According to the Nov. 5 article in The Citizen, Steve Brown and Steve Rapson would like us to believe that through their efforts they are caring for Fayette County citizens. These county leaders initiated three meetings in 2013 with citizens concerned about the county’s levy against them for stormwater management.
The following example indicates how these county leaders falsify statements and lead the people into believing that the county is going forward to help private citizens with their problems.
Steve Brown refers to Osvaldo Sanchez, who was at these meetings. Mr. Sanchez complained of water in his crawl space under his house. I recall that Mr. Brown blamed the Ga. Department of Transportation for doing ditch work on Ga. Highway 54, saying the water in the crawl space was a DOT problem and that the county could do nothing about it.
This analysis at the meeting seemed confusing to me. I talked to Mr. Sanchez after the meeting, got his address and phone number and asked if I could visit to find out what was happening.
Water in the crawl space was causing mold in his house. The actual problem was that Mr. Sanchez’s septic field was plugged, the septic tank was full and the line from his house to the tank was full. Sewage then came up in his yard and under his house. Fixing this problem was the homeowner’s responsibility.
However, the county refused to allow him to redo the septic field, but forced him instead to pay for a lift station to pump his sewage to a high point uphill from his house into a septic field which the contractor installed there. The additional expense cost this homeowner close to $10,000.
Not only was this costly, but certainly inappropriate. No one in his right mind would put a septic field uphill from his home. None of the problems that Mr. Sanchez had were the result of flooding on Brittany Way, where the county said the problem was.
The flooding on Brittany Way was, in fact, a design problem, a design that had to be approved by Fayette County when that subdivision was built. In the above-referenced article, Mr. Brown says that this stormwater project was the first such to be paid for by the Stormwater Utility Fund.
If that is true, where did the county get the $200,000 to pay for the replacement of the two corrugated 92-inch pipes with two concrete 92-inch pipes on Kirkland Road?
At the second stormwater meeting in 2013 Steve Rapson reprimanded county workers for taking a 92-inch corrugated pipe, already paid for and sitting in their maintenance yard, and using it to replace one of the two 92-inch corrugated pipes that had some kind of problem. His desire is to replace all corrugated metal pipe in the county with concrete pipe.
Looking at the Kirkland Road culverts and walking through them, I felt that the pipes there were in excellent condition, in no need of costly replacements. The only thing wrong was that the job was not finished and had been left in an unsafe condition. My assumption is that Mr. Rapson pulled everyone away from that project in order to replace good culverts with something he liked better. Taxpayers paid $200,000 to replace something that was not broken.
This is not the first time Mr. Rapson has used county workers and county money to prove his point and to do work that was unnecessary.
At this meeting he gave the audience a handout showing repairs at Morrison Road and problems with the culverts at Flat Creek Trail. The information given about the culverts at Flat Creek Trail was false.
The handout showed that two 72-inch corrugated metal pipes had physical damage (joint separation, moderate corrosion — rust in the bottom — and erosion under the downstream end that created a void five feet under the pipe). The pipes are almost twice the volume of a 72-inch pipe.
There was no joint separation and the rust was minimal. I checked these myself. Fayette County citizens are given false information by the county because they want more tax money and public exposure. Fayette County commissioners need to check these things out themselves and not rely on the spin these politicians give us.
Charles Phillis
Peachtree City, Ga.
