Wednesday, June 9, 2004

Mayor wants in PTC what he decries in Coweta

By CAL BEVERLY
editor@TheCitizenNews.com

We gave Peachtree City Mayor Steve Brown’s rebuttal to my earlier anti-annexation column top of the page play last week because (1) he is the mayor and (2) annexation and its attendant traffic issues are important topics that deserve discussion and a wide range of public input.

The mayor’s trademark personal cheap-shots included without charge in his column were as usual about one-tenth factually based and about nine-tenths warmed-over Brown stuff.

So let’s have part of that discussion, point by point.

The mayor asserts that I am “confused” about the “long-term plan” for McDuff Parkway, the two-lane road that now runs alongside what was my home for nearly a quarter of a century.

Here are the facts: What is now called McDuff Parkway did indeed show up on pie-in-the-sky plans dating from the 1970s, but with one major difference: The maybe-future road was at least a quarter-mile east of Wynnmeade, not adjacent to it. The unnamed road extended northward into dotted line obscurity.

When did I see that map? Back in the early 1980s, about the time I wrote a headline that revealed the city’s “master plan” called for nearly 9,000 apartment units. That caused a stir.

Obviously, the “master plan” has changed since then, bowing to economic and political realities.

McDuff follows an Oglethorpe Power transmission easement, an easement to which I objected to the Oglethorpe representative back in the 1980s. Instead of following the Ga. Highway 74 right of way or even the dotted line extension of Line Creek Drive, it sliced down the westward property line of commercial property owned by two Peachtree City pioneers, Floy Farr and Joel Cowan.

That meant clear-cutting a swath of forested lands hard up against an established residential neighborhood. Our protests were futile, both at Oglethorpe and at City Hall.

Years later, that made a quick and cheap right of way for McDuff, despite the fact that neither the high-voltage lines nor the roadway included any of the city-standard buffers for Wynnmeade.

The developers sought a down, dirty and cheap solution to an access road to what have become Cedarcroft and John Wieland neighborhoods, themselves well-buffered from the little neighborhood two-lane road.

Wynnmeade, despite multiple pleas to City Hall, was left abutting the least buffered, soon-to-be, major collector road in Peachtree City.

And now the mayor wants to turn that little two-lane, half-vast street into the PTC Bypass, open to his admitted 30,000 vehicles daily instead of the current trickle from area residents.

And don’t get me started on our battles to get Wynnmeade reattached to the city’s cart path system after having it severed for more than two years by the four-laning of Hwy. 74.

I arrived in Peachtree City when the monster 54-74 intersection was a four-way stop sign. I lived on the west side until three years ago. I still own a house there.

I’ve been editorializing about traffic issues centered at 54-74 well before the current mayor began his public career by writing letters to this paper.

Solutions? The mayor has single-handedly fought and delayed for months the TDK Extension to the south of 54-74. It would create a new, badly needed east-west connector across Line Creek, linking Fayette and Coweta counties to the south of Hwy. 54.

His excuse: His assertion that the new road would “jump-start more tremendous growth in Coweta [my emphasis] ... and substantially impact the subdivisions along Crosstown Road.”

Other than the fact that the mayor was not elected to serve Coweta County residents and has no bona fide constituents over there, his position contains a number of logical fallacies.

Brown wants to protect the southern end of Planterra Ridge (his subdivision) from the increased traffic across a major collector road onto Crosstown Road, itself planned to serve multitudes of vehicles. And he does this by turning a little neighborhood two-lane road into a multi-10,000-vehicle-a-day bypass, all of them passing within spitting distance of existing residential subdivisions not buffered for such traffic?

I frankly believe the mayor’s arguments for annexation don’t hold up against the very facts he himself cites. But all that developer money dazzles, I’m sure, and must be hard to say no to.

My suggestion for another east-west connector already in existence to take some of the load off 54-74: Castlewood Road in Tyrone. Improve that connector to Minx-Fischer roads on the Coweta side and widen those roads running through mostly rural areas currently. There’s much more potential capacity in that TDK-Castlewood extension combo than in the severely constrained McDuff Parkway.

The mayor asserts that I present no proof of my contention that McDuff can’t be widened without sacrificing long-established homes. “Says who?” the mayor asks. “Please cite your reference.”

