Knowledge is power, and no one knows that better than the elected officials who think they run the government and the bureaucrats who actually do so.
Case in point: a traffic information sign in the median of Ga. Highway 74 just south of Senoia Road formerly warned that the road was closed until October. This is consistent with the “Peachtree City Updates” of the week of June 27.
While reviewing the video of the July 16 City Council meeting, I thought I understand [City Manager Jon] Rorie to say that the road would be closed until November. I sent an email asking for clarification.
Mr. Rorie replied, “The developers [sic] project schedule for Senoia outlines completion by November 1st which is why I said November. I will check into the October 1 date on the sign and revise accordingly.”
On June 27, I found to my dismay that the sign now reads only that Senoia Road is closed, and advises use of an alternate route. Rather than revise the date, someone decided to delete the date. (I wonder if we will ever know who that was.)
What a wonderful idea! With no publicized date, people who use Senoia Road from Hwy. 74 to reach Wilkes Grove Church Road, Saranac Park, and businesses on Senoia Road will not know how long it will be before they can use the primary route rather than squirming through the apartment complex on Hyacinth Lane or detouring along Crabapple Lane.
Further, the city staff is relieved of the inordinate burden of sharing with the public information to which we are entitled.
And finally, if the completion date slips (again), the public will not know, and will not be able to hold the city staff responsible for penalizing the contractor. (Not that this would ever happen.)
Remember that the completion date for the bridge over the CSX tracks that is essential to the MacDuff Parkway extension has already slipped by nearly two years. (It was first promised in September 2015 in exchange for certificates of occupancy allowing more homes along MacDuff to be built and occupied before the extension was completed.) The most recent date presented at the council meeting was July, 2017.
In a republic, which America is supposed to be, our elected officials and the bureaucrats they hire to run the government are supposed to keep the public informed. Too often, however, they seem bent on keeping us in ignorance so that we cannot call them to task for mismanagement and failures.
This incident may seem trivial, a tempest in a teapot; however, I see it as symptomatic of a larger problem about which I will write more.
I herewith call our City Council to task for the failure to be responsible to those who elected them and who pay their salaries.
Paul Lentz
Peachtree City, Ga.
