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11-23-05Tue, 11/22/2005 - 4:38pm
By: The Citizen
With the school board’s most recent rezoning, I look forward to the morning and afternoon commutes on Redwine. Wilshire, now zoned to Braelinn, will drive north, past all of the families from Timberlake, Highgrove and Whitewater driving south to Peeples. Not to mention the county’s buses criss-crossing each other every day for the same purpose. Never mind the fact that the golf cart paths will now go unused as each of the four neighborhoods will be driving their children, or busing their children rather than saving gas and traffic concerns by using golf carts. Makes no sense. Gee, did politics play a part with the school board? So tell me, members of the school board, will you be attending Highgrove’s Christmas party? I swear, if Harold Logsdon (or his wife) call my home one more time and leave one of their annoying messages, I WILL go to the polls Dec. 6 and I WILL vote for the other guy, in spite of the fact that he’s a horrible choice. Stop the unsolicited calls. Harold, if you’re worried about geting out the vote, you should have accepted the debate. Hey, Delta pilots. No matter what mistakes were made and by whom those mistakes were made, “Rome is burning but that’s all right ... “ News flash: I heard the big drug search at Sandy Creek High using the dogs revealed a student had an empty cigarette pack in the back of their truck. How about this for a pithy comment? The Free Speech personal attacks are over the top and take away from your once fine newspaper. But keep throwing it in my driveway; your paper makes a great liner in our kitty litter box. I was very disappointed and angry to discover that instead of a Veterans Day assembly, the day before Veterans Day, the administration of Whitewater Middle School chose to have an assembly on Islamic religions. I’m know that some of the students at that assembly have fathers, older brothers, cousins, etc. fighting in a war with this group of people, and for good reason: they killed thousands of our citizens. Remember 9/11? I was appalled at such a lack of compassion and support for our soldiers and their families. Do you think that after the bombing of Pearl Harbor that the Japanese people would have been welcomed to host an assembly in our schools? While I realize that the more we understand about differences in people and things, that the easier it is to accept them, I can only assume that that circle of thinking is the reasoning behind this assembly. I feel that it is the responsibility of the school administrators to use good judgment in planning such gatherings, especially in a school setting where there is a captive audience situation. I recently read of a local young man who gave his life at the age of 23 years old fighting for our freedoms in this country, protecting us from the possibilities of more 9/11 type horrors. I can only imagine how his family would feel if they found out that instead of an assembly honoring our soldiers, that an assembly concerning the very people who killed their son was hosted by the local school. How sad, that in an effort of trying to be so politically correct, we have lost sight of important values and ideas that founded our great country and that will allow it to continue to thrive as the greatest nation on earth: patriotism, Christianity, gratitude, unity, etc. A-B-Cs of the PTC Development Authority debt: Much discussion has been made of the debt of the mismanaged and failed PTC Development Authority. It racked up nearly $2 million in unpaid debt for an extravagant tennis center and then went defunct. Should the city of Peachtree City (and its taxpayers) be forced to pay that debt)? No. The Authority is a separate legal entity and city taxpayers are not bound to pay that debt. Here’s the clearest example. Let’s say we have a retired couple (which will be the city) which has an adult son living at home (the son is the Development Authority). The son has a great idea: he wants to take his parents on a wedding anniversary trip all over Europe. The parents are excited because they know they could never afford such a lavish luxury. Off the three of them go, enjoying a wonderful trip for a month across Europe until they come home and later realize that the son can’t pay for the trip. It seems that he mismanaged his affairs and thought he had income where he really did not. Now the bank wants the parents to pay, saying it’s the “moral thing” to do because they enjoyed the trip. And yet they did not agree to pay anything, did not sign anything and never would have agreed to pay for a lavish trip to Europe since they knew they could not afford it. The city taxpayers were never asked if they wanted a luxury tennis center and were never asked to pay for it (referendum). That is why there is no moral duty and no obligation on the part of the city to pay the DAPC