I am totally amazed upon reading the letters from Commissioner Lee Hearn and former Commissioner Jack Smith, wondering if anyone really believes a word they are saying.

The two candidates in the July 31 primary to decide who will lead our county claim to have navigated the county through the rough financial waters like a couple of expert scouts. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Truth be told, the county is currently on course to crash within the next couple of years.

The careless pattern has been to forego crucial expenditures such as vehicles, equipment and maintenance and throw those funds in an account they can crow about to make it appear they are banking funds for a rainy day. The charade is quickly upended when you notice that expenditures outpace revenue year-after-year and significant purchases are consistently delayed for yet another year.

It is unbelievable that the FY 2013 budget will be the very first budget ever with a cyclical fund for replacing heavy equipment for our Public Works Department. Even worse, the Fire Fund has not made a single payment toward heavy equipment, administrative costs and other expenses for the last FIVE years, initiating a budgetary catastrophe.

Before thinking the incumbent candidates Lee Hearn and Robert Horgan have had a change of heart, look at the Snead Road paving project. With our budget being well out of balance, Hearn and Horgan along with Chairman Herb Frady are using our hard-earned tax dollars to pave a dead-end gravel road with two houses on it. Perhaps, like the West Fayetteville Bypass, this senseless project has more to do with the corporation that owns the large parcel of developable land at the end of Snead Road.

We are reaching the point of having no funds to fall back on, the county’s fire service is heading towards a financial meltdown and the special interest road projects continue.

Steve Brown

Fayette Commissioner, Post 4

Peachtree City, Ga.