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Mayor Logsdon seems determined to water down PTC’s development rules In utter disbelief, I read Mayor Harold Logsdon’s revisionist history column in Peachtree City’s Update newsletter. (Attention Councilman Harman: In your last candidate essay you said you chose “to oppose the Kohl’s plan.”) The mayor penned an erroneous history on Peachtree City’s policies on big box retail and our Comprehensive Plan in an attempt to do what? Your impulse response might be to say, “So he can build three or four more big box stores around the city,” but you would only be partially correct. It’s bigger than you think — Expand your view for a moment and consider who stands to gain the most monetarily from government decisions. The answer is the people who need rezonings, annexations and legal exemptions from our ordinances. I contend Mayor Logsdon is trying to create a platform, at the behest of the development community (his supporters), which not only includes more big box stores, but also a new redevelopment policy for existing commercial and residential land (think Robinson Road and Spear Road) that is well out of our planned city’s current scope. Keep fighting and go to the city council meeting on Thursday, Nov. 15, and protest the council handing over city property to an out-of-town developer. Sadly, for our beloved Fayette County, there are certain special interests who are doing whatever they can, mainly through political channels and the Chamber of Commerce, to desensitize the public on the issue of creating more dense development in our county. The more we give up the further they widen the development envelope. It’s about drinking and driving — I was a presenter on Mayor Logsdon’s January 2007 meeting on future growth in Peachtree City. Everyone, except for me, concentrated mainly on transportation issues. The mantra was just keep building bigger, wider roads and we will all be just fine. For my part, my slides showed you could make transportation your number two issue because a lack of water volume is going to be what brings us to our knees. Making that statement in January of 2007 got me some strange looks and some polite nods, but I think my point has been reinforced here recently. Undoubtedly, traffic is a big issue, and big box stores and more dense residential development only makes it worse, especially for a county which has no immediate access to an interstate highway. It really does not matter whether you think the concept of global warming is true or false because water usage is increasing, the water supply is finite and droughts do happen. In fact, we had a major scare with the drought of 1986. However, state bond funds set aside for construction of major water reservoirs at the end of Gov. Barnes’ administration were later diverted elsewhere. The state legislature has largely dropped the ball on preempting the water crisis which has been on the radar for around 15 years. In fact, the state had not even taken the necessary steps of conducting research on our water system to the point where we accurately know how much water we have and the EPD director has now requested $20-30 million for such a study. The state legislature is being driven by special interests groups. The philosophy of “just keep running ahead recklessly and we will figure out what the consequences are later” is rampant. You have to plan for growth. It means having infrastructure in place and being ready to go. It means stop neglecting the current population so that others can profit more quickly from unplanned growth. Here we go again — I was deeply saddened to see attorney Matt Ramsey of the firm Warner, Hooper and Ramsey announce for the late Rep. Dan Lakly’s seat in the state House of Representatives. Young attorney Ramsey is woven in the fabric of state Sen. Mitch Seabaugh who received financial contributions from TDK developers and chief law partner Doug Warner. This is the same Doug Warner who was involved in two separate government contract disputes claiming after-the-fact changes damaging to the citizenry. In addition, Warner was also heavily involved in the Development Authority scandals as an attorney, authority member and board member of Peachtree National Bank. Warner’s former protege Mark Oldenburg was also involved in the Development Authority scandal and with advising the PTC Water and Sewer Authority, as its attorney, to bypass an intergovernmental contract with the city in an attempt to run sewer capacity to Coweta County. Undeniably, attorney Matt Ramsey will have a huge stockpile of campaign cash coming in through the Seabaugh and Warner channels. Do we really want to go this route again? If we are not careful, our local Republican principles will lose all of their conservative luster in lieu of becoming nothing more than an incubator for long-term politicians married to special interest groups. We are to the point where our political process has become so desperate for campaign funds, kickbacks and favors from special interests that we cannot resolve the common problems which affect us all. Special interests are being allowed by both political parties to seep in and slowly poison our society with lasting consequences in our politics, our governance and our quality of life. I have had many people ask me to run for Rep. Lakly’s seat since we were both outspoken on vital issues and independent. However, change really begins when the people head for the ballot box. The special interests will always have their candidates well funded and ready to run, but it is our apathy that helps them prosper. login to post comments | Steve Brown's blog
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