There is a distinct difference between making a mistake and neglect.
A mistake can be poor judgment or a lack of knowledge, but your intentions were honorable, just wrong. On the other hand, negligence is when you do not care about the harm you could cause, with the result being an intended or unintended injury to another.
If you make a mistake and own up to it, people are most likely able to forgive you.
On the other hand, if you are negligent, people are less likely to let it go. This is especially true if your position requires you to take an oath of office, stating faithfulness and commitment to the United States Constitution, the Georgia Constitution, and local ordinances on behalf of your constituents.
A lot of Fayette County residents are distressed and wondering what happened to our local governance.
Negligence, a worrying trend, is often coupled with an arrogant attitude. This unfortunate combination has been all too prevalent in recent times.
Still doubling down on self-importance
Over the past twenty years, I have closely followed and participated in multiple local governments. I have never seen a budget process so misaligned and mishandled as what I have witnessed in Peachtree City with the fiscal year 2025 budget.
Everything the Georgia Municipal Association recommends as a good budgeting process is being excluded from Peachtree City’s fiscal year 2025 budget development.
Council members with legitimate questions and concerns are being told by their colleagues and the interim city manager to shut up and do what they are told. The annual budget process used to be sacred ground, the biggest vote of the year, open to all inquiries, and subject to much deliberation. That is no longer so.
Last week, I offered a rare glimpse of exactly what is happening behind the scenes at City Hall in the mayor and council members’ own words, straight from their email correspondence, and it’s ugly (see https://thecitizen.com/2024/07/11/council-nastiness-behind-the-scenes-of-massive-peachtree-city-budget-battle/).
If you would like to see all those emails for yourself, they are available through the city clerk’s office. I have already paid for the document search.
Why such a large nest egg filled with taxpayers’ money?
The complaints about the city council keep rolling in. Quite a few people have questioned why the city government needs over 50% of budget in reserves. Additionally, the city routinely underestimates revenue, adding to the cash oversupply.
Former unsuccessful city council candidate Phil Crane commented on my last column, saying, “In my opinion, a better question to ask would be ‘If we as a City wanted to do a full rollback, how much would need to be cut, and what would be the best case areas to see those cuts in?’” Crane continued, “This allows staff, hired for this exact purpose, to do their job.” Council Member Clint Holland drew a similar conclusion.
Crane’s comment makes sense. Council Members Suzanne Brown and Holland are trying, but Crane read the council member comments pulled from their emails in my column like the rest of us.
Mayor Kim Learnard and Council Member Frank Destadio ordered their colleagues to stop asking questions and pass the bloated budget that interim City Manager Justin Strickland provided. Brown and Holland have been denied access to the most basic information.
Council Member Laura Johnson is adrift, vacationing while the others fight over the budget. She has nothing to say, inexperienced, and likely to side with Learnard and Destadio versus the budgeting guidelines set forth by the Georgia Municipal Association that Brown and Holland cite.
If you think the public exposure might force a change of heart from Learnard or Destadio, think again. Local long-time resident David Kettelhut asked Destadio via email to stop bullying the other council members and work on crafting a decent budget.
Here is Destadio’s reply: “David, you obviously do not understand how the City Council is supposed to work. Neither does Ms. [Council Member Suzanne] Brown” (see: https://thecitizen.com/2024/07/14/about-knowledge-of-the-city-council-and-bullying/).
I have known Mr. Kettlehut for a couple of decades, and I can assure the readers that he can do a much better job on the budget and be much more considerate of the taxpayers than Destadio.
Nothing emphasizes the smugness and bigheadedness of the city council more than their setting up a new city council retreat out-of-town at a significant cost to the taxpayers when they can do it at City Hall for free.
The main reason for retreating outside of the city is that it allows them to conspire without their constituents in attendance.
To my knowledge, Council Member Brown is the only elected official who opposed wasting the money for the out-of-town retreat.
Pride comes before the fall
The county government just cannot admit to the disaster that is the brand-new $3.2 million animal shelter. It’s difficult to figure out where all that funding went, and it surely did not go into the design of the facility. There needs to be an independent audit.
The county officials have been obstinate, and they are catching a whole lot of flak over it. If half of the problems that the animal advocates are raising over the new facility are true, it’s a fiasco.
The angry mobs attending the board of commissioners meetings have forced the county to hire a new director (see https://thecitizen.com/2024/07/11/fayette-has-new-animal-control-director/). Say a prayer for the new director, as she does not have much to work with.
Had the commissioners not allowed their pride to prevent them from working with the animal advocates, they would not have bungled that vital project. The animal advocates are very knowledgeable and have conducted a lot more research than the county officials, but they are constantly turned away.
I heard personally from candidate Bobby Jones (running against Chairman Lee Hearn) that Hearn contacted him and said that Jones would not be allowed to speak during the public comment section of their last meeting. Why do elected officials do that?
Overconfident Fayetteville swinging and missing
I spoke to the owner of a long-time local Montessori school located near downtown Fayetteville. She is rightly panicking and very upset over the city council approving a large multifamily complex next to her school without seriously considering the impact such a development would have on the school and its young students.
The multifamily complex literally opens up and abuts her school. She has very young students on the site, and they do activities on the grounds. Unfortunately, the city council was so excited about urbanizing Fayetteville that they neglected even the smallest details to list as conditions of approval for the stacked residential housing.
The City Council could have at least mitigated the impact by making conditions of development and rezoning stating the multifamily complex developer would have to build a privacy fence between the two properties. It is a legitimate safety issue for the school. Parents are justifiably worried and the business could be harmed.
The significant uptick in traffic volume from the new multifamily complex on Highway 54 also presents a significant hazard to the adjacent school and its patrons. Of course, the school’s owner has been paying taxes to the city council for decades, but that doesn’t seem to mean anything to the city government.
Look at those tall towers right next to homes
Then we have all heard about the unfortunate homeowners who will have high-capacity power lines placed in their backyards to supply the new data centers off Highway 54 with electricity.
Once again, the city council did not care enough to issue conditions for the development’s approval, forcing the data center and the electrical utility to route the lines in the most non-impactful way. There were better, alternative routes.
The Fayette County Development Authority and the City of Fayetteville share some blame because they were fully aware of the secret plans for the data centers for an extended period and could have worked to research and mitigate the negative issues. However, the ultimate decisions were up to the Fayetteville City Council.
Those homeowners’ property values will take a beating because the city could not do its due diligence on behalf of the long-time residents — no apologies from the city government.
What do you say?
I will leave it to the reader to determine whether these elected officials made mistakes or were negligent. Either way, we all lose.
We have already seen families “taxed out” of Peachtree City, moving once the children graduate from high school. Likewise, Mayor Kim Learnard has refused to pursue increasing the low-income senior homestead exemption, and those seniors face the most severe brunt of inflation.
Local residents and local businesses are being brutally affected. The government will call you a NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) if you complain. You have every right to complain; it’s your money, your property, and your quality of life.
The election for county commissioners begins in October of this year. The city elections are in 2025.
[Brown is a former mayor of Peachtree City and served two terms on the Fayette County Board of Commissioners. You can read all his columns by clicking on his photo below.]
