Wednesday, January 10, 2001

I have a philosophical question for your children to take back to political science class in high school or college. Is it the role of government to: (1) promote individual rights while defending the common good or (2) promote the common good while defending individual rights?

Some might conclude that there is no difference. I have seen the governmental decision-making process go in both directions and the difference is monumental.

Under the second choice, if the local government is guided by such a principle, it is much easier to protect the community's quality of life, quality of education and promote the health, safety and welfare of the citizens. Next time you attend a Planning Commission meeting, you will notice that nearly all of the developers' attorneys opt for the first choice for obvious reasons.

It is possible for a governmental entity to turn the corner and move from the first choice towards the second. Councilman Dan Tennant was our first move.

Gwinnett County is turning also with the recent election of two new county commissioners, Marcia Neaton and John Dunn. Both ran campaigns promoting sensible and slow growth that is in stark contrast with the "build a road and start developing" position of the past. With the entrance of Neaton and Dunn come four new planning commission members (the AJC has labeled them "homeowner activists", Dec. 25, p. C3) that have initiated debate on vital issues like some of us are doing in Peachtree City. The newly appointed Gwinnett County "activists" have embraced such issues as overdevelopment vs. overcrowded schools, stopping automatic variances for developers, mandatory sidewalks for all developments and sticking to the county's land use plan.

The two terms of Peachtree City Mayor Bob Lenox has placed the common good much further on the back burner than we would have previously thought possible. The mayor has plowed a lot of ground for certain developers at our expense financially and with the possible deterioration of our future quality of life. I have witnessed a movement that goes well beyond individual rights over common good towards outright selfishness.

In his backpedaling interpretation of the big box decisions (PTC Update), the mayor makes a feeble attempt at providing ironclad legal excuse for the city council's decisions on big box stores. Unfortunately, the mayor left entire sections of the law and governing process out and opted to narrowly select only the parts he likes, which resembles more of a dictatorship than a republic. He failed to mention items like the Supreme Court decisions on "takings law," the ability to place restrictions on zoning, etc.

We cannot implement impact fees on new homes for building new schools because the developer's lobby in the state General Assembly extracted it from the impact fee law. Such political ploys leave cities and counties struggling to keep their school systems from bursting at the seams. This is the style of government that the mayor appreciates with its support of the special interests at the expense of the citizenry.

I recall in regard to the water dispute between Georgia, Florida and Alabama that the mayor publicly stated that he did not think that we (Georgians) had any obligation to allow the other states access to the water of rivers flowing from Georgia. Simply consuming all the water and allowing the riverbeds to dry up in the other states is far from the common good, especially when you consider that the water has run through those beds since the beginning of time.

The mayor has found an ally in the retreat from common good in the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT). The GDOT deputy commissioner, Harold Linnenkohl, wrote a letter to the editor (The Citizen, Dec. 13) emphasizing GDOT's hands-off approach towards public safety while passing the buck back to the municipal government. Mr. Linnenkohl stated, "Peachtree City approved the development of this project, not the Georgia DOT," and he is almost right. Peachtree City approved the project in conjunction with the prior GDOT approval.

What exists is an unfortunate pattern of shifting accountability. On one hand, the city council (Lenox, Brooks and Fritz) gave us the notion that the Wal-Mart Highway 54 mitigation must not be a threat to public health and safety because a national traffic engineering firm (albeit one employed by Wal-Mart) designed it.

To solidify the council's position, GDOT via Keith Rohling gave a confident approval (later reduced to tentative in The Citizen interview) to the proposed mitigation plan. Mr. Linnenkohl wrote, "Our primary concern is that any alterations or tie-ins to our state highway system be safe, up to standards, and in accordance with our policies and regulations."

Now please remember that Mr. Rohling gave his approval even though he admitted in the newspaper interview that he had never seen a traffic engineering scheme similar to the one proposed anywhere in Georgia. What criteria did Mr. Rohling use to be able to give an immediate, firm confirmation that assures our safety to RAM Development on the same day as the city council meeting?

On the other hand, a GDOT response via Jim Hullett (Atlanta Office) is that Peachtree City alone is responsible for insuring the health and safety aspects of the highway mitigation plan and not GDOT. Mr. Hullett stated that GDOT is merely approving an application for a commercial development to have "access" to Hwy. 54.

Mr. Hullett went on to explain to me that GDOT could not legally restrict access to the highways. I replied that access had been denied to Hwy. 74 for the Katz family and their property (their access points had been taken away). Mr. Hullett then explained that sometimes access is withdrawn to insure public safety near intersections.

This takes me back to my original argument. GDOT does play a role in health and safety and should not be allowed to approve the implementation of a plan that substantially increases traffic capacity while at the same time provides significant flow impediments (a pair of two-lane bridges, an accident-prone intersection, etc.).

I asked Mr. Hullett if the citizens of Peachtree City were to hire a nationally recognized traffic engineer and found that a safety hazard exists with the mitigation plan if GDOT would reconsider their approval. He said, "No." I guess the deputy commissioner was wrong about his commitment to public safety.

GDOT is now sending a nondescript form letter to citizens that in no way addresses any of the concerns regarding safety, capacity and traffic flow. In fact, the official response omits several key safety factors within the plan.

Another questionable element in the GDOT approval process is that they threw out an attempt to mitigate the intersection at Planterra Way to prevent commercial traffic from invading the Planterra Ridge subdivision during the Home Depot approval.

Now, in the controversial Wal-Mart plan, the intersections on both sides of Planterra Way (Wynnmeade Parkway and Huddleston Drive) will be mitigated in the exact same manner that was rejected previously for Planterra Ridge. No one at GDOT can seem to explain the rational for these decisions. Perhaps it is "whomever has the most money wins" or "public safety is just an obscure theory not worth exploring."

Mr. Linnenkohl stated, "Peachtree City is a thriving and progressive city. The city leaders recognize this and have a very thorough and sophisticated zoning process in place as a means to prevent overdevelopment." His statement is humorous in that the planning commission denied both the Home Depot and the Wal-Mart, two city council members voted against the Wal-Mart and a third stated she did not want it either.

In addition, the city was scrambling around trying to develop a big box ordinance while handing out exemptions for it at the same time. Prior to the big boxes, the city was sued into allowing hundreds of apartments and the Cedarcroft subdivision on Hwy. 54 due to a large loophole in the ordinances. This does not appear me as thorough or sophisticated.

Last Thursday I went to GDOT-Thomaston to review some documents related to the Wal-Mart approval (the plan has still not officially been approved) and spent over three hours in my car roundtrip. None of the current documents were made available to me. I was told that I had been shown all of the documents in GDOT's possession.

After driving almost two hours home, I received a fax stating that the most current documents had not been turned in on the open records request. Interestingly, Keith Rohling kept all the current documents on his desk and avoided the records request.

Steve Brown

Peachtree City

Steve_ptc@juno.com

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