For the last four years we have been told by now-Mayor Vanessa Fleisch and council members Kim Learnard and Eric Imker that we have a great budget, all is under control, our priorities are sound and there will be no more tax increases from 2015 on.
I gave many warnings, which were ignored, that we were at a tipping point that can no longer be ignored. Sadly, too many think if a majority, any majority, comes up with an answer they must have knowledge and facts behind them.
Peachtree City has a majority that is agenda-based and has no problem deliberately skewing or even lying to achieve their required results.
Well, Peachtree City has tipped.
Recreation has been claimed to be our financial salvation and the key to future growth. That is an undeniably false claim based on personal agendas, wants, obligations to contributors and special interests.
On donhaddix.com, charts, spreadsheets and other data prove what I am saying is true not only on recreation but other areas as well. It is just too much material to put in a letter.
In 2014 recreation income totaled $737,739, including special events. Contrast that to the $2,263,293 budgeted for recreation expenditures in 2015, the current fiscal year. Add in another million dollars of new debt for recreation and an unknown amount paid out from associated areas of the budget.
If they try to argue sales tax revenue, the city is not collecting $3 million a year in revenue due to recreation.
The huge jump in property tax, debt, fees and spending is covered on donhaddix.com. As of now, over a million dollars will be spent from the reserves this fiscal year.
The $20 million of neglect to our streets and paths, wasted spending and other actions are documented.
Warnings were given for the last four years where this train was heading. It has now derailed as predicted.
We have no comprehensive strategic plan. We have no effort for real economic development for our fiscal future.
I added a chart to the website showing the impact of changes our aging population and millennials will have through 2025. But Fayette County Commission Chairman Steve Brown and this council have dismissed this reality, just as Learnard, Fleisch and Imker have done so for five consecutive years now.
We are looking at yet another property tax increase, next year, this time well over one mill.
On top of all of that, now the issue of the dredging areas of Lake Peachtree the county is not responsible for is being debated.
The failures of the majority, over the last four years, and on this council have put the city in an untenable position for dealing with dredging.
Have no worry though, Imker proposed a 20-year debt increase, but as always, “It is only.” Just add up the costs to you for all the “onlies.”
Contrary to what was said, this discussion did not begin two years ago. We began in 2009, where I asked about the lagoon and silt coming from the golf course via the creek.
The sediment mapping from that time showed the accumulation in the lagoon, and the lake by Ga. Highway 54, was extensive. That sediment is in fact coming from the creek erosion, as evidenced by the fact the creek has no resemblance to how it looked in 1987, when we moved here. Sediment has filled much of the lagoon and flows freely into the lake.
Right now there is a slope into the lake from the lagoon, which gives some control to the sediment flow.
Just dredging the extra lake areas will create an underwater cliff, undermining the sediment in the lagoon, which will cause the sediment in the lagoon to quickly migrate into the lake.
Options are to dredge the county-controlled areas of the lake, the additional areas and the lagoon, or just the county-controlled areas.
As said in the current report, dredging the extra areas is cosmetic, not essential.
Due to the negligence and mishandling of budget and city needs and priorities, to pay for dredging it all just isn’t going to happen. Just paying for the extra areas being looked at is a waste of money. Just doing the county area means learning to live within our means, first, and then doing the extras next time, maybe.
Learnard, who supports extra dredging, opposed the pay raise out of feigned concern for the taxpayers. Where is that concern here?
She owns lake-front property, a conflict of interest that demands she recuse herself. There should not even be the appearance of conflict of interest and she knows it.
It is worth mentioning here, as food for thought, we had voted to do two stormwater projects, due in part to risk to life, limb and property. But, here, due to the cost, the commission and council filed a lawsuit to reverse the reclassification back to no risk from risk to life, limb and property.
Peachtree City is in trouble. There is no vision, no plan and no future. This is not the Peachtree City of when we moved here in 1987. We are older, 20,000 people larger and the economy has changed radically.
We do not want to become just another urban part of Atlanta. We have something very special here that needs preserving.
We are not going to get it from this council.
I have been called negative, confrontational and worse. But to fix a problem, you first have to identify it clearly, calling it for what it is. Then you have to try to stop it and change course for the future.
How have those who trumpet being positive served you and Peachtree City?
Don Haddix
Peachtree City, Ga.
