Wednesday, June 5, 2002
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Wednesday, June 5, 2002 |
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Medieval struggle emerges in PTC By CAL BEVERLY
What is going on in the tiff between the Peachtree City Council and the city's Development Authority and should you even care? Second question first: A few people, ably represented by letters from an almost mayoral candidate and a defeated one, are up in arms and seemed poised to remain in a state of high dudgeon for the next four years of the Steve Brown administration. Tennis players, relax. Amphitheater patrons, relax. No local elected politician is going to padlock the tennis center and force desperate racqueteers onto the mean streets of Peachtree City. No local elected politician is going to deprive any sensitive soul of the pleasure of drinking wine under the pines and sharing hors d'oeuvres chatter to the drowned-out background of rock 'n' roll has-beens. No, nothing sacred is going to be taken away (although I wish both venues which are publicly owned would end up answerable to publicly elected officials). Now, should you care? Read on and determine. The tussle is over tax money and power. The ones who have wielded the power in Peachtree City and thus have controlled the money are unaccustomed to being out of power and out of control. They are screaming bloody murder in the meantime. That's what the letters in this issue from the two former candidates for mayor are really about. With a light heart, one could describe the situation (tongue firmly in cheek) in historical, even medieval, terms. For years, Peachtree City was a company town, beholden to "The Developer." Between "The Developer" and the royal line of succession there arose a complicated, but complementary, symbiosis of governmental and business interests. There was a route to power and only the anointed received the blessing of the Peachtree City aristocracy. Now the commoners have increased in the fiefdom and have wrested the reins of power from the anointing aristocracy, and the lords and ladies of the manors and their vassals are unhappy. Between tee time and the clubhouse, some of the anointed even contemplate a palace coup to oust those interlopers who don't know their place. It's a nasty, internecine mud battle, and, though very local and parochial, begs comparison to the Clintonista years. A development authority in most places is a strange brew, a mix of entrepreneurs and bankers and elected officials, all trying to woo faraway industries to the local industrial park. In Peachtree City's case, the industrial park has been controlled by and is now owned by "The Developer." Let's see how things look, and discover what you may not know otherwise. What we have on the Authority are the following job descriptions, as provided by city staff: 1. The chairman, who is employed by the development company currently constructing the $2.5 million addition to the Authority-controlled tennis center, but who until a year ago, worked for guess who? "The Developer." 2. A banker, whose bank held the multi-million-dollar promissory note on "The Developer's" land in Peachtree City, including the industrial park. 3. A "real estate consultant" who for years worked as a paid consultant to "The Developer." 4. An attorney board member who also serves as the lawyer for the Airport Authority, which itself is involved in this current tax control tussle. 5. A residential real estate developer. 6. A "financial services" person. 7. And a former member of the City Council, a dentist, who resigned his seat on Council to take a spot on the (then) relatively unknown Development Authority. A tangled web of interlocking relationships, isn't it? Individually, I'm sure these are all honorable people volunteering to serve their community. But as a group, the Authority seems a bit clubby. And, sadly, a bit grasping grasping for unaccountable power and unelected privilege. As a group, the Authority wants control over city assets it does not own and power to spend taxes it did not levy. And maybe that's not in the best interests of all the citizens of Peachtree City. Who should control public tax money and public assets the City Council you elected, or the Development Authority you did not elect? My money is on the ones we can throw out. Nobody, not even the Council that appointed them, can touch the Authority, however unwisely the unelected group may act. Taxation without representation? The concept has a familiar ring to it.
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