Let’s see if I have this straight: the Fayette County Board of Education dumps the responsibility for solving overcrowding onto the parents of Peachtree City Elementary School students. The majority of a neighborhood (originally scheduled for bused-redistricting) signs up to transfer to Kedron Elementary. (More could have, if bus service were available.) The school board will not furnish a bus to Kedron, so there will be 74 additional cars in the Kedron drop-off line. Hmmm, maybe FCBOE doesn’t have a bus to spare, because they are too busy transporting school employees’ kids from the parents’ schools to the ones the students attend and are not districted for. Yes, employees’ kids may attend Fayette County schools, but why do they get free transportation when those trying to help the situation at PCES are told no? There are at least three students picked up at Huddleston Elementary and transported to Booth Middle for class. Still others are driven to McIntosh in the afternoons, because their parents work there. Is this fair? Perhaps parents of transferring students, who give generously of their time and money supporting PCES, should instead seek jobs with FCBOE so they too can enjoy the benefit of free student transportation to the school of their choice.

Perhaps manipulating parents into self-redistricting is the way FCBOE does business. I talked to a friend that lives off Robinson Road and she had been told by the county years ago that her neighborhood would be redistricted for Huddleston, the school other neighboring areas already attended, and she could drive her kids there in the meantime. After the lines were to have been redrawn, she checked back to inquire about bus service and was told her neighborhood was too small to worry about, but she could keep her kids at Huddleston and continue driving. Seems to be a pattern here.

For parents of Oak Grove students who drive your children to school, please remember to have common courtesy. When you’re in line on Crosstown waiting to pull into the school it should be every other car (one from the east side and one from the west side and so on).

As an incentive, I suppose, for local officers to allow state and federal officers to catch dope peddlers, a law was passed to allocate by a formula a certain amount of any cash or vehicle value captured, to localities to be used only for further funding of law enforcement. Apparently, the state sends Fayette County their check, their share, directly to the Sheriff’s Department, not to the county disbursement office. It seems that our county elected officials aren’t trusted to forward a check sent to them to the sheriff. I really didn’t know that the Sheriff’s Department could buy what they wanted to anyway without budget approval. A bad situation. The sheriff’s job is taking care of the courthouse, warrants, and county crime, not budgeting money.

Eric Maxwell is the quintessential Southern good old boy. His announcement as a candidate for the county Board of Commissioners represents a threat to our local prosperity. As an attorney, he will no doubt try to build his client base with those seeking government favors, his current friends. Maxwell would be a return to the reign of the developers and the county will suffer. He has no backbone and his sole motivation is his personal financial well-being.

Mayor Harold Logsdon comments this past week were shocking. The town is “surprisingly quiet” about the two teen suicide deaths and he thinks there’s plenty for teenagers to do in Peachtree City. “You’ve got to want to do it,” he said. “With kids, they always say they don’t have anything to do.” Please do me a favor. Take a day off from the golf course, pass on the Y-Knots party and cancel your seat at the Friday night Bob Lenox poker game. Our kids need a mayor who cares, or at the very least, a mayor who is aware. Your entire election platform was leadership. I’d really like to start seeing some leadership from you.

Would someone please tell Commissioner Frady that he needs to take a nap before a commission meeting? He appeared to be asleep during most of the Feb. 9, 2006, Board of Commissioners’ meeting.

We always complain because we don’t have politicians who stand up for what is right, they do things just so they can get elected again. We think they’re shifty or probably crooked on some level or they only care about the people who donate to their campaigns. We finally have some people in office who have principles, are honest, don’t do things just to get elected, are fighting to keep growth down, are keeping county taxes down and seem to treat everyone equally. Why in the world would anyone want to change that? Mr. Dunn and Ms. Wells, you both have my family’s votes.

Peter Pfeifer, you’re belaboring the wrong point. Trying to defend an indefensible position. I read the minutes of the meeting in 2003. I read Tax Commissioner Wingo’s letter two weeks ago. In 2004, via word of mouth from the county attorney, you and the board sent word back to George Wingo that you were not interested in approving Internet renewal of auto registrations, even if there was no cost to the county. One of you made a snide remark about irresponsible citizens using credit cards to pay taxes. Peter, here’s a tip: when you’re in a hole, stop digging.

I declare, that the first politician this year who says he has worked to reduce my taxes and has been successful by reducing the mills rate, is going to find my trash on his lawn, where he or she can pay the increased trash fee to haul it off, and the rain water and golf cart fees. When one’s income is relatively fixed, or where one’s job has disappeared, raising my house value to get more taxes is NOT reducing taxes. I can’t wait for home values to go down so my taxes will decrease. Oops, then they can raise the millage rate, can’t they? What the budget needs here in Fayette County is to do a zero based budget one year instead of an add-on to last year’s budget. We can’t continue to provide tax-supported jobs to people who can’t find any factory work to do and don’t want to sell hamburgers or mow yards or put on roofs.

Did these two [suicides] leave a note? The new trend is to induce a vagal response (dizziness, passing out) by choking one another. Eventually, the kids try it on their own and frequently die as a result. It appears that they have committed suicide, but that was not their intention. Has anyone thought about this possibility?

To ALL parents, please keep an eye on your children while on the computer. There is a Web site called MySpace, designed by the two biggest idiots and that is the nicest way I could name them) in the world. They put on the site that you need to be 14 years old to be a member, but the only way they have to enforce this is to enter your date of birth. All teens 13 and younger are just forging their birthday to be over 14. They are then proceeding to put more information than necessary all over their Web site. There are child abductions and sexual predators looking for children all over the place and they are now given the easiest way to target young girls. There are red flags that need to be put up in every household. Do the right thing, check your children’s computers, what sites they look at, know their passwords for everything.

