Wednesday, April 16, 2003

Your editorial column last week certainly covered many topics, possibly too many to include all the facts. I will provide some facts I hope you are able to publish. Representative and Minority Leader Lynn Westmoreland has not taken over Peachtree City.

Acting on a request made by officials of Peachtree City, he has introduced a legislative amendment in the state House of Representatives to correct a technical defect in the enabling legislation pertaining to development authorities in Georgia. This technical defect (or illegality depending upon whether one is a glass half-full or half-empty type of person) was corrected by passage of House Bill 309 in the House of Representatives on April 9.

Your editorial column is inaccurate about the background facts, but more importantly it is unfairly critical of Rep. Westmoreland. As I stated before City Council on April 5, when DIRECT PAC made its presentation in support of his activities, Rep. Westmoreland has shown that he is a true friend of Peachtree City in this and other matters (i.e., TDK extension).

Regarding HB309, two members of City Council and the City Attorney were praised at the April 5 City Council meeting as being "instrumental in initiating the process that led to the legislative amendment being prepared and about to be introduced by Rep. Westmoreland." That's what I heard at the meeting, although I would have included the acting city manager, some development authority members and the development authority attorney in the group being praised for this common-sense solution.

The Council then voted 4-0 to ratify the process, which was a good thing because our state legislators don't usually take things up to the state level without the backing of the local government.

For the record, DIRECT PAC was not involved in any part of the process to create the legislative amendment. We did publicly support the amendment shortly after we formed our organization and had the opportunity to review the background documents generated by the city. That support was based upon our firm belief that the best thing for Peachtree City was to continue with the current development authority format under which it operates the tennis center and amphitheater.

As far as DIRECT PAC's support of the legislative amendment and HB309 is concerned, we will point out that our name stands for Demanding Integrity Responsibility Ethical Conduct & Truthfulness. We saw all of those things emerge during the last month of the process to create the legislative amendment, plus some common sense, which is always welcome.

Rick Schlosser

Vice Chairperson

DIRECT PAC