Dear City Council and mayor, I just read in The Citizen paper that you want to dictate the colors we paint the exterior of our homes. This is a Big Brother regulation that we don’t want or need. Yes, we value our homes and our neighborhoods, and as such, we are sensitive to the color we cloak our homes. We just don’t want our local government to impose on the record. Focus, instead, your energy on fixing the air quality in Peachtree City.
Six months out of the year, you permit yard waste burning. The nicest time of the year is from fall to spring, when the air is cooler and more conducive for strolls and yard work. However, it is also the seasons when permitted burning takes place. The air is polluted with carcinogens.
Who needs exercise when the air you breathe in can kill you? The American Lung Association does NOT condone this archaic practice of getting rid of yard waste. Children and adults with asthma or other compromised respiratory conditions cannot be outside when the air quality is bad. Just as you wouldn’t taint the water you drink, you shouldn’t pollute the air you breathe. This is just common sense.
Apparently, fresh air quality isn’t an important agenda, but regulation of exterior house colors is. Where is your priority? Have you not heard of sustainability and environmental responsibility? It is imperative that we take good stewardship of our habitat (where we live) and our health. Neither is to be compromised. Damage to either means our eventual demise.
I have written to you before about this issue last year. I proposed a ban on yard waste burning. In lieu of permitted burning, you should work with waste disposal companies to provide yard waste containers to residents of Peachtree City. My suggestions fell on deaf ears.
The city government is out of its mind to permit burning in people’s backyards as a modern approach to yard waste disposal. This method is backward, dangerous, and totally unhealthy for everybody. And it is unacceptable.
And what makes me mad and sad is that our local government doesn’t care about air quality. We have a very cosmopolitan population. People moved here from more environmentally responsible places. More people need to speak up to defend our collective rights to breathe fresh air.
And, I’m asking City Council members and the mayor to do the right thing. Permitted burning is not good for anybody. Think about it.
Take a deep breathe, let go of the regulation of exterior house colors, and get to work on improving the quality of life in Peachtree City. Let’s start with clean air.
Chan Suto
Peachtree City, Ga.
