It is my sincere hope that the voters in Fayetteville will a cast a ballot in this year’s municipal election. Past elections have been decided by fewer than 10 votes with rarely more than 1,000 votes being cast.
Basically this means that those with a vested interest in local government are the only ones who bother to vote.
Now, if you are happy with the current government in Fayetteville, you don’t need to do a thing; the “old guard” has plenty of loyal voters who will faithfully go to the polls and see that they and their cronies are returned to office.
But if you believe that a change of direction is called for, you are the agent of that change and you need to turn out to vote on Nov 8.
I was encouraged when the voters flocked to the polls and handily defeated the 2009 SPLOST referendum. That SPLOST project list was full of useless and unnecessary expenditures.
Perhaps you may recall that the current mayor publicly supported that SPLOST. However, the voters made it clear by a wide margin that they do not consent to additional taxes at this time. Since that election, the local economy has improved little if at all and many would say it has gotten worse.
Your current mayor is on the regional roundtable for the ARC that is pushing the T-SPLOST that is scheduled for a vote in July 2012. Not only is he on the roundtable, he has fully supported the project list which, while close to being a break-even proposition for the first 10 years, will “join us at the wallet” with mass transit, ultimately costing Fayetteville and Fayette County unforeseeable taxes further out than 10 years.
MARTA train and bus ridership has DECREASED over the past 10 years while Atlanta metro population has greatly increased. Furthermore, many of the projects are not fully funded, meaning that there will be additional taxes devised to support MARTA extensions, light rail projects connecting to MARTA and other pork projects.
What we have here is a classic case of the government “camel’s nose under the tent,” where the rest of the stinky beast will soon be in the tent as well.
We in Fayetteville and Fayette County will soon have mass transit forced on us along with the accompanying river of red ink that such public projects always entail.
I’m publicly stating for the record that I don’t support transit buses or trains in Fayetteville or Fayette County. Our population is so small there is no way we could afford to pay for mass transit.
In this position, I have good company in the person of Alain Bertaud, an urban planner with the World Bank, who has undertaken an extensive study of the geography of the 10-county metro Atlanta region. His professional opinion is that mass transit will never be economically viable in Atlanta.
Mayor Ken Steele has the right to, and absolutely should, vote his conscience on the issues. However, I respectfully disagree with his vote at Atlanta Regional Commission’s Nov. 13, 2008, Transportation and Air Quality Committee meeting that slated buses and rail for Fayette County.
If there is a demand for such service and a private company wants to offer it, fine, but let’s keep the government out of the transportation business.
It is also telling that not one Fayetteville councilman opposed Mayor Steele’s vote in favor of mass transit in Fayetteville. This means, that if you really want to see a change of direction, you need to vote for Mickey Edwards, Ed Johnson and myself. A change of only one or two seats will have little or no effect on the status quo.
To make things perfectly clear, I will not support any type of regional governance that requires our citizens in Fayette County to pay for MARTA.
If any of us have a strong desire to use mass transit, we can move a relatively short distance to a county where it is offered. In fact, I have a daughter who intends to move to Atlanta in the next few months to be closer to the art and cultural offerings of the “big city” and she hates to drive.
Most of us in Fayetteville, however, like the small town life; the theme song to the old TV show “Green Acres” comes to mind.
Many of the people I have spoken with are worried about local crime. Fayetteville has about half the population of Peachtree City but our crime rates are similar in several categories.
I respect Chief Heaton and our police force and they can count on my support for seeking ways to increase enforcement and crime deterrence. I would rather be seeking grants and using our tax revenues to fight crime than building sidewalks all over town and especially the brick crosswalks that are already failing. You can count on me to take local crime seriously.
I’m always looking for help with my campaign. Please let me know if you would like a yard sign and please vote on Nov. 8.
Greg Clifton
Candidate for mayor of Fayetteville
Fayetteville, Ga.
