This is a response to Kim Learnard’s letter in the Feb. 11 edition of The Citizen:
If I didn’t know any better I’d say Ms. Learnard is reading right from the NAACP playbook, playing right into the hands of the NAACP by voicing a defeatist attitude while the NAACP sits back smug in their assurance what they have wrought will stand unchallenged.
Rather than roll over, play dead and not challenge the single-minded opinion of some gutless federally appointed judge and a group of race hucksters, I applaud the effort by the county to fight the good fight, to fight for all the citizens of this county in restoring how “we the people” of Fayette choose to elect our officials.
What Ms. Learnard needs to learn is district voting restricts our voting rights, restricts my voting rights and, yes, Ms. Learnard, restricts yours as well, even if you do live in Peachtree City.
District voting restricts my right as a county taxpayer in determining how my tax money is spent and offers zero say in choosing or removing the four other county leaders.
Sure, under this first go-around with district voting everyone is all glad-handing smiles and polite, sitting around together singing “Kumbaya.”
But how soon will it be before the in-fighting starts, where each district becomes its own “kingdom” and, where instead of working for the good of all the people of Fayette County, each commissioner is fighting for their district, their electorate, and to hell with everyone else?
Why, Ms. Learnard, do you think people — of any color — moved to Fayette? Oh, and Peachtree City too?
I digress for a moment: this from the official Peachtree City website:
“Lake Peachtree and the ponds throughout the community are owned by the city of Peachtree City and are reserved for Peachtree City residents and their accompanied guests.”
Ms. Learnard talks about the apparent “squandering” of taxpayer money (very up on the dollar cost she is) on this challenge to how we vote. I’ll tell you what’s a squander of my tax dollar: the County footing the bill for dredging Lake Peachtree, a lake belonging not to all the citizens of Fayette County but to Peachtree City.
Being as Ms. Learnard is the Peachtree City Post 3 City Council member, I can see why she may have suffered a bit of myopia in overlooking the paltry $1.5 million cost every county taxpayer is absorbing for, once again, scraping the muck off the bottom of Lake Peachtree.
While district voting and the “kingdom” attitude may be of little concern to Peachtree City-ites, it certainly seems so for Ms. Learnard at least, what with PTC being solidly white and where the (magic) ”kingdom” view is pervasive. It does very much affect the rest of Fayette County.
Rather than voicing a defeatist attitude, using the same smugly presented “logic” the NAACP uses and crying “uncle,” I, for one, support the effort of the Fayette County Board of Education and commissioners and hope we win. But we’ll never know lest we try. And what a precedent if we do.
Ms. Learnard? I’d gladly trade in a New York minute the $1.5 mil that’s gonna get burned dredging your private pond, again, and use it in the fight for the voting rights of all Fayette County citizens.
Mike Mahoney
Fayetteville, Ga.
