I want to applaud Commissioner Steve Brown on his recent presentation to the Fayette GOP. It was truly an example of truth speaking to power.
I noted commissioners Hearn and Horgan were present and both were clearly attempting to connect with the people. They would not be there if it were not for the fact they fear us, the “Take Back Fayette County” people who got Smith and Maxwell defeated in the recent elections.
Both Commissioner Brown and Commissioner Allen McCarty condemned the County Board of Commissioners’ pursuit of the West Fayetteville Bypass and rightly tagged the road as a useless special interest developer project. The crowd agreed with them.
Commissioner Brown pointed out one example after another, slide by slide, of how certain local politicians are driving our county off of a cliff.
We already know that Chairman Herb Frady, Commissioner Lee Hearn and Commissioner Robert Horgan are opposed to open government. They totally refused to pass Commissioner Brown’s proposal calling for anything the Board of Commissioners votes on in a meeting needed to be on an agenda open to the public 24 hours prior to the meeting.
There’s only one reason the three of them wouldn’t pass such an obvious good thing, and we all know why. Their actions are deceitful and don’t want the good people of Fayette County to know what they are attempting to pass without proper notice.
The mayor of Fayetteville, Ken Steele, looked like a fish out of water at the Fayette GOP meeting trying to defend his actions of past years. It was my first time to see him in person and I was not impressed.
He insisted to everyone that he opposed mass transit buses running throughout Fayette County, but Commissioner Brown wedged the mayor between a rock and a hard place by revealing the mayor voted in favor of mass transit in our county every time it came up for a vote.
Commissioner Brown also pointed out Mayor Steele voted in favor of a formula using our regional sales tax dollars from Fayette County to pay for MARTA and the other mass transit organizations in the Atlanta area.
Now I don’t know how the rest of you feel, but the people at the Fayette GOP breakfast at the IHOP, including me, were noisily expressing their distaste for Mayor Steele’s votes as our representative to the regional government. Plain and simple, this is NOT the direction we want our county moving.
The local GOP Chairman David Studdard, an attorney and former City of Atlanta police officer, gave the audience the benefit of his numerous experiences as to why we don’t want to hook into Atlanta mass transit. The audience, through their thunderous applause, agreed with Mr. Studdard.
Commissioner Brown denounced the censorship actions of Chairman Frady against him, saying the county staff acknowledged he followed all the rules and should have been allowed to speak.
In my book, Chairman Frady should receive an official reprimand and be censured by the other commissioners through the county’s ethics process. Also, in my opinion, Chairman Frady should resign as chairman. He is truly an incompetent chairman. (Notice I did not call him a buffoon.)
It did my heart good to see the people of Fayette County starting to wake up and take a stand. We’re running out of places to move. Fayette County is as good as it gets. We had better be prepared to fight the good fight and protect what we have and not let a bunch of hooligans or buffoons ruin our good thing.
David Barlow
Tyrone, Ga.