debts. I’m not against this fellow Alito as a Supreme Court judge just because he is a Republican; everyone has to pledge allegiance anymore to one party or the other. It is just that I don’t think you can say that before you were a judge your opinion as a lawyer was for a principle, and then after you became a judge, it now is the opposite, because the job demands it. This either says lawyers are shallow, or, judges no longer interpret the law only and should forget politics. DNA tests recently have shown that many people who are innocent are imprisoned by juries fooled by sharp lawyers. Corporate lawyers are inherently flexible, it seems. Logsdon should open the process up. My primary concern with Harold Logsdon refusing to debate is that it indicates how he will perform as mayor. It indicates that his meetings will not be open to public participation. Public participation is a change in PTC in the last four years under Mayor Steve Brown. Unlike Lenox, Brown did not shout people down like Bob Lenox with, “This is my meeting.” Second, it indicates that Logsdon will prefer closed door meetings rather than the open meetings required by law. He is wrong that he has given enough information. I have gone to the forums, read his literature and read his Web site. He offers “goals without solutions,” as one writer commented. For example, he says he is in favor of “fiscal responsibility.” Who isn’t? Do you know any candidates that favor fiscal irresponsibility? But exactly how will you do that? He proposes to increase spending and decrease taxes. But he won’t tell us how. Logsdon’s refusal to debate signals a return to the closed government of the past. For the record, 85 percent of all the registered voters in Peachtree City did not vote for Harold Logsdon. Landing less than half of a 30 percent voter turnout is no mandate. It is tough to tell which was worse, the voter apathy or Logsdon’s campaign dollar per vote ratio. Shockingly, the Logsdon people are now looking to find public source documents that have been readily available for years. I agree with the comment made that by simply repeating the mantra, “we need return to civility,” (as a reason to vote for PTC mayoral candidate Harold Logsdon) is a hollow, meaningless gesture. With no discussion of public policy, this type of communication offers nothing to the debate other than an empty declaration of support for one candidate. This has been the hallmark of the Logsdon campaign. Even as we speak, Mr. Logsdon has personally refused to debate, an obvious indicator of this strategy. As mayor, would Mr. Logsdon investigate and research? Would he listen? Would his meetings and city documents be open to the public? Most disturbing is that it is now almost Thanksgiving and finally the Logsdon supporters have discovered that maybe they should do a minimum amount of research before expressing an opinion. They are now asking where they can find public documents. One has to ask: Should you people have done a minimum of research before you made a decision on city politics? Or was that decision made for you based on self-interest? Would anyone dispute that Steve Brown is abrasive? No. Has he brought the light of day to virtually all affairs of the city? Undeniable. “Idon’tknow,” a clear Logsdon operative, has earned his/her chosen online moniker. The DAPC independent counsel report was available on at least two Web sites a couple of years ago and is probably still available through The Citizen. The GBI report was distributed and available. “idon’tknow” and the Logsdon campaign would probably be far more comfortable in not starting to do research at this late stage and to simply take solace in the old saying, “Ignorance is bliss.” We may well expect that with Mr. Logsdon as mayor, we will return to closed government. Mayor Brown: your article in last week’s Citizen once again demonstrates just how out of touch you are with the citizens of our community. I, like most of the residents of our beautiful city, moved here for the amenities Peachtree City affords, in stark contrast to every other community in metro Atlanta. Where else in the metro area can you drive down the town’s major thoroughfare and not be blinded by unsightly commercial signs and overbuilt business enterprises? As citizens, we owe a debt of gratitude to the men and women, business owners, developers and local government officials that you often refer to as the Old Guard. Working together, these community leaders built a city that we can all be proud of, yet you’re still denigrating them at every opportunity. Goodbye, Mr. Mayor, and we will not miss you. I live in Peachtree City off MacDuff Parkway and I am sick of all the people who block the intersections around here. Where did you people come from where that is okay? That is unlawful and inconsiderate so don’t do it. You can do it in Coweta but do not do it over here. login to post comments![]() |