‘Magic bubble’ campaign disguises hard-left radicalism

Election day is Tuesday, November 2nd. Will you take 10 minutes out of your day to go vote?

If you have been in a coma for the last four years and have no idea what the current City Council has been up to, here is a good link on the incumbents in the races (https://thecitizen.com/2021/07/22/council-members-ernst-and-madden-get-thumbs-down-for-4-more-years/).

The mayoral race has turned into an “anybody but Nick Ferrante” affair. Ferrante is by far the least experienced person in the race, but it is his far-left politics that turns most people off. He is a Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez booster.

If you have read a newspaper in the last decade, you will notice that far-left national politics along with organizations like the Marxist Black Lives Matter have crept into cities all over the nation. Those cities, large and small, are recognizable by the looting, arson, rising crime, soaring homicides, high taxes, deficient schools, non-prosecution of misdemeanors like shoplifting, immediate-release no bail for criminals, and stigma of the woke cancel culture.

Ferrante’s campaign theme is the “Bubble is Magic,” reminiscent of 1960s counter-culture jargon. His magical campaign platform is full of wishful thinking and it borrows from Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms “Black Girl Magic” campaign of four years ago. Magic campaigns are popular with far-left candidates.

Much like Bottoms’ campaign, Ferrante seems to think the more you can throw the word “magic” around the more people will associate you with a pleasant Disneyland vacation. Unfortunately, Bottoms’ magic for Atlanta turned into a curse.

The Ferrante magic includes “legalizing open containers for adult beverages” and late-night hours for those open container areas “including approval for additional mood lighting and music,” how magical. He wants to make the villages “arts and entertainment” destinations which will bring more traffic congestion here wanting those legalized open containers.

Bottoms adopted the same post-modernist, Marxist BLM mentality in her magical management style. Atlanta did a magical nosedive, and the current candidates keep talking about trying to revive the city.

Atlanta residents who were once content taxpayers are quoted in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution with a byline saying, “I could absolutely see us fleeing the area.” Notice the use of the word “fleeing.”

The AJC quoted Midtown Atlanta resident Christian Amaro saying, “You almost don’t want to leave to walk around Midtown at night because you either have to be with someone else or be in a group.” Just four short years ago they loved the place.

At least Bottoms had some government experience. Ferrante is immature and has no practical experience, rarely ever attending a public government meeting.

Candidate Ferrante did a campaign live cast from the local brewery in Peachtree City. This is his take on how our local economy works. He thinks our local economy doesn’t work.

This is verbatim from his live cast on Facebook: “I’m a weirdo radical but you know what I am radical about — Peachtree City. I believe that you matter, that your position matters, that your hopes, your dreams matter.”

He continued, “That when we’re hanging out at [a] place like Line Creek Brewery where kids can play and there’s no actual playground in the normal day, there’s a bouncy house today here for the Memorial Day weekend but there’s not normally a bouncy house here, and no one gets any economic development out of Line Creek Brewery except for the vendors that they then bring in and you begin to wonder to yourself how does this all physically, financially make sense and the answer to that is simple, it doesn’t.”

Somehow Ferrante believes that a successful business in Peachtree City provides nothing to the local economy. The business pays property taxes, sales taxes and provides employment for people who also pay taxes. Likewise, there is nothing wrong with the business and the vendors they use making a profit.

Ferrante believes the brewery should be in another location and should accommodate small children (most likely in one of the open container areas). Then and only then does the business make sense. However, the brewery owners chose that site as an original tenant with a custom space large enough to hold their large brewing equipment for their manufacturing operation.

We do not have to build dense apartment complexes in the center of the city and insert a brewery that accommodates small children and open containers to be successful.

Ferrante went on in the live cast and chided his opponents saying, “You don’t understand the need, the functionality, the opportunity, the goal of what we’re trying to accomplish which is bringing additional [revenue to] set people free from increasing property taxes every single year while also providing functional government.”

It is important to note that Ferrante’s first campaign proposal was a 650% increase in the annual golf cart registration fee. In fact, most of his proposals require more taxpayer dollars, lots more.

Most of the successful cities in the metropolitan area are emulating Peachtree City and constructing multi-use path networks. Their paths will never be as functional as our paths since they are having to retrofit everything.

We do not need a radical change in our land plans.

The most important long-term issue facing the city is the intersection at Ga. highways 54 and 74. Unfortunately, that issue is not magical enough for Ferrante to tackle. It is not as stimulating as redesigning the city. He openly admits on his website regarding his weak attempt at the intersection, “none of these options is going to fix our traffic woes.”

Take a stand, go vote, or be trampled. The choice is yours.

Steve Brown

Peachtree City, Ga.

[Brown is a former mayor of Peachtree City and served two terms on the Fayette County Commission.]