By CAL BEVERLY
Publisher

"Note to Peachtree City Council: Take care of your basic responsibilities first.

Do you hear the sounds of fiddling coming from Peachtree City City Hall? The lead music maker is Mayor "Nero" Lenox, fiddling while the city chokes on traffic.

The City Council was scheduled last night to consider spending more than $16 million in borrowed money, about two-thirds of it contingent on voter approval, on several Lenox-driven "nice" projects.

Our "nice" council also was to consider (1) raising our property tax millage rate (whether the bond referendum passes or not), (2) more than doubling the hotel-motel tax, (3) upping recreation fees and charges to the general public, (4) hiking and ultimately changing the occupational tax on local businesses, (5) skyrocketing the building department permit fees on home building and remodeling, and (6) bumping up city court fines and fees.

Tax and spend. Increase taxes and spend more. And on what? "Nice" stuff: Buildings, buildings, buildings. Basketball courts, new pool covers, arts center, community center, yada yada yada. Sounds like Democrats who lost in Florida have moved into Peachtree City and taken over our city government.

While we drivers do the slow burn in multiple traffic stalls inside Peachtree City, our blinkered mayor and council spend hours chattering about how to spend $2.5 million to expand the Planterra Ridge tennis center. That's the tennis center just yards away from the most traffic-choked artery in Peachtree City Ga. Highway 54 West.

How much is our attentive city council planning to spend on easing our traffic woes at Grand Central junction (Ga. highways 54 and 74 intersection) and along the 1.2 miles to Line Creek?

Zero. Nada. Nothing.

That's what the city budget and public improvement priority list on the city's website says.

By the time you read this, the council may already have voted to put the bond issues on the ballot. But there's no plan even being considered to improve traffic flow through Peachtree City's busiest arteries.

The new "bypass" from TDK Boulevard into Coweta County? Dream on. They're planning from day one a two-lane road to divert traffic farther south onto two-lane Hwy. 74. The theory is that up to 20 percent of Hwy. 54 traffic will opt for the more southerly route into Peachtree City's industrial park. Dream on.

Just this past Tuesday, the Coweta County Commission under court order rezoned 26 acres at Fisher Road and Ga. Highway 34 for an anchor supermarket and retail shopping center. That is about a half-mile inside Coweta from the Fayette County line, a little less than two miles from Grand Central junction. What do you suppose will happen to traffic along Hwy. 54 inside Peachtree City and Fayette County when the new stores open up in about a year?

According to their own budget plans, when is the Peachtree City Council scheduled to do ANY serious road-building?

Not for at least six years. And that project the "Northeast Collector" will be focused on a cut from Sumner Road to (two-lane!) Peachtree Parkway North.

Why isn't the council even whispering about widening the road always planned for four lanes: Peachtree Parkway North? They even built a bridge across Flat Creek with room for an additional two lanes on the North Parkway. But not a whisper about it for years from the council.

Here's how much the council plans to spend on Hwy. 54 West traffic relief over the next several years:

Fiscal Year 2002: Nothing.

FY 2003: $543,000 on bridge culverts and utility relocation.

FY 2004: Nothing.

FY 2005: Nothing.

FY 2006: Nothing.

Fy 2007: Nothing.

Do you see the trend? The council is waiting on somebody else to do their jobs for them: developers, the state, somebody else, but not the Peachtree City Council.

Meanwhile, fiddling Lenox and council will have set in motion the following "nice" public projects, using public tax money:

A "nice" Hwy. 54 West cart path bridge: $450,000.

A "nice" tennis center expansion: $2.5 million.

A "nice" gymnastics gymnasium: $490,200.

A "nice" Kedron indoor basketball court: $708,000.

A "nice" smoke and burn training center (duplicating one already built by the county): $85,000.

A "nice" swimming pool cover for Kedron: $200,000.

A "nice" library expansion: $125,000.

A "nice" community center: $5.5 million.

A "nice" purchase and improvement of Drake Field, next to City Hall: $650,000.

On and on and on with "nice" projects.

Will the enviro-nuts and the state have come to a settlement over the lawsuit halting all state money for road-building in Fayette by then? Your guess is as good as mine.

There is no guesswork in these statements, however:

(1) Traffic, already horrible on hwys. 54 and 74, will only get much heavier and much worse.

(2) The Peachtree City Council is currently doing next to nothing to help the tens of thousands of drivers on those two roads.

So my question is this: When will Lenox and Council stop fiddling away our patience and our tax money on "nice" stuff and get started on meeting their most basic, "necessary" governmental responsibilities?

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