To the surprise of very few people, RAM Development won their appeal to the city council in Peachtree City and can now move ahead with the development of their first big-box store in Peachtree City. What was surprising is that our city officials presented the “case” for RAM's appeal, leaving no need for the developer to even have to speak on their own appeal's behalf. What a strange way of doing things.

It would seem to me that our city officials, whose salaries are paid by our tax dollars, would be charged with putting forth the city's side, not in asserting why an appellant should be successful. It is sort of like the prosecuting attorney's staff doing all the legwork to help a defendant beat the rap. Shouldn't it be up to the party filing the appeal to state their case?

I asked this very question of our own Mayor [Bob] Lenox during the council's hearing on the RAM appeal, and I was told that he had decided how the appeal hearing would be run and he was perfectly within his authority to do so. While he never truly answered my question, I guess what he was saying is that it was his game and he sets the rules so I had no right to question how the game was being played.

The whole council session had a certain “Soviet Union” feel to it. Our mayor spelled out the rules for the hearing and made it clear that citizens in attendance would be limited in the number of questions they could ask (two per person) and he would decide who should answer. Speakers were chosen in advance, presumably by the mayor. It seems that while council was concerned about the Constitutional “rights” of the developer, they forgot about the right of our citizens to free speech.

While both the police and fire chiefs spoke out at an early council session about traffic accidents and concerns about their ability to respond in a timely fashion to emergencies due to traffic gridlock, those concerns must have disappeared since they did not come forth at this session. While Councilmembers [Annie] McMenamin and [Carol] Fritz spoke of public safety concerns, only Ms. McMenamin cast a vote against the appeal, leading one to believe that Ms. Fritz knows that safety is at risk but for some reason she just couldn't say no to RAM.

Clearly the face of the city will be changing rapidly in the coming months. RAM has already said they will be back before council in March or April to have their Super Wal-mart site plan approved. Who can blame them, considering how easy it was for them to have this appeal granted? I can only assume that city staff is already hard at work putting together the reasons why this big box should be built as well.

The traffic impact ordinance is nothing but words on paper. By showing that they are not willing to stand up to a developer's challenge, our council has put out the message that Peachtree City is easy pickings. Look for more big boxes and other unsightly development coming your way soon.

Steve Fodor
Peachtree City

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