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Dunn fails to win ARC chair

Board OK’s $53 billion road plan

By J. FRANK LYNCH
jflynch@theCitizenNews.com

Fayette County Commission Chairman Greg Dunn, whose aggressive leadership style has led to suggestions he may seek higher office, may not get another chance to oversee the powerful Atlanta Regional Commission.

Last week, Dunn lost in his bid to win election as chairman of the ARC Board of Directors. Instead, board members named Cobb County Commission Chairman Sam Olens to the post.

Olens will fill the unexpired term of Clayton County Commission Chairman Crandle Bray, who resigned this year after deciding to retire from politics.

Olens and Dunn had been the only two candidates up for the post among the 39 members of the ARC board. The vote was made by secret ballot, but Dunn said he was told it was close.

Finishing a strong second doesn’t necessarily improve his chances for next time, Dunn said.

As commission chairman, Dunn automatically represents Fayette on the ARC but he has just two years remaining in his current term and hasn’t made a decision about running again, he said. Besides, there’s no guarantee he’d be head of the county commission then or even on the ARC anyway, he said.

The ARC board names a chairman each December, though the person who holds the office often is reelected for several consecutive years. Bray, for example, had held the seat for three years and Olens is likely to see a multi-year term if things go smoothly.

“I offered myself up,” Dunn said last week after the vote. “I’ll support Sam; he’s a good man.”

Dunn has served on the ARC board since 2000, when he was first named county chairman.

Olens, on the other hand, has only been on the ARC since 2002, when he began chairing the Cobb Commission.

Prior to seeking public office, Olens was president of the East Cobb Civic Association from 1994 to 1997. The Cobb County Chamber of Commerce named him East Cobb Citizen of the Year for 1997.Ê

A graduate of American University and Emory University with a degree in law, Olens has practiced at the law firm of Ezor & Olens since 1983.

Prior to taking the chairman’s vote last week, the ARC board officially adopted its $53 billion Mobility 2030 transportation plan, the single largest in the region’s history.

Mobility 2030 includes $5 billion to increase transit capacity, $8.2 billion to increase roadway capacity, $4.6 billion to expand the metro area’s HOV lane network, $1.1 billion to add bicycle and pedestrian paths and $3 billion for technology to improve the current transportation network.

More than half of the plan’s investment goes to routine maintenance and operations.

But it still falls well short of what is needed, Dunn said.

The first phase of Mobility 2030, called the Aspirations Plan, estimated the region would need $74 billion to effectively battle congestion. However, projected funds expected to flow to the region by 2030 amount to only some $53 billion, a $21 billion shortfall over what is needed.

Dunn said finding the remaining funding or prioritizing the projects in the metro-wide transportation plan would have been among the challenges he would have enjoyed tackling as chairman of the ARC.