The perfect examples of what muckraker H.L. Mencken wrote about when addressing the problems of the South are all alive and well and living in Fayette County. No intelligent design theory could have ever thought that man was capable of such a display of sub-human intellect. It’s amazing, and it is right here at our front door. Any thoughts of the South ever rising are dashed by the display of shackled minds espousing mean-spirited dogma that reflect the stilted minds of the Dark Ages.

Where is the diversity on the FCHS Basketball team? The team does not represent the demographics of our great city. It must be racial discrimination; that is the only way something like this could happen.

What I saw on the television coverage of the Coretta Scott King funeral service, once again, showed the true colors of Democrats. When former President Clinton and his wife stood at the platform, the place erupted in applause. Where was the honor that should have been given to Mrs. King? All I heard was political [stuff].

I watched the eulogy of Coretta Scott King as long as I could before I had to walk away from the TV. It wasn’t from the sadness I felt from her passing, but the despicable behavior of most of the Democrats as they made a political circus of this great lady’s eulogy. I’ve always believed that, since the death of Senator Paul Wellstone, the Democratic politicians could sink no lower than they did when they exploited his death with their outrageous behavior during his eulogy. But I was wrong because, at this time of mourning, their disgraceful performance at Mrs. King’s eulogy has shown their disrespect and utter disregard of the King family’s sorrow and our country’s remorse and respect for Mrs. King. Although they feigned sadness at times, it was clear that their unparalleled display of ignorance and indifference was only conducted to further their wretched political views. Surprisingly, former President Clinton showed that he was above the mud slinging by giving a heartfelt tribute to Mrs. King. But for the rest of them to use the eulogy as a platform to criticize the President of the United States was an insult to her family and our country and they should apologize to President Bush and all Americans for their contemptible display. The repugnant behavior of Joseph Lowery (who, by the way, is a reverend) and the egotistical rantings of former President Carter, interspersed with hateful rhetoric which he and other Democrats gleefully directed toward our President while pretending to honor Coretta Scott King, is unforgivable.

To all of you women that have had an abortion and others that support it, I know it is a difficult decision to “terminate” a pregnancy but when it’s all said and done it’s STILL killing a baby. I would be glad to accept as many babies as I could through adoption if these women didn’t want them.

To Ms. Name Withheld, I don’t know how many weeks pregnant you were when you decided to have your “unwanted” baby killed by abortion, but I imagine several weeks passed from the time you discovered you were pregnant by the sad pitiful story you wrote. How awful for you to have this teenage boy physically abuse you, I see you survived, unlike your “unwanted child.” You had many other “choices” you could have made, the first being saying NO to sex in the first place. That is the “woman’s right.” After she becomes pregnant, then there is another person who has rights to consider. Women have “choices”; saying No is the first step.

After spending so much money on a new library, it just doesn’t make sense that the new parking lot isn’t paved. Parking on gravel cheapens the library and aggravates at least this patron.

To the person so disgusted by “Kindergartners and pensioners” who pick up trash in PTC: You are missing the point. Volunteering in the community is part of what Peachtree City is all about. Plenty of people in this town adopt a particular area as their own because they want to send a message that they are personally involved in their community. While you are busy commuting to your job that takes you away from town during normal working hours, that’s when the employees of this city are hard at work picking up trash and landscaping and any number of things that keeps this town looking great. The employees and the volunteers are the reason this town is NOT another “filthy southside suburb.” If you cannot see Peachtree City for the unique and wonderful place it is to live, then go live in the Vinings and Dunwoody areas you seem so enamored with. You’ll miss the rec center, golf cart parades, schools, friendly neighbors and a million other things that make this place the best in the metro area. We don’t want a bunch of threatening signs all over town detailing trash fines. We want people who “get it” to live here.

Teen Center: Just saw a letter on The Citizen blogs concerning teens. The person had an opinion that teen centers are no good. They aren’t if run for profit and aren’t properly organized, with good programs. In addition to qualified administrators and workers there must at all times be police inside and outside. This would be a wonderful second job for our policemen. What do you think your kids do when they say they are going skating? Going to the movie? Going out to eat? Going to a friend’s house? A thousand other things? I know what I did.

I’ve had a belly full of union pilots — United, Northwest, Delta, UPS, FedEx, Polar, and World. These guys behave like spoiled children, always wanting something they do not deserve and putting on a hissy-fit when they do not get it. Currently, the Delta pilots are behaving like the bus drivers of New York City. They “work” very little — about half time, at the most. They “demand” wages and work rules that they do not deserve. They harm the company, and the rest of the employees — employees, I might add, who work hard to improve the company, not bring it down. The only thing they hang their hat on is striking the company “when and when they want” — no value proposition, nothing about what they bring to the company — only what they want, and want, and want. All they are are bus drivers with cool technology — technology, I might say, bought by management of the company, maintained by employees of the company, prepared for each flight by the employees of the company, flight-planned by employees of the company, with customers obtained by employees of the company, and with baggage loaded by employees of the company. The only thing the pilots have to do is show up and fly. I guess when you are in a union, you are not employees of the company (although the company signs the pay checks). You work for the union. These unions are trying to live in the long past. I hope Northwest has a plan to deal with their pilots just the same way they did with their union maintenance people. And, I hope Delta does too. Times are tough in the airline industry. Face it. Do not make it worse. Finally, I am a pilot. But, I will never be a union pilot. I will stand on my two feet.