Wednesday, June 19, 2002
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Wednesday, June 19, 2002 |
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It's time for peace talks in PTC squabble By
CAL BEVERLY
Last week, I received an e-mail from the Fayette County Chamber of Commerce. "Subject: Chamber Membership Position Poll ... The Fayette County Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors intends to take a public position in favor of the Development Authority of Peachtree City, are you in favor of this position?" Here's my reply: "In favor of what? And if the C of C is FOR the development authority, who are you AGAINST? "Or are you just drawing up sides in this political squabble in PTC? My vote is against the Chamber getting involved in taking sides in a partisan political squabble. "Unless you want to end up with only industries and developers and out-of-town-owned chains as members, you better start taking care of your small business folks. When's the last time you did ANYTHING for my business? And how is this dabbling in politics going to help anybody? "You stand to alienate more than you help." I've had the weekend to consider that e-mail, and I still don't like it. So the Chamber board has already decided what to do, THEN takes a poll of its dues-paying membership. Kind of, "Here's what I'm going to do. Now, what do you think of that?" It's not the first time the Chamber has been ham-handed in its approach to things public. Back in the bad old days of the Burrell-Sprayberry gang on the Fayette County Commission, the Chamber wrote to local media, berating local papers (mainly The Citizen, which broke the story) for reporting on the blatant conflicts of interest that then existed on the commission. That gang whose members never saw a commercial or high-density rezoning that they didn't just love got run out of office the next election cycle. That Chamber board said our news coverage was bad for business. Fast-forward to 2002, and some Chamber board members apparently think taking sides in the Peachtree City squabble is going to be good for business. Wrong. Is anybody on the Chamber board raising a caution flag about taking sides in a political dispute? Remember, this is the same Chamber that rents its prime office location the historic Fayette County Courthouse from an elected government, the Fayette County Commission. When some industrial prospect somewhere types in "Fayette Chamber" on a search engine, what will that prospect think when the search pulls up stories about how the Chamber is taking swings at duly elected public officials in the county's largest city with the county's largest industrial park? What will those same prospects think when they discover through their search engines that the appointed city development authority has gone to war with that same elected body, calling the City Council "ethically challenged"? If you were a senior vice president for relocation, would you want to insert your company into that firefight? The assumption here is that Fayette needs to grow its industrial base, with clean, responsible companies. Within limits and with careful consideration of the effects of traffic and of the increased services that would be required, I can support that kind of growth. Whether the current industrial development efforts are producing the desired results or whether the authorities have meandered off their mission are issues that can be debated. But we need a civil debate about the basic issues of attracting industries to Fayette. The debate should NOT involve purely secondary or even extraneous matters of tennis courts and amphitheaters. With that in mind, it's probably a good time for everybody in the various camps to just call a time-out and try to talk things over. Let's call a truce, everybody, and agree to sit down and talk about the disagreements, in a civil atmosphere. Let's try to agree on necessary funding for a development authority. Let's try to agree on that authority's proper role in the community. Let's have the Chamber of Commerce board reconsider taking up arms and instead ease back into its positive role of saying only nice things about the community and its governments. About this important issue, let's lay aside our war hatchets and take up the peace pipe. Please.
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