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Light turnout for Fayette SPLOST forum

By J. FRANK LYNCH
jflynch@theCitizenNews.com

The Fayette County Chamber of Commerce brought its traveling SPLOST roadshow to Peachtree City Tuesday, but if the turnout was any indication there’s not much interest pro or con on the issue.

About 40 people attended, and half of those were officials from the city or county governments or the chamber itself.

Mayor Steve Brown has been a vocal critic of the method in which the County Commission intends to divide up $116 million in revenue collected over five years, should voters approve a 1-cent increase to the sales tax in November.

Not surprisingly, he was critical of the Chamber forum as well.

In a statement released Wednesday, Brown said it was “very disappointing that the Chamber of Commerce would not open the floor to questions.”

Audience members were asked to write out questions on index cards, which were then collected and asked of a panel of Chamber officials that included former Peachtree City Mayor Fred Brown, Group VI Construction President Jim Pace, and Randy Hayes, chairman of the Fayette County Development Authority.

“They shuffled through the audience questions cards, cherry-picking the ones they wanted to answer,” the mayor claimed.

But many of the questions raised in recent weeks about the SPLOST initiative and how it will affect Peachtree City were brought up Tuesday night, specifically about whether the city is getting a fair share of funds.

Seventy percent of the revenue raised would fund countywide road improvements, while the other 30 percent would be split among the municipalities to fund their own road projects.

Moderator Andy Carden of Fayette Senior Services shared some interesting facts about Fayette County roads. Though the county ranked 19th among Georgia’s 159 counties in population in the 2000 census, it was 15th in number of registered vehicles and 49th in the miles of roads.

Today, the county has 789 miles of roads, with a population estimated at about 100,000 people. In 1960, when only 8,000 people lived in the entire county, Fayette had 602 miles of roads.

One of the SPLOSTS’ biggest proponents Tuesday night turned out to be Fred Brown, the longtime mayor for whom the amphitheater is named.

“We should not be thinking of individual jurisdictions,” Fred Brown said. “We’re a county first; we’re all part of Fayette County.”

He said that in the 1970s when Ga. Highway 85 was first widened from Fayetteville to Riverdale, it benefited Peachtree City because at the time that was the only route to the closest hospital, in Riverdale.

In later years, the widening of Ga. Highway 74 through Tyrone to Peachtree City also benefited Fayetteville even though the highway didn’t pass through the county seat, Fred Brown said.

“Now, this is a county project and it’s a good county plan and we should be thinking of it in county terms,” the former mayor said. “We are all county residents.”

The $116 million to be raised by the SPLOST is only an estimate, and would serve as seed money to match government grants to complete a host of highway projects. The total price tag on the county’s long-range Transportation Plan is $266 million.

With the local matching funds, there’s no hope of getting the federal and state road money, said Fred Brown.

“There will be all kinds of ramifications if we don’t pass this,” he said.