Tales of city governments — What were they thinking?

If you have ever wondered just how crazy things can get in local government, I will tell you about the time I pushed to prevent an avalanche of traffic into the City of Fayetteville, and the local government would not help me prevent it.

During my tenure on the Fayette County Board of Commissioners, I always endeavored to find ways to cooperate and aid the cities whenever possible.

Collaboration is useful and proper

As chairman of the board of commissioners, I found ways to increase the cities’ share of the Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax and helped obtain infrastructure funds from the regional government.

As a former city mayor, I appreciated each city and its contribution to the county as a whole. I enjoyed working with Tyrone Mayor Eric Dial on the upcoming redesigned build of the interchange of Highway 74 and I-85, Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) implementation in the near term (see: https://thecitizen.com/2024/04/23/54-74-town-hall-intersection-grade-improves-slightly-for-10-to-15-years/).

Then-Fayetteville Mayor Greg Clifton and I partnered on several significant economic development projects (see: https://thecitizen.com/2024/05/13/the-inside-story-how-the-movie-studio-came-to-fayette/). I also obtained a regional grant for the new multi-use path bridge over Highway 54 near the hospital.

I begged then-Peachtree City Mayor Vanessa Fleisch not to approve a horrible new water management agreement with the county government regarding Lake Peachtree. She did not listen; the agreement was approved, and it will cost Peachtree City taxpayers tens of millions of dollars in the future. It’s the old, “You can take a horse to water, but you cannot make it drink” analogy.

They were going to crush us

Our county has dodged a lot of bullets and lived to tell the story.

One of the many issues that sparked my considering running for the board of commissioners was then-Chairman Jack Smith and then-Fayetteville Mayor Ken Steele, as our representatives to the regional government agreed to bring metro Atlanta mass transit into Fayette County via the the Atlanta Regional Commission’s Concept 3 regional transit plan.

I defeated Smith in the election and pushed the removal of our county from the mass transit plan, which saved us hundreds of millions of dollars in future years.

In 2012, an attempt was made to create a regional sales tax for transportation. It was a very raw deal, creating donor counties (Fayette, Douglas, Rockdale, Cherokee) and recipient winners of the billions in taxes (Fulton, DeKalb, Cobb, Gwinnett, Clayton).

Later, I ended up becoming the spokesperson for the anti-regional sales tax group, and we convinced the voters to defeat the referendum (see: https://thecitizen.com/2024/03/25/a-local-history-of-government-vs-free-speech-openness/). The outcome was that Fayette County taxpayers are not paying additional sales tax to fund transit north of Interstate-20.

The challenge of defending our citizens and our quality of life is never-ending.

A dagger in the heart of Fayetteville – Project No. 742870

The Roman poet Virgil coined the phrase, “Be wary of Greeks bearing gifts.” Virgil could have substituted “GDOT” for the Greeks.

GDOT is a politically controlled state agency, not a benevolent, philanthropic organization.

Just as Virgil warned about the Trojans, I have issued many warnings about political influence over GDOT and the supposed gifts it presents. In this case, the present was Project Number 742870.

I immediately became suspicious when the county government’s engineer told me that GDOT had voluntarily opted to take over all the maintenance and improvements for the county’s McDonough Road, which dead-ends in downtown Fayetteville.

Let’s continue the literary theme and say that when GDOT offered to voluntarily remove millions of dollars of infrastructure maintenance from our books, “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark,” as Shakespeare said.

My first question was, “What is GDOT trying to do?” It turned out they wanted to widen the road and modify the geometry for significantly more capacity and speed. Why?

Next, GDOT informed the county government that a substantial portion of the parking lot at the water system main office would be taken for the widening. We were also told that critical road access to the county public works facility and the large soccer complex at McCurry Park would be heavily restricted.

It would take many millions of dollars to mitigate the damage to county government infrastructure by the GDOT’s project. But that was not the worst of it.

Project 742870 extends from Highway 19/41 (Tara Blvd.) to Highway 54 in Fayetteville. Eventually, a short link would be built from Highway 19/41 to Interstate 75.

Just imagine all the traffic on I-75 and Tara Blvd. needing to head in a westerly direction, bypassing the thick congestion of I-75 and I-285 by taking a fast new ride on the improved McDonough Road (GDOT is calling it “State Route 920”). It would be the new shortcut to South Fulton, Douglas, and Coweta counties.

Of course, the increased traffic would pour into the City of Fayetteville, and the city does not have the means to mitigate all of that additional traffic volume.

When asked what they would do to route all of that additional volume heading into Fayetteville, GDOT responded that they are not responsible for anything beyond the terminus of the project. In other words, once all those cars reach Highway 54, Fayetteville and the rest of the county are on their own — good luck.

I went running to Fayetteville City Hall

When it came to finding allies to kill the high-traffic GDOT project, I thought the City of Fayetteville was definitely in the bag. Little did I know.

I took my collection of GDOT documents to the Fayetteville City Hall and met with Mayor Ed Johnson, the city manager, and the city planner.

I showed the Fayetteville trio the project map and GDOT’s description of expanding the road to increase capacity, speed, and volume, creating a major arterial traffic jam. I explained the obvious: the city is not able to handle that kind of additional volume.

Much to my dismay, they embraced the thought of significant increases in traffic volume and congestion, with the city planner saying, “It would be more eyes looking at our retail stores and restaurants.” I could not believe she made such a comment as someone who has the responsibility of guiding development.

I looked at the mayor and the city manager, and they agreed with the city planner. You could have knocked me over with a feather.

Shaking my head in disbelief, I proceeded back to my office.

Fortunately, I built a coalition with my colleagues on the board of commissioners, and we got GDOT to back away from the project.

Things that no longer surprise me

If a local government can openly accept the construction of a new arterial highway, pulling traffic from a massively congested interstate and state highway, transferring the additional load to a dead end in the city with nowhere to go, then nothing they do can really surprise me.

It does not surprise me when someone complains that Fayetteville built a downtown park with too little parking.

It does not surprise me when they radically change development patterns, overbuilding dense multi-family complexes without considering the ramifications of the cyclical market forces on that sector.

The Wall Street Journal reports (August 8) that “rental apartment values have been hurt by high interest rates” and “many apartment owners also have been unable to raise rents during the biggest construction boom for the multi-family sector in about 40 years.”

The volatility for multi-family far exceeds what you would find in the single family home market.

Stagnant rents cause all kinds of problems and the real estate investment trust owners are forced to cut expenses (maintenance and upkeep) or sell.

To make matters worse for the landlords, credit card delinquencies are at their highest levels in more than a decade, curbing potential renters.

It is no surprise that the city council does not realize multi-family “rent-growth forecasts were too optimistic, and operating costs such as insurance have shot up,” and “the apartment market has also become oversupplied,” according to the Wall Street Journal (August 9). When the city’s substantial multi-family supply hits a down cycle, really bad things will occur.

I am not surprised when long-time Fayetteville citizens come to me, anxious and disappointed, saying that the city council rezoned the property adjacent to their home or business for large developments and never once considered the impact on them.

Many claim their welfare, as long time residents, was never considered when the city was making major development decisions.

I am not surprised that the Fayetteville city council approved a secret massive data center and failed to consider the long-time homeowners in the area regarding the high-voltage power lines running to the center, destroying their property values. The city had all the leverage and failed to use it.

It does not surprise me that the city council has no idea of the impact they have on traffic congestion in the city. And when the traffic reaches a standstill, I will not be surprised when they have no way to mitigate the problem.

[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.]