As someone who has been active in local politics for over 15 years, I ask you to heed the warning of Commissioner Steve Brown regarding the proposed fiscal year 2012 budget.
When Commissioner Brown says the 2012 budget is “unsustainable,” he is telling the truth. While our tax dollars are frittered away on things like the West Fayetteville Bypass, the team of Herb Frady, Lee Hearn and Robert Horgan are also ramping up the expense side of the budget. The obvious problem is we don’t have the revenue, to the tune of around $4 million, to cover the additional expenses that will crash in future years.
In essence, Frady and his crew are raising Fayette County’s debt ceiling and they can’t tell anyone how we are going to cover the increased expenses in years going forward. They handed out pay grade increases and merit pay raises like it was candy and funded it out of the reserves.
Hearn’s relatives own a large amount of land near the West Fayetteville Bypass, and Horgan’s mind might be slowed from his smoking pot, which could explain why they favor the entitlement road. I still can’t figure out why Frady continues to support a bypass that he can’t justify, unless he is trying to pay his developer friends an old political debt.
I think Brown is on the right track with attempting to use the new House Bill 240 to allow us, the taxpaying voters, to decide in a referendum if we want build the ridiculous West Fayetteville Bypass from the SPLOST money or use those funds to pay our county debt and lower our property taxes.
The choice between a budget that spends considerably more money than we collect in revenue or taking the funds from the unwanted bypass and using them to our benefit requires little or no mental effort.
And now, Frady’s crew is trying to eliminate criticism from an angry public by changing the public meeting rules that will keep us the citizens and taxpayers in Fayette County from speaking at commission meeting. That‘s just more proof the three stooges majority on the County Commission are doing things they can’t justify.
I urge you to go to the June 9 Board of Commissioners meeting at the Stonewall Complex and show Frady, Hearn and Horgan you don’t support road entitlement programs for developers and you don’t support raising the county debt ceiling with budgets that spends considerably more than we collect. Also, let them know how you feel about them trying to shut down us, the taxpayers, who don’t approve of the ridiculous way they conduct county business.
In addition, I urge everyone in Fayette County to be aware that Frick, Frack and Frady, all three, are up for re-election in 2012. If we can’t get them to stop unethical behavior one way, we sure as heck can toss all three of them out on their tails in 2012. I will see you at the polls in July or August, 2012.
Harold Bost
Fayetteville, Ga.
[Bost is a former county commissioner and founder of Fayette Citizens for Open Government.]
