The resounding defeat of the SPLOST tax was a clear sign that county residents are fed up with runaway growth. The results should send a clear message to the politicians in our city and our county, and to the school board itself.

You may be wondering, how can a defeat by just 435 votes be considered “resounding”? There are other facts you must consider other than the separation in yes and no votes.

Supporters of the SPLOST pointed out in this newspaper several weeks ago that they had “3,500” yes votes lined up just from school employees and their families. They also counted on another “600” votes from area Realtors. If this is true, and they had these 4,100 yes votes before the election was even held, the election was truly an old-fashioned fanny whipping.

Now that their dream of a $90 million windfall is gone, perhaps our school board can focus on the real issues. Maybe now they will realize that their top priorities shouldn't be whether or not school children wear belts with the pants, nor whether they can afford to build a new visitor locker room, and put all of their efforts into improving the level of education provided by our school system.

SPLOST was not about improving our children's educational opportunities, it was about spending millions upon millions of dollars on pet projects. The developers have always been able to tout our schools to help keep our county growing at a breakneck pace. With the defeat of SPLOST maybe they need to do a little truth in advertising and tell those new residents they try to attract that those new residents, children may be educated in trailers.

I am all for making our schools the best in the state (of course in Georgia that may not be saying much), and would support a SPLOST where the money would be used for that purpose only. Let's hope the school board starts doing their homework and starts doing the job they were elected to do, to see that our county's children have the best chance possible for a quality education. If they can't do that without the SPLOST then they need to tender their resignations now.

Steve Fodor
Peachtree City

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