[Former Peachtree City] Mayor [Steve] Brown, I’d like to respond to your letter in last week’s Citizen regarding the incentives given to Cooper Wiring Devices (Cooper). While I’m in agreement with a few of your statements, it is only fair to give the full story about this project.

When my board chairman and I met with you back in late 2003, we did tell you that the prospect was Cooper, although you state otherwise in your letter. We asked that you not repeat this until the company was ready to reveal their identity, and we appreciate you keeping your promise. For the public’s knowledge, the original commitment by Cooper to invest $6 million grew to well over $10 million.

You state that the Fayette County Development Authority (FCDA) increased its request from the city to a total of $57,500. This is simply wrong!

Your letter to County Commission Chairman Greg Dunn on March 17, 2004 says, “As you know, Peachtree City previously committed $20,000 towards the Cooper Wiring project. An additional request has come forward from the county for $37,500 for the same project.”

Yes, this equals $57,500, but what you chose not to tell the readers was that the $37,500 was a request of the city AND the county.

Your letter goes on to ask Chairman Dunn to provide an equal share of the $57,500 in the amount of $28,750. Translation: “Chairman Dunn, I do not want to uphold my full commitment of $20,000 that I made to Cooper a few months ago so will you please split this with me?”

Mr. Mayor, you are twisting the facts. Your earlier financial commitment had nothing to do with FCDA’s request for additional local funding and the county was not responsible for your actions.

Here’s the truth — FCDA asked the city and county for $18,750 each, totaling $37,500. If we could get a commitment for this amount, the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) would match this in order to fund a $75,000 road improvement project at Cooper’s new entrance on Ga. Highway 74. So the city had verbally committed $20,000 and had been asked to commit another $18,750.

Now let me address your statement about FCDA making “further mistakes.” I’ll be the first to admit that I could have done some things better, but you have once again distorted the facts.

Our request for “hundreds of thousands of dollars” was never made. Again, here’s the truth — as the lead agency on this project, FCDA had many discussions with our state senator, who in turn, talked regularly with the GDOT commissioner.

I received a verbal quote that the above-mentioned road project would have an estimated cost of $75,000. No one questioned this because of the source so your city manager put the project out for bid.

To everyone’s surprise, the quotes were around $300,000.

Several meetings occurred with FCDA, the city, the county, and GDOT to discuss our options. We all agreed this cost was not a good use of taxpayer dollars since Hwy. 74 would soon be widened, effectively tearing up any previous improvements.

So you are right, I did apologize — but not to you. I apologized to Cooper for not upholding our commitment.

Lastly, I’m amazed that you would classify a $20,000 investment as a foolhardy “expenditure.”

Expenditure? We had a global company planning to locate a SECOND subsidiary headquarters in Peachtree City and you think it was an expense?

What about the property and sales tax revenues collected from the 40 families that moved here from New York? What about the $10-plus million investment made by Cooper? What about the contributions made by both Cooper Wiring and Cooper Lighting that never gets any press coverage (at the company’s request)?

I’m not going to do the math in this space, but we can all agree that the city would soon see a return on its investment.

In conclusion, I’d like to point out something to all the readers. Some of you may be shaking your head, wondering why in the heck we should give taxpayer dollars to corporations in order to get them to locate. The $20,000 was not a deal breaker, but it showed a commitment on behalf of the city.

Like it or not, this is part of the process all around the world. With this being said, neither Fayette County nor any of its cities has an open checkbook philosophy. Each and every project that visits the community is closely scrutinized and some companies choose not to locate here because of the lack of incentives.

Brian Cardoza
abcardoza (at) bellsouth.net
Cardoza is the former head of the Fayette County Development Authority.

login to post comments