By CAL BEVERLY
Publisher

Whatever else living in one place for 23 years does for one, it does impart a certain perspective, particularly about that place.

In my case, the place is a well-shaded little subdivision of modest homes in western Peachtree City, and for better or worse I have lived here long enough to see lots of people and things come and go, including deserted two-lane roads and assorted mayors and such.

You may need to know that when I arrived in our lovely city, the intersection at Ga. highways 54 and 74 was controlled by stop signs, Pac-a-Chic was the closest thing to a fast-food restaurant, and what was to be the town's first supermarket where Harris-Teeter now is was a vacant field. Even a few years later, the entrance to what is now Planterra Ridge and its swank tennis club was a community garden plot.

When I hear someone expounding "what Peachtree City is all about," I have to admit, my red flags go up, my warning bells start clanging. So, ring my gong if I do that.

Certainly all citizens have the American-flag right to express their opinions. But when I hear folks talking about "the Peachtree City vision," I find myself wondering, what are their credentials, what is their history with this town?

I'm asking myself, What weight should their opinions be given (that from one who prints his mug and expendable prose on the front page of this newspaper and whose opinion you are currently weighing)?

I'm asking myself, Do they really know anything about what Peachtree City was? And is? And is to be?

For what it's worth, here's what I think.

Only Joel Cowan and some Huddlestons and a few landowners of some hard-scrabble bottom land in oh-so-rural Fayette County know what PTC's 15,000 acres really was like back in the late 1950s, the Days of Creation.

It was a tough go in those early days. The early financial backers went into bankruptcy in the late 1970s, and a Fayette native named Doug Mitchell left a Florida town's chamber of commerce to return and rescue the vision of a "planned community."

Mitchell and his Peachtree City Development Corp. took a dream on life support and turned it into what my kids often called a "fake town" with its picturesque lakeside bike trails and picnic parks.

A big insurance company owned most of the land in the city then, but Mitchell and his lieutenant Steve Black and their planning whiz from downtown Atlanta, Jerry Peterson, spun out the whimsical street names and ran the sewer lines and planned the four core villages that form the heart of Peachtree City.

They were The Developer, and many an hour of planning commission and city council meetings have been devoted to responding to what The Developer planned, dictated, proposed, wheedled, negotiated, browbeat, sweet-talked, strong-armed through often compliant, sometimes reluctant, sometimes obtuse planners, volunteers and part-time politicians.

I've sat through hours of that, since the early 1980s. And I've seen enough and been around long enough to know at least two things about The Developer (now Pathway Communities):

(1) All who live here in Peachtree City owe Cowan and Mitchell and Black and Peterson a great debt for creating such a place as Peachtree City.

And (2), you gotta watch 'em like a hawk.

That's because The Developer's interest might not be in the (current) public's interest. Having differing interests does not in and of itself shake out into "good" and "bad" interests. Just different. (By the way, so far as I know, Cowan has done very little if any development in PTC since the 1970s.)

Now, what about our part-time politicians?

Here's where I bring something in addition to a Peachtree City resident's perspective to bear. I've been watching and reporting on politicians off and on for the better part of 40-odd years, first in radio (remember when there was such a thing as "radio news"?!), and later in newspapers.

My experience has made me not cynical but wary. I have a Missouri "show me" attitude about politicians, and that includes local ones.

They get elected to serve the general public interest, but too often, for many different reasons, many serve only narrowly focused interests, some at variance with the general public interest. Not all do, but enough do that all together now you gotta watch 'em like a hawk.

Does that mean that some local politicians are corrupt, or "evil"?

Well, a few always are, somewhere. But, I think, not here, in Peachtree City. The question is better framed this way: Which local politicians are faithfully representing their constituents' interests? More succinctly, which ones are listening to the general PTC public, rather than to narrow interests, including their own oversized egos?

To accurately assess local politicians, the cardinal rules, I have found, boil down to two:

(1) Watch what they do, not what they say.

And, (2), follow the money.

We'll talk more about this later.

In the meantime, assess what the Peachtree City Council is doing. What projects does Council want to spend money on? How does that improve your daily life? Where is the money coming from?

I question some of Council's stated and budgeted priorities. I think the city's planning ignores some basic public needs. I think the Emperor is wearing fewer and less fine clothes than he imagines. And I think the Emperor gets angry when that plain-as-the-nose-on-your-face fact is pointed out.

I say again, without apology, some local officials have lost sight of their primary responsibilities. Some city officials seem to believe that improving traffic flow doesn't fall within their job description. Some city officials seem to believe that road building is somebody else's anybody else's responsibility.

Some city officials seem to be saying to the thousands of drivers on traffic-choked PTC streets: "That's not my job, man. Let them eat cake."

Thus, we hear about the "nice" things Council is going to build for us, using our money. Meanwhile, how was traffic for you today, inside Peachtree City? How will it be tomorrow? And tomorrow? And tomorrow?

City elections are in November. Where will you be? Stuck in traffic?

Back to Opinion Home Page | Back to the top of the page