Wednesday, November 13, 2002

We've got a President we can count on and respect, and now he has a Senate and a House of Representatives that will work with him instead of against him. We've got a new governor with a new approach and he will have at least part of our state legislature that will work with him. Many of us have worked for years for a day like last Tuesday's election.

This was great news for America and for Georgia. It was great news for Fayette County as well. Your board of commissioners had taken a stand that we would never yield our constitutional responsibilities for local control of land use and zoning issues. This was one of the commitments I made to you when I ran for office.

If Roy Barnes had been reelected, any restraints on him to refrain himself from punishing those who disagreed with him would have been gone. This could have proven costly to us if he had retaliated with such measures as withholding our transportation funding. We knew such action was possible and we were determined to fight it out. That threat is over.

This new freedom goes beyond land use, planning and transportation. Our county education system will now be allowed to continue our own goals for excellence, thanks to the election of a new governor and to the election of Fayette County's Kathy Cox as state school superintendent.

She will have the support of the governor to do her job instead of combat and interference. Both she and Gov.-elect Perdue intend to take a bottom-up approach and not try to dictate "one size fits all" policies to all school systems, especially those that are doing things right.

Other issues such as our drinking water resources and questions over control of our local tax dollar will now be approached in a different, better, way. We can look forward to the most cooperative relationship we have ever had with the state legislative and executive branch leadership.

The bottom line is that your local elected people will be freer to do the jobs you elected us to do. Which is how it should be.

Peter Pfeifer

County Commissioner, Post 3