Please tell me how the city’s incessant drumbeat request for funding of the “gateway bridge” has escaped resounding scorn and ridicule by [The Citizen].
Were you (or a representative) not at the County Commission meeting in January where the city’s mayor and engineer unabashedly and candidly admitted to missing the federally mandated deadline for final funding request submission? Did you not hear them cavalierly state that the city’s submission was several weeks past the more than once communicated submission deadline?
I know that you (or a representative) were at said meeting and that you, in fact, did hear the forgoing. How, you say? Because you subsequently mentioned the foregoing in your paper. However, then nor now have you taken the (ir)responsible parties to task for (1) missing the deadline, (2) brazenly asking the commission for county-wide funding to replace and (3) the new attempt to get this (previously federally approved) project into the Regional Transportation plan.
This project is so far from a “need” that it would be laughable in today’s economic climate were it not for the unbelievable hubris shown by the city’s mayor and engineer in repeatedly asking for some other party/entity to fund this “want”. It was bad enough that the feds had earlier agreed to fund this “non-need.” It is just plain sad to see that the press continues to enable this requested “want” to go forward without even so much as a question as to who is at fault for losing the federal funding or more importantly, why this request has any credibility in the first place.
As an additional, related question, how is it that this “bridge” boondoggle has not only been continuously enabled by the press but is also supported by local pontificator/Commissioner Brown who fancies himself as a champion of the people, railing ad nauseam against the West Fayetteville Bypass and yet supporting a very costly unneeded bridge in his “back yard”?
Just asking, somebody has to!
W. Michael Hyde
Peachtree City, Ga.
