Wednesday, November 12, 2003

So whatta you think about the vote?

By CAL BEVERLY
editor@thecitizennews.com

So, what should we think about last Tuesday’s election?

How about the shockingly low voter turnout in Fayetteville, less than 7 percent? More than 93 percent of the registered voters in the commercial center of the county chose not to take the trouble to go to the polls.

Everything must be happy in the abandoned parking lot and empty big-box capital of Fayette. Maybe that’s why Mayor Ken Steele and Councilman Glenn Brewer were reelected without opposition.

Maybe that’s why their anointed one beat a well-qualified accountant for the open slot on council. Now, with three Delta veterans running the city, Fayetteville can expect to begin moving dirt like the fifth runway construction at Hartsfield.

Look out, unincorporated and unsewered rural Fayette: The annexation bulldozer is headed your way. Fayetteville’s manifest destiny lies westward, until it bumps up against Peachtree City.

The Delta boys will start chewing up the countryside, piously proclaiming they’re expanding the city limits to the setting sun just to protect water quality and our fragile environment.

They’ve got some bargain-priced bridges to sell to you, too.

In Peachtree City, voters decided four years of Dan Tennant were enough. They chose a public blank tablet, Stuart Kourajian, to replace him.

Kourajian began his new public life with a blast at the squabbling personality-driven politics of the current council and proclaimed that a new team spirit will rule the new council.

Well, besides the obvious observation that such public blasts don’t do much to promote unified team-building on a council that can out-vote a new member, I say, Good luck!

Shock! More people voted to raise taxes than voted against raising taxes. The nearly $5 million library fix-up and face-lifting squeaked by, adding a third item to the mom-and-apple-pie list of things you don’t vote against.

My question is, Do they really need a fireplace and coffee bar in a public library? Fix a leaky roof, yes. But cafe au lait amidst the stacks?

And Judi-ann Rutherford fell less than 50 votes short of a runoff-proof majority. She and Lee Poolman will meet in a turnout-challenged runoff Nov. 25, Thanksgiving week.

I hear disquieting rumors that Ms. Rutherford opines she can hold her current job and still vote as a council member.

The problem is that she works as office manager for the Fred Brown Amphitheatre, soon to be a city-run venue.

There’s some gibberish about that not being a problem because there’s an intervening non-profit corporation between the council and the venue, and thus she would technically be an employee of the non-profit, not the city council.

Come on. That’s transparently ridiculous. Three of the non-profit’s unpaid board of directors will be city employees, in the hire of the council, and the other two are council members.

If elected, Ms. Rutherford would be voting on financial matters affecting the operation of the venue, from which she draws her salary. That’s untenable.

Maybe she didn’t see this change coming when she signed up to run last summer, but it is reality now. She must either drop out of the race or resign her soon-to-be city-paid job. There’s no gray area about this at all.

I deliberately chose not to vote for Lee Poolman because his work supervisor in the Fulton County government is Councilman Steve Rapson.

All have proclaimed no undue influence will result. But at least neither draws a day-job salary from Peachtree City.

If Rutherford refuses to resign her city-paid day job and is elected to council, her conflict of interest will be greater than the possible conflict represented by the Poolman-Rapson Fulton County connection.

If she intends to hold onto her amphitheater job, Ms. Rutherford should NOT be elected to city council.