Whoa, Mr. Mayor. The burden of proof is on YOU to demonstrate beyond a reasonable doubt that any plan increasing traffic on McDuff Parkway is feasible without a lot of condemnation of existing homes. In fact, the whole burden of proof of the entire annexation is on you to demonstrate beyond a reasonable doubt that ANY annexation is good for the rest of Peachtree City.

In fact that was your campaign position less than three years ago. You even went so far as to proclaim that ANY annexation should be brought before the city’s voters for their approval. Isn’t that still a good idea? After all, it was YOUR idea.

But as for my proof: Stand at my property line on Abbey Road and look east. You’ll see an 80-foot clear-cut swath with transmission towers beside a two-lane road.

Eastside properties (apartments and Cedarcroft) are buffered. Wynnmeade with its 120-plus homes is not. Where is the additional right of way for a four-lane bypass going to come from? Does the mayor propose to move all those Oglethorpe Power lines? Where would he move them to?

You do remember, don’t you, Mayor, Oglethorpe itself has the power of eminent domain and condemnation of property? Will you make them move, or will you take my house for the Brown Bypass?

“What a big, stinking lie!” the mayor fumes about my assertion that a Brown Bypass will carry traffic nearly equal to what is already clogging Hwy. 54.

A lie, mind you, not a mistake or even an exaggeration. A lie presupposes an intent to deceive, so according to the mayor, my intent in opposing this annexation is to deceive.

But I invite you to use your own processes of reasoning to figure out what the purpose of the Brown Bypass really is: To significantly reduce the traffic load at 54-74 by diverting Coweta-originating traffic onto the new road. Brown himself says that is the purpose.

Just a few lines farther on, Brown says, “The traffic numbers on Hwy. 54 West will grow and there is not a traffic engineer in the state that will deny that.”

So, where is that additional traffic headed, if given an option to use the Brown Bypass? Isn’t that what Brown wants to happen? Are the residents of those very nice John Wieland homes aware that just getting onto McDuff will become problematic, just as getting onto Hwy. 54 is now?

Even if only half that current Hwy. 54 traffic goes through residential areas, that is still 10 to 15 times what the residents currently are used to.

Do Westsiders really want tens of thousands of vehicles backed up through their neighborhoods every morning and evening and a high-speed throughway the rest of the day?

And, Mr. Mayor, why is additional residential and commercial growth across the line in Coweta County so terrible in your eyes even while you are actively seeking additional high-density residential and commercial growth inside the Fayette city you were elected to protect?

How many added vehicles into those added high-density residential and commercial areas are you hiding from us, Mayor? How many added auto trips will result from your dense development of an area that will never be denser than two-acre lots if it remains in unincorporated Fayette?

How many more traffic lights will be needed, how many more busy intersections, each with almost-certain injuries and deaths yet to occur, will you be creating by annexing this property, Mr. Mayor?

You are wrong about the rail crossing, Mr. Mayor. That exact spot is the site of the only railroad crossing fatality in Peachtree City’s history. That must have been before your time, but it wasn’t before mine. I remember well the tragedy. The cable company worker never saw what hit her, even though the engineer was sounding the horn.

And you propose to add a traffic-choked, at-grade crossing to a city already too filled with those hazards.

All the tantalizing developer goodies being promised to the city to get your annexation vote, Mr. Mayor, will not be worth the second fatality at that unnecessary rail crossing into an unnecessary annexation.

As for the “need” for additional soccer fields, even the mayor doesn’t assert that. He just says, “It also appears that many of our soccer families WANT those ‘unneeded’ soccer fields.”

I’m sure they do WANT them. I’d like for the city to provide me a new golf cart every year also, at city expense. But I don’t NEED it, and neither do the soccer fans. The city has many urgent needs, but more soccer fields aren’t among them.

The soccer ploy is simply cynical political pandering by the mayor to sweeten what is otherwise a bitter density pill to swallow.

Return to your campaign promises, Mayor Brown. Seek legislative help to provide for voter approval for any city annexation proposals. Don’t abandon what you promised to your constituents when you were running for office.

Prove wrong what most elected officials in this area say privately: You can’t trust the Peachtree City mayor’s word; he’ll say one thing to your face, then he’ll stab you in the back.

Many of us who supported your election are greatly disappointed in your metamorphosis. We are wondering how big a mistake we made in voting for you.

So far, your case for annexation is weak and violates your campaign promises. The burden of proof, including proof of your public integrity, Mr. Mayor, is on you.

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