Unfortunately, Mr. David

Constans' letter to the editor [The Citizen, Dec. 22) was

short on substance. The entire content of his letter can

be summed up as name-calling (especially the term

"whiney") and the law, no matter what the

circumstances, should always be upheld in the narrowest

sense.

Please look at the

historical perspective of Mr. Constans' whiney claim.

Using Mr. Constans' logic, he would probably refer to

some of most important figures of the past millennium as

whiners. Martin Luther challenged the religious law of

his day with his doctrine of justification by faith. Of

course, we all know now that this German whiner had a

profound effect on the religion of Christianity.

Galileo Galilei challenged

the scientific law of his day. However, the equivalent of

the city council of this period just could not his stand

his opinions and the Italian whiner was executed.

The same is true in the

United States of America. In the 1700s we had those

rebellious whiners running around in wigs and stockings

writing pamphlets and speaking out against the law of the

day which was George III of England. Washington,

Franklin, Jefferson and the others knew the zoning

restrictions within the colonies! King George had to

right to do whatever he pleased but those spoiled brats

would just not go along.

In the early 1900s we had

those whining reformers who complained about 10- and

11-year-old boys working 10 hours a day in the

Pennsylvania coal mines. The law was crystal clear -

there was nothing wrong with child labor or dangerous

conditions.

In the 1960s we had an

entire race of whiners (African-Americans). Segregation

was law and that is all there is to it. To use Mr.

Constans words, these "brats who find they now don't

like the rules of the game so they want to change them or

they'll wail and scream like 2-year-olds" simply got

out of hand. One of these whiners, Martin L. King, Jr.,

even won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. You can see where

this type of logic will take you.

Then in the 1970s there was

a homeowners association president named Lois Gibbs. She

was a really big whiner. Ms. Gibbs went well beyond just

being skeptical the local municipality (the type of thing

that irritates Mr. Constans) and she went after the state

of New York.

Time and time again, the

state government kept telling the citizens that

absolutely nothing was wrong. Ms. Gibbs was part of the

Love Canal Homeowners Association and here is what she

had to say: "Before Love Canal, I believed that if

you had a problem, you could just go to your elected

officials and they would fix it. I now know that's not

true. The state didn't do anything until we forced it to.

Eventually 900 families were evacuated from Love

Canal" ("The Century" by P. Jennings, T.

Brewster, Doubleday).

The work of this homeowners

association located in upstate New York caused radical

changes in environmental law from which we are all safer.

I simply ask that Mr. Constans obtain all the

information.

We will have the only Home

Depot in all of metro Atlanta that does not link up with

a four-lane highway. The project presented an affront to

the health, public safety and welfare of the citizens

which is the very foundation of our city government and

our ordinances. Big boxes did not even exist as a species

of commercial architecture or use when Peachtree City

made its commercial zoning designations. We have no

guarantee as to when our highway funding will be

restored.

No, Mr. Constans, rejecting

the Home Depot project would not equate to theft. As

recently as 1993, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that

the Constitution does not guarantee a property owner the

most profitable use of his property. Our city cttorney

concurs with this point.

What about the city's

Planning Commission rejecting the Home Depot plan by a

vote of 4-to-1? This never enters into your letter. Do

you disagree with the Planning Commission also? Do you

even know what constitutes the basis of their decision?

I believe that we need to

have a forum for presenting arguments. It is best to

consider all views and ponder what is best for the city

as a whole. Our mayor is not big on debating the issues.

He has his own agenda. We must rely on the media as our

public information conduit. I ask everyone to please keep

on whining, produce relevant discussion and insure that

government works for the people.

Steve Brown

Peachtree City