It did not take long Monday night for the mayors of Fayetteville, Woolsey and Brooks to undo what had been done recently: the appointment of Peachtree City Mayor Don Haddix as one of the two Fayette County representatives on the Regional Transportation Roundtable (RTR) that will help decide on projects for the upcoming July 2012 vote on a 1-cent sales tax for regional transportation projects. Fayetteville Mayor Ken Steele was elected to be the new representative.
Though the group of mayors had originally elected Haddix to represent the county’s municipalities, the 3-0 vote changed all that. Haddix and Tyrone Mayor Don Rehwaldt did not attend the meeting.
Steele, Brooks Mayor Dan Langford and Woolsey Mayor Gary Laggis noted their concerns about Haddix’s future effectiveness on the RTR made up of representatives of the 10-county Atlanta Regional Commission. Central to their concerns were recent remarks by Haddix and Rehwaldt that Fayette County might be better off leaving the ARC and joining the Three Rivers Regional Commission.
The three mayors said they believe they had the prerogative under the statue pertaining to the House Bill 277 regional transportation initiative to unseat Haddix and vote Steele into the position.