Finally, someone wants to argue for the “big boxes.” We need more debates on the vital issues that face our city. If the citizens fail to get involved, we can certainly expect to have these matters dictated to us by specific people on the Peachtree City Council.

Unfortunately, Mr. David Constans' letter to the editor [The Citizen, Dec. 22) was short on substance. The entire content of his letter can be summed up as name-calling (especially the term “whiney”) and the law, no matter what the circumstances, should always be upheld in the narrowest sense.

Please look at the historical perspective of Mr. Constans' whiney claim. Using Mr. Constans' logic, he would probably refer to some of most important figures of the past millennium as whiners. Martin Luther challenged the religious law of his day with his doctrine of justification by faith. Of course, we all know now that this German whiner had a profound effect on the religion of Christianity.

Galileo Galilei challenged the scientific law of his day. However, the equivalent of the city council of this period just could not his stand his opinions and the Italian whiner was executed.

The same is true in the United States of America. In the 1700s we had those rebellious whiners running around in wigs and stockings writing pamphlets and speaking out against the law of the day which was George III of England. Washington, Franklin, Jefferson and the others knew the zoning restrictions within the colonies! King George had to right to do whatever he pleased but those spoiled brats would just not go along.

In the early 1900s we had those whining reformers who complained about 10- and 11-year-old boys working 10 hours a day in the Pennsylvania coal mines. The law was crystal clear — there was nothing wrong with child labor or dangerous conditions.

In the 1960s we had an entire race of whiners (African-Americans). Segregation was law and that is all there is to it. To use Mr. Constans words, these “brats who find they now don't like the rules of the game so they want to change them or they'll wail and scream like 2-year-olds” simply got out of hand. One of these whiners, Martin L. King, Jr., even won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. You can see where this type of logic will take you.

Then in the 1970s there was a homeowners association president named Lois Gibbs. She was a really big whiner. Ms. Gibbs went well beyond just being skeptical the local municipality (the type of thing that irritates Mr. Constans) and she went after the state of New York.

Time and time again, the state government kept telling the citizens that absolutely nothing was wrong. Ms. Gibbs was part of the Love Canal Homeowners Association and here is what she had to say: “Before Love Canal, I believed that if you had a problem, you could just go to your elected officials and they would fix it. I now know that's not true. The state didn't do anything until we forced it to. Eventually 900 families were evacuated from Love Canal” (“The Century” by P. Jennings, T. Brewster, Doubleday).

The work of this homeowners association located in upstate New York caused radical changes in environmental law from which we are all safer. I simply ask that Mr. Constans obtain all the information.

We will have the only Home Depot in all of metro Atlanta that does not link up with a four-lane highway. The project presented an affront to the health, public safety and welfare of the citizens which is the very foundation of our city government and our ordinances. Big boxes did not even exist as a species of commercial architecture or use when Peachtree City made its commercial zoning designations. We have no guarantee as to when our highway funding will be restored.

No, Mr. Constans, rejecting the Home Depot project would not equate to theft. As recently as 1993, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the Constitution does not guarantee a property owner the most profitable use of his property. Our city cttorney concurs with this point.

What about the city's Planning Commission rejecting the Home Depot plan by a vote of 4-to-1? This never enters into your letter. Do you disagree with the Planning Commission also? Do you even know what constitutes the basis of their decision?

I believe that we need to have a forum for presenting arguments. It is best to consider all views and ponder what is best for the city as a whole. Our mayor is not big on debating the issues. He has his own agenda. We must rely on the media as our public information conduit. I ask everyone to please keep on whining, produce relevant discussion and insure that government works for the people.

Steve Brown

Peachtree City

Back to Opinion Home Page | Back to the top of the page