I admire the work of John Munford greatly and will continue to respect him for his fairness and objectivity. However, his article quoting various sources about the alleged “secret” impact fee meeting gave the impression that the meeting was actually secret and that representatives of the city did not follow the law.

It was not until the fourth and fifth paragraphs of the story that this was clarified. Unfortunately, many readers do not read beyond the second paragraph. I want to emphasize that there is no law or ordinance that requires citizen ad hoc advisory committees to advertise meetings.

I am a member of the committee along with six other representatives of the public, and our sole responsibility is to make recommendations to the City Council concerning impact fees to be levied on developers in the proposed West Village Service Area, if and only if the city chooses to annex the property.

There are no elected officials or city staff members on the committee. The work and recommendations of the committee is one of the mechanisms for public input to the City Council which the article implied was lacking. The City Council will hold public hearings on the broader issue of annexation for additional public input.

Please let me emphasize that no public funds were expended for the meal at the luncheon and it was not a secret meeting. If we were holding a secret meeting, we would have met somewhere other than a table in the middle of the dining room at Smokey Bones, one of Peachtree City’s busiest restaurants.

I leave two brief closing thoughts for those who bothered to read past the second paragraph. The barbeque was great and the person who got John Munford stirred up about this should get a life!

Scott Bradshaw

Peachtree City, Ga.