Wednesday, August 14, 2002

This campaign ends when we vote on Aug. 20. I'm sure you will be just as happy to see the thousands of political signs disappear as I will. It's a strange ritual to watch and to participate in. Although irritating at times, it is an expression of free speech and it does remind everyone that an election is coming. If any of our campaign workers have mistakenly misplaced signs or irritated homeowners with handout and mail pieces, I apologize.

This has been a difficult campaign. The challenge has been to get facts to the voters to combat the misrepresentation campaign of my opponent. Mike Wheat has hired a political consultant from Atlanta to run his campaign. With limited funds it has been difficult to keep up with the constant barrage of misstatement of facts, misinformation and distortion of facts, a favorite tactic of some paid political consultants. Win or lose, they get paid, go home and have no concern for the community left behind.

My concern is simple. If people elect my opponent because they have been deceived, it would take at least four years to undo the mistake, but the damage to our fantastic community would be permanent. If people know the truth about each issue and still elect my opponent, we can at least say the people made a conscious choice regarding what they want for the future of our county. We can all accept that.

I have addressed other misinformation from the Mike Wheat campaign on my website, www.ElectGregDunn.org. Please visit the site for information and facts. Additionally, I would like to again mention a few items that are particularly deceptive and relevant as they relate to the upcoming vote. Despite being presented with the facts in this newspaper, in forums and other ways, my opponent still continues to distort these facts.

1. My opponent says he wants to adhere to the land use plan (LUP) and thereby limit growth. The facts say it isn't so. In 1988, running for the Fayetteville City Council, he promised to limit growth by stopping annexations of county land into Fayetteville.

Once elected, he ignored both the city and county land use plans when he annexed, rezoned and increased density on those properties 51 times while in office.

In the '90s Fayetteville grew 99 percent compared to the unincorporated county's growth of 27 percent. The Pavilion, with its aftermath of crime, traffic and prisoners in our county jail, is a result of annexation. The people of Fayetteville have suffered drastic changes in their quality of life and all county taxpayers have seen their taxes increased due to this type of uncontrolled growth.

Now Mike Wheat says he wants to strictly adhere to the LUP to slow growth. How could anyone possibly believe him after observing his decade-long performance in Fayetteville? We cannot risk a similar period of uncontrolled growth throughout the county. Fayetteville and our county have suffered enough.

Compare his performance in office to mine. In the four years since I was elected we have slowed residential growth by 47 percent and commercial growth by 44 percent. We didn't stop growth; we merely got it to a controlled level to preserve our infrastructure.

Incredibly, Mike Wheat criticizes me for voting against the LUP one time in four years. Official public records show that I felt it was unfair to hold the last large landowner in the area to the LUP when previous boards had not held any of the neighboring landowners to the LUP.

Just and equitable treatment of county citizens is of critical importance as we apply county ordinances. We must achieve a balance between the rights of our citizens and the health, safety and welfare of our community. In this case, we achieved that balance by allowing a deviation from the LUP for a small part of the property (29 acres) with the majority (52 acres) being donated to the county for permanent greenspace and buffering. When faced with tough decisions, commissioners must hammer out tough solutions.

The bottom line is we both promised to slow growth. Not only did Mike fail to slow growth, he accelerated it. The official records show very clearly that I slowed growth.

2. Mike Wheat's campaign repeatedly claims that the current county commissioners are always suing the cities. This is simply not true.

Fact: Fayette County has never sued Peachtree City.

Fact: Fayette County sued Fayetteville once in 1988 (14 years ago). No current commissioners were on the board in 1988.

Fact: Fayette County sued Fairburn last year to prevent them from bringing Fulton County's and later Fairburn's sewer system into Fayette County. Weiland Homes and Tyrone had to be included since they had signed the agreement with Fairburn.

Fact: In the tax equity litigation, still pending, the county was sued by Peachtree City, Fayetteville and Tyrone. The county did not ever contemplate suing the cities over taxes.

3. Just a few weeks before our election, a city councilman from Tyrone accused the county commissioners of violating the Open Meetings law of Georgia, alleging that we improperly voted in executive session. He believed the law prohibited those votes. He demanded and got an investigation by the solicitor general of Fayette County. The solicitor ruled the county did not violate the law in any way. Despite the fact that the ruling was made public, Mr. Wheat continues to this day to accuse us of violating the law when he knows otherwise.

4. Mr. Wheat claims he supports impact fees on developers and I do not. He says I have taken no actions. I don't question that he may support such impact fees. Fayetteville has had them for years.

However, to say I don't is another total distortion of fact. The official public records tell the truth. For a year and one-half Linda Wells, Harold Bost and I pushed for, negotiated with the cities and got an agreement signed by all the cities and the county. At the last minute the cities withdrew, opting to sue the county over taxes.

Had the cities agreed to jail impact fees, rather than attempting to use the impact fee agreement to get tax concessions the county could not agree to, all Fayette County citizens would be paying less property taxes today. Incidentally, during the same time period, the county enacted and is now collecting impact fees from developers for fire services.

The above are only four examples of a much greater effort to mislead our citizens. I hope these obvious examples of contrived misinformation will prompt you to seek the truth. My campaign has also been apprised of numerous "whisper campaign" statements which accuse me of one outrageous atrocity after another. I can only ask you to judge my opponent and I by what we have said and what we have done.

Four years ago I ran on a three-issue platform: Ethics, growth management and public safety. I have kept every promise and am proud of my accomplishments. I have also demonstrated the courage to fight against anybody or anything that threatens our community. Not one person has accused me of any ethical or legal violations until this consultant-driven campaign began.

I ask you to consider the timing and the motivation of these numerous false statements (both public and private). I can tell you with 100 percent certainty that if you have been told that I have done anything unethical or illegal you have been lied to.

I have never and will never betray the trust and confidence you have placed in me. Please cast your vote for me on Aug. 20.

Greg Dunn

Chairman, Fayette County Board of Commissioners

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