Fayette County Board of Commissioners Post 3 Candidates in Their Own Words, Part 2 of 3

Voters in Fayette County will choose a Post 3 commissioner in the primary on May 19, 2026, with early voting starting April 27. To help you decide, I asked each candidate the same set of questions. See installment one for the first set of questions.

Today’s question is based on public comment I made at the April 2, 2026, Peachtree City Council meeting where I challenged Mr. Clifton’s narrative of Peachtree City annexing land from Coweta County for the purpose of building a data center as highly unlikely and labeled making the claim irresponsible.

Summary of my public comment:

Hurdles: the Development of Regional Impact (DRI) filed by LDO Coweta, LLC indicates the plan for the Benister Project is “2200 Residential Units, 20-acre commercial, 25-acre school site, 3-acre Public Safety Site”.

Changing to a data center would require an updated DRI, and residents on both sides of Line Creek would show up at municipal meetings to speak against. 

Rezoning to industrial to accommodate a data center in Coweta County would require review by their Board of Zoning Appeals, which is the first stage of public input, and then approval by the Board of Commissioners with a public notice and a meeting that includes a public comment period.

Even if a data center passed this hurdle, it makes no sense for Coweta County to let it be annexed into Peachtree City, and annexation would be a political impossibility as would connecting TDK Boulevard. Connecting TDK to Coweta County has been a political non-starter for 20+ years.

Answers are published in the candidates’ own words and have not been edited for content except to remove the name of a now private citizen and call him “JS”.

This is more for Mr. Clifton, but Mr. Crane and Ms. Wright may want to answer also. Given all the exceedingly difficult hurdles to overcome to annex the Benister project or any land in Coweta as a data center into Peachtree City, how is it even possible?

Crane

Realistically, no.  The new owner of the property historically follows the land use plan when developing the property he owns. 

Your answer at the city was spot on.  For the record again, I have opposed the TDK extension since my first campaign in 2021, and that position has not changed. 

As you said, there are too many hurdles at every level. The current plan for that property is residential, commercial, school use, and public safety. Changing that to a data center would require a full DRI update, which would face strong opposition from residents.

On top of that, Coweta County would have to approve rezoning to industrial use, which is not a simple process and would likely face resistance there as well.

Even if those hurdles were cleared, annexation into Peachtree City is politically unlikely, and connecting TDK Boulevard has not been viable for over 20 years.

At every step, this becomes less realistic. It is not a path I see moving forward.

Clifton

The reason I know the annexation plan and data center proposal are possible is because the Fayette County Development Authority pitched it to Peachtree City Council in a meeting at the Kennesaw retreat where the recording was mysteriously missing.

Once the recording surfaced, we found out that the council members concluded the meeting by asking how they could move the conversation forward. Then, less than two weeks later, Peachtree City Council voted to approve an annexation study the day after the QTS data center site developer purchased the 1,500 acre parcel discussed during the meeting.

If annexation and a data center weren’t possible, none of those things would have happened.

It is also very odd for you, Paul Schultz, to phrase this question as an impossibility. On February 4, 2026, six days after the secret meeting between the Fayette County Development Authority and Peachtree City Council, where they discussed annexation and a possible data center, you wrote an article titled, “Outside the Box: Improving The 74-54 Intersection Through Peachtree City’s Borders,” in which you advocated for annexing property in Coweta County and extending a road to it to alleviate traffic.

The timing of this article was not coincidental, especially considering that the meeting facilitator at the January 29^th Kennesaw retreat told Peachtree City Council that they need to “write the headlines” in the Citizen newspaper.

Further, you, Paul Schultz, a proponent of annexation and extending Crosstown/TDK into Coweta County, were appointed by the Mayor and City Council to the Peachtree City Transportation Advisory Group in January 2024 and serve as the chairman. Additionally, those same elected leaders removed JS, the vice chairman of the Transportation Advisory Group and the most vocal opponent of the Crosstown/TDK extension, in October of 2025.

I’m not sure why you changed your mind about the possibility of annexation and the extension over the last two months, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it was at the urging of the same councilmembers who appointed you to the Transportation Advisory Group as a means to try and discredit me.

Unfortunately, all it does is undermine your credibility. It was surprising to hear you parrot these same incorrect talking points contained in this question at the April 2, 2026 Peachtree City Council meeting.

I wasn’t the only person surprised though. Another voter followed me out of the meeting with her phone held up showing your article in the Citizen advocating for annexation and a new road into Coweta County exclaiming to me, “Can you believe Paul Schultz just said that after writing this article? How hypocritical?!”  

All of these facts are not coincidences. They are direct evidence of a very real plan to annex land in Coweta, extend Crosstown/TDK, build a data center, and smear my reputation as a consequence for exposing the truth.

Regarding the hurdles, the DRI filed by LDO Coweta, LLC for 2,200 homes was withdrawn in September of 2025 because the property doesn’t have sewer access to get to that level of home density.

Knowing that the 2,200 home proposal was withdrawn didn’t stop the Fayette County Development Authority from using the threat of a high-density residential development on Peachtree City’s border as a pressure tactic to get the Council to move forward with an annexation plan. 

An updated data center DRI for Peachtree City may very well be in our future. As we just witnessed in Coweta County with the Board of Commissioners’ 3-2 vote to approve the four million square foot Project Sail data center, citizens speaking against something doesn’t always mean it will be stopped.

Coweta County and the Coweta County Board of Education get a vast majority of the business personal property tax, which is the highest revenue generator from a data center, and real property tax. Depending on the size of the data center, this could be tens of millions of dollars per year. QTS is expected to generate $40 million dollars per year for Fayette County. Coweta County would get most of that. Peachtree City would get enough to increase the homestead exemption up to $400,000, which is what they discussed extensively during the Fayette County Development Authority presentation at the Kennesaw retreat. 

Coweta County could also then blame the additional data center on Peachtree City. No blame and a lion’s share of the tax revenue, that is every politician’s dream, except for me. I just want what is in the best interest of the citizens.

That is exactly why I am running for the Fayette County Board of Commissioners. We can’t afford to be on the wrong end of a 3-2 vote. Your statement about the necessity of rezoning approval by Coweta County Board of Zoning Appeals and Board of Commissioners is incorrect.

When a municipality such as Peachtree City annexes property from a county, the city controls the zoning designation, not the county. This is clearly outlined under Georgia law in OCGA 36-36-111. At the time of annexation, the city can propose new zoning which would allow for a data center to be placed on the property.

The second to last sentence regarding a data center and the Crosstown/TDK extension not making sense for Coweta County is a statement of the opinion of Paul Schultz and is not rooted in fact.

It is an odd opinion to hold based on the following facts: 

1) Coweta County has recently approved multiple data centers. They are clearly eager to bring them in. Additionally, the QTS data center site developer who purchased the land to be annexed already has one other data center in Coweta County approved and withdrew a proposal for another Coweta County data center, which is most likely because this opportunity with Peachtree City arose. 

2) The Fayette County Development Authority stated in the now uncovered recording that extension of Crosstown/TDK into Coweta County was a requirement for the annexation and development of the 1,500 acres. Peachtree City Council then voted to approve the annexation study with full knowledge of that requirement. 

3) On February 17, I emailed every member of the Peachtree City Council asking if they would support or oppose the extension of Crosstown and TDK into Coweta County. Only one councilmember, Suzanne Brown, said she would oppose it, which would result in a 4-1 vote to extend the road. 

I think most citizens of Peachtree City would agree that the process to annex the land, to extend Crosstown and TDK into Coweta County, and to build a data center are clearly in motion.

Author disclosure: In interest of full disclosure, I have a Phil Crane yard sign and have financially contributed to his campaign. Again, the candidate responses are in their own words and unedited except as otherwise mentioned.