It is time for some blunt talk about the deceptive practices surrounding the West Fayetteville Bypass. It was clear for most early on that the Road to Nowhere was improper. The fog has lifted even more for the remaining holdouts because of recent newspaper stories detailing the development plans along the bypass.
When any government project lacks transparency and creates more questions than answers, you can believe disreputable things are going on behind the scenes. I cannot find even a hint of verisimilitude regarding the flimsy excuses that flow from the mouths of my commission colleagues.
The audiences at the Board of Commissioners meetings and the public at large are finding it exceedingly difficult to remain composed with the obvious exposure of evidence contradicting the necessity of constructing the West Fayetteville Bypass.
The same people who cried out how evil I was when I opposed the TDK Extension into Coweta County are the same ones promoting the West Fayetteville Bypass.
Just as the TDK Extension was promoted as “traffic relief” and proven a total lie, the West Fayetteville Bypass is no different.
Please take note that plans are in motion that will change the character and efficiency of Fayette County.
The mayor and Council of Fayetteville have been planning on annexing the land around the West Fayetteville Bypass ever since the county T-SPLOST passed in 2004. So instead of traffic relief, you can expect increased traffic with the high density housing and commercial development that Fayetteville officials have planned, all at your expense.
You need to also know the large developments mentioned in the most recent newspaper depictions are only half of the development to occur along the bypass.
Fayetteville already has its share of difficulties, but things are going to get worse if the current misgovernment is allowed to remain, meaning things will deteriorate for the entire county if Mayor Ken Steele and his council are re-elected.
We have succeeded as a county, better than all other Georgia counties, because we attracted well-educated families who identified with the rural surroundings and the less dense atmosphere. Even Peachtree City developed at less than half the population originally projected.
Mayor Steele wants to keep shoving the boundaries of Fayetteville outward until the rural north-central part of the county is completely sewered and outfitted in high density subdivisions and retail shopping centers.
First it was north for the Fayette Pavilion and now it is east toward the bypass. Everything we have fought to preserve, including the infrastructure we paid to upgrade, will be trashed.
Mayor Steele has already voted Fayette County into the regional mass transit plan and did not tell us. He has also voted in favor of our submitting to regional governance and he kept that quiet too. To make matters worse, Mayor Steele is in full support of our county funding the regional transit bureaucracy including a pointless regional call center.
The best excuse Mayor Steele can give us is “those are only just plans.” We should not forget that in 2003 the West Fayetteville Bypass was just a plan.
To a person of average intelligence the obvious conclusion is Mayor Steele put mass transit projects for Fayette County in the regional transit plan because he intended to have mass transit in our county.
Likewise, he used taxpayer dollars to create the plan for the annexation and overdevelopment of the central part of our county because he fully intends on steamrolling the low density county land use plan that has served us so well over many decades.
I have personally spoken to Fayetteville candidates Mickey Edwards, Ed Johnson and Greg Clifton. All of them oppose the West Fayetteville Bypass and they oppose annexing the land around the bypass. Like most of us, they see the disastrous implications for the future of our county if the annexations continue.
You have a very clear and well-defined set of opinions to choose from in the Fayetteville elections. I pray Fayetteville voters will opt to vote for the three challengers who want to preserve what we have and allow unincorporated land to develop slowly under the Fayette County’s less dense standards. Our future depends on it.
Steve Brown
Fayette Commissioner, Post 4
CommissionerBrown@fayettecountyga.gov
Peachtree City, Ga.
