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‘Friends of Tom Farr’ to support opposition to Mayor Brown

By JOHN MUNFORD
jmunford@TheCitizenNews.com

A group of citizens wishing to avenge negative comments Peachtree City Mayor Steve Brown made against deceased community leader Tom Farr has Brown’s political clout in its gun-sights.

In a public gathering at City Hall Friday afternoon, real estate agent Rick Schlosser announced that the “Friends of Tom Farr” group will pledge proceeds from its funds to the best candidate opposing Brown in the November election.

The group has gained momentum through the placement of newspaper ads highlighting an e-mail campaign to support the deceased Farr, who was formerly chairman of the Development Authority of Peachtree City while also a top-ranking official at Peachtree National Bank.

Brown, who says he didn’t attend because he was coaching his daughter’s soccer game, dismissed the event as a political attack against him.

In an interview Monday, Brown declined to take back his criticism of Farr. Specifically, the group opposes a quote from Brown published in a February edition of The Citizen, when Brown told former Mayor Bob Lenox that Farr profited from his position on the authority during Lenox’s tenure as mayor, “doing bonds and all that stuff.”

Brown accused the authority of failing to vote each time they sought additional loans for operating funds. Brown contends the authority’s loan activities were illegal, and that reasoning is at least part of why the city has declined to pay up to $1.5 million the authority now owes Peachtree National Bank.

The authority, stripped of $180,000 a year in revenue from the city’s hotel motel tax, has in essence been financially insolvent when it comes to paying those large notes. The authority no longer manages the city’s tennis center or amphitheater, which were its other main sources of income.

In addition to declining to apologize for his negative comments about Farr, Brown made further allegations about Farr Monday. He claimed that Farr lined up several loans for the authority through his employer, Peachtree National Bank, which reaped the interest payments.

“He presided over nearly every one of those meetings,” when the loans were approved, Brown said. “Never was there a public vote taken for the DAPC to acquire debt.

“The only time those loans would come up was when they needed refinancing,” Brown said.

Brown further alleged that Farr didn’t take himself out of the discussion for seeking such loans, but he admitted that there is no evidence of that in the authority’s minutes which Brown has researched.

The real issue wasn’t whether or not Tom Farr was a nice guy, but instead the authority’s “illegal activities,” Brown said.

Brown noted that two of the candidates who have announced they will run for mayor have indicated they think the city should repay the loans owed Peachtree National, which include a $200,000 note they assumed which the authority originally took out from Regions Bank.

One of two announced mayoral candidates, Harold Logsdon, has signed on as a member of the Friends of Tom Farr campaign.