Our latest election told us what we already know. There’s really no doubt about where the people of Fayette County stand on issues like the West Fayetteville Bypass and transit buses.
How many times do we have to tell Chairman Herb Frady, Commissioner Lee Hearn and Commissioner Robert Horgan the West Fayetteville Bypass is not needed or wanted?
Commissioner Hearn keeps saying he has an engineering study that says the bypass will relieve traffic in Fayetteville, but he has never produced a single reference at a commission meeting proving his point. Don’t you think with all of the public pressure on the three commissioners that they would enthusiastically present concrete proof if they had any?
Fayetteville Mayor Ken Steele and his City Council wanted the bypass for new development activity and not to relieve traffic congestion. Mayor Steele admitted the bypass wasn’t going to reduce traffic in Fayetteville at the political debate.
Because the Fayetteville officials wouldn’t corroborate their traffic congestion claims, Chairman Frady, Commissioner Hearn and Commissioner Horgan recently changed their position on the need for the West Fayetteville Bypass. They abandoned the traffic reduction propaganda and said the new real reason for the West Fayetteville Bypass is we didn’t have the money to do the top priority East Fayetteville Bypass.
The “not enough funding” excuse doesn’t work either because we had more than enough funds in the T-SPLOST to build the East Fayetteville Bypass. The strangest part is the county couldn’t get matching federal funds for the West Fayetteville Bypass because the Georgia Department of Transportation said it was “too expensive” and did not provide enough benefit.
Both the Georgia Department of Transportation and the Atlanta Regional Commission supported the construction of the East Fayetteville Bypass.
Mayor-elect Greg Clifton, Councilman-elect Ed Johnson and Councilman-elect Mickey Edwards were extremely clear on their anti-West Fayetteville Bypass campaign position. The voters supported that position for the second time.
Are Chairman Frady, Commissioner Horgan and Commissioner Hearn listening to the people now? We’re tired of the endless excuses on why they are wasting our tax dollars.
David Barlow
Tyrone, Ga.
