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PTC Council making big decisions with little advance notice to publicTue, 12/19/2006 - 4:19pm
By: Letters to the ...
Dec. 14 marked the second time in almost a month that the City Council of Peachtree City waited to issue a press release after the deadline of the local newspapers announcing a special called meeting on a very important issue. The first meeting was the $1 million taxpayer bailout of the illegal Development Authority loans. The latest meeting was on the extension of TDK. Did the mayor and council have ample time to alert the public on the meetings and avoid the secrecy factor? The answer is yes. For the meager crowd who actually found out about Thursday’s meeting, the excuses given were not sufficient at all. It was like watching dogs chase their tails until one of them, Councilwoman Rutherford, actually took a bite out of the audience. Mayor Logsdon said the reason for the insufficient notice was a reversion clause had been slipped to the big dollar Pathway land sale contract for TDK without the city’s notice. He stated they were now pressed into immediate action because the land would revert back to Pathway on Dec. 15. Most of the audience said to let it revert back. At the previous meeting on TDK, the mayor told us an immediate action was necessary because of an October FAA deadline. That ended up being a falsehood of the greatest magnitude. What makes the mayor’s story so unbelievable this time was the fact he was personally involved in crafting the government land purchase contract even though it benefited one of his largest campaign contributors. He claimed that the city never asked for a completed contract, signed over a month ago, even though the city was a significant stakeholder in the process. Either the truth is being evaded again or the city was negligent in its duties to not obtain a final copy. Mayor Logsdon also claimed he did not seek to postpone the deadline because he did not “want to spend 1,000 taxpayer dollars” for Pathway’s attorney to amend the contract. His comment caused some laughter in the audience. The same mayor who forked over 1 million taxpayer dollars for illegal loans because “it was the right thing to do,” and who wanted to give himself an extra bonus of 10,000 taxpayer dollars per year, could not justify spending $1,000 so the citizens and the council members would have a chance to research and weigh in on the issue. I got up and spoke before the council at the meeting. My first point was the road has been proven a total lie, and it was promoted under the false pretenses of relieving traffic congestion. The traffic numbers are very clear in pointing to a massive increase in congestion instead. Another point I made was the developer sneaked the clause into the contract, most likely with the mayor’s knowledge, for a specific reason. That reason is that once all the governmental entities hold deed to all of the right-of-way, the congestion-laden road project can begin. Councilman Boone voted in favor of accepting the deed to the road saying he “wanted to have control.” What he ended up doing was enacting the exact plan the developer wanted to force the city into. Much to their credit, Councilwoman Plunkett and Councilman Kourajian, who lost in a 3-2 vote, said they did not want to get bullied by Pathway into making a very bad decision on behalf of the city. I tried to make a third point but Mayor Logsdon kept pounding his gavel on the bench to keep me from politely making an observation that probably would have caused him some embarrassment. The observation was simply noting who was responsible for sneaking in the reversion clause without the four councilmen knowing: [attorney] Doug Warner. Yes, the same Doug Warner who’s name came up in the intergovernmental agreement scandal a few years back, and the same Doug Warner who was on the Development Authority, and on the board of Peachtree National Bank. Is anybody noticing a pattern? This backdoor revelation does not look good for the mayor right now after issuing a $1 million bailout for previous waywardness. Another man stood before the mayor and council and politely tried to offer some comments, and he too was gaveled down by the mayor. Oddly enough, he was talking about the need for more transparency from the City Council with TDK and other issues. The mayor is still grappling with the First Amendment. Rationale for opposing TDK: The city of Peachtree City formed an involvement with the TDK Extension project on the premise of creating traffic congestion relief. The developer’s own engineering data shows there will be a significant increase in traffic congestion, commute delays and our road infrastructure costs. The recent Pathway Communities (DRI #923) and McIntosh, LLC (DRI #1191) plans will add 4,004 housing units, 946,050 square feet of commercial space, 119,650 square feet of office space, 100 units of assisting living and a school at the end of the proposed TDK Extension road. The Coweta developments will actually attract regional traffic. The school zone for the new school and the substantial increases in traffic will eliminate the proposed TDK’s ability to function as a morning drive alternative route. The TDK Extension will enable our valued sale tax dollars (a large portion of the city’s revenue) to flow across the border into Coweta. The retail/office component of the development depends upon a direct connection to Ga. Highway 74 via TDK. There exists a considerable amount of land in the rural eastern portion of Coweta County for further large scale development. The TDK Extension will enable continuous large-scale development well beyond the three DRIs on the table now. The TDK Extension will enable a significant increase in residential and commercial traffic congestion in the city of Peachtree City, town of Tyrone and Coweta County. The traffic model used for Fayette’s Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (SPLOST) was off by nearly 3,700 percent regarding TDK which means the additional heavy volumes of traffic will choke roads and intersections that were never accounted for in the SPLOST model. For example, hwys. 74/54, the most vital intersection in the entire city, will be choked to a halt with additional traffic. The SPLOST includes no funds for implementing any improvements to the intersection. Georgia DOT has improvements for the intersection programmed in the year 2020. U.S. Census Bureau statistics show that Coweta County residents currently face the longest commute time in the United States, and Fayette County residents have the 89th longest commute. Additional heavy traffic volumes and creating the need for more traffic signals on our state routes will worsen our morning and evening commute times by 60 minutes or more. More traffic volume from new large-scale developments, without substantial mitigation to arterial and secondary roads, will worsen the air-quality non-attainment status of Fayette and Coweta counties under the provisions of the U.S. Clean Air Act. Our road national road funding is linked to air quality. The new large-scale developments (McIntosh #1191) will require wastewater treatment capacity that is not currently recognized by the Metropolitan North Georgia Water Planning District; and most of the water bodies in the Flint River Basin to which the treated wastewater is discharged are relatively small or sensitive and the ability to assimilate wastewater is limited, thus damaging water supply watersheds and valuable floodplains. Large-scale developments are not suitable for land in the flight path of Falcon Field Airport. The local airport faces possible litigation from future Coweta homeowners, flight plans will have to be redrawn and new restrictions could have a negative impact on the airport’s bottom line. Conclusion: The City Council of Peachtree City needs to withdraw their support of the construction of the TDK Extension. The council needs to request that the Fayette County Board of Commissioners withdraw their support and funding also. Steve Brown Brown is the former mayor of Peachtree City. login to post comments
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