrenceville, and South Carolina. The most recent derailment in Lawrenceville had a pressurized tanker roll approximately 60 feet. By the sheer grace of God, that tanker did not rupture. However, it was claimed that it took CSX nearly two hours to notify the local emergency authorities about the derailment. It is saddening to note that if one of the 20 trains per day derails it could seriously impact one of five schools near the tracks. Even more saddening is that council members Brooks, McMenamin and Mayor Lenox want to increase those chances by adding a sixth school. How do we evacuate elementary school children from their school with no buses and no drivers on site? It is important to note that the trains travel at 55 mph and CSX wants to raise the speed. There have been recorded incidences where two trains have been clocked at a mere 15 minutes apart from one another in Peachtree City. In addition, neither the county nor the city has any control over what is shipped on our rail line. There is also very little effort to separate hazardous tankers on each train, thus allowing chemicals to mix upon derailment, causing a possible worse-case scenario. For his next act of defiance, Mayor Lenox stated that he is looking to rezone the Lexington Circle project at Walt Banks Road so that it can accommodate another 300 or more homes. Lenox used around $30,000 of taxpayer funds planning the project for the developer and now he wants to rezone it because his big boxes on the west side killed the commercial prospects for the development. He has found yet another way to further ruin our school system through rezoning. As parents and taxpayers, we need to let our elected representatives know that we want the residential rezonings to stop and that we want safe, non-crowded schools! Steve Brown Steve_ptc@juno.com Peachtree City
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