I live in a very quiet, well-maintained neighborhood. In the coming months, however, those conditions will change drastically.
All the families who live on Janice Drive in the northwest part of Fayette County will have their lives, neighborhood, and property values torn asunder by the West Fayetteville Bypass.
The WFB thoroughfare will obliterate the home next to mine and will run next to our bedroom windows. Our property values will be destroyed, not to mention our sleep.
This week Commissioner Herb Frady spoke to a reporter concerning objections from residents when Ga. Highway 54 was widened to Jonesboro, some years ago. Janice Drive isn’t Hwy. 54. It is nothing like Hwy. 54. Janice Drive is a quiet cul-de-sac neighborhood. The county has already purchased the home next door to my home and also the one across the street. Both of those houses will be destroyed.
In their most recent interview commissioners Frady, Hearn and Horgan have vowed to stand pat with their decision to go against the voters and build the WFB. Their statements sealed the destruction of our neighborhood along with other quiet, well-maintained neighborhoods within our county.
Fayette voters from all corners and many points in between spoke in no uncertain terms this past July when we voted two of our current commissioners out of office based on their stance regarding the WFB.
Commissioner Frady said in his latest interview that he “is unsure why people who don’t live in the constructed area are upset about the project.” That seems to indicate that he is either out of touch with the public or he just doesn’t care about public opinion.
Commissioners Frady, Horgan, and Hearn, “people who don’t live in the constructed area are upset” because they don’t want $50 million of our taxes to go for a project that will destroy this county. Fayette citizens have worked too hard to pay those taxes to watch that money spent on a project that will further compromise the environment, safety, ecology and ultimately the economy of our county. I emphasize the economy because our public officials don’t seem to realize that citizens don’t have bottomless pockets with which to finance all projects.
At the point where the WFB will cross the creek behind my home and my former neighbor’s home there is a steep drop-off, and it has been estimated that it would require at least 125 feet of support structure to span the creek, bank to bank.
I understand that there have been discussions about using a large culvert to span the chasm because a bridge would cost in the millions of dollars. From looking at the topography on the WFB alignment map, the wetland area where the road will cross the creek scales to 100 feet or more. I don’t see any way to avoid having a bridge. A culvert just would not be large enough and would greatly impede the flow of the creek.
Our neighbor who lives at the end of our cul-de-sac will be on the other side of the WFB, and will have to be granted private access to it. Otherwise, they will be boxed in with no exit. There is also an enormous amount of rock in this area that will probably have to be blasted between Tar Creek and us. Tar Creek will be another wetland area crossing point, maybe 500 feet or so to the south of us, and it is almost as wide as ours.
The county commissioners are employees of the people. The county commissioners are betraying the people by vowing to cast stumbling blocks in the paths of Steve Brown and Allen McCarty, who publicly opposed the WFB. It is hard to understand how people holding the highest offices in the county are so obstinate that they turn away from the majority of voters who do not want the WFB.
Carolyn Perdue
Fayetteville, Ga